How R Praggnanandhaa stole the spotlight from world champion D Gukesh in 2025

It’s been nearly a year since Indian Grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh pulled off one of the greatest feats ever witnessed in the history of chess.

The teenager was in for quite the wild ride for over a year, from dislodging Viswanathan Anand as the top-ranked Indian after 37 years in 2023 to becoming the youngest winner of the Candidates as well as the World Championship in 2024.

Fast forward to August 2025, and things certainly have changed over the past eight months. The 19-year-old remains among the top players in the world and currently occupies the sixth spot on FIDE’s Classical Ratings.

However, Gukesh’s aura as a world champion, especially as someone who can challenge Magnus Carlsen’s domination of the sport that has lasted for more than a decade now, has taken a hit in the time that has passed.

And one member of India’s ‘Golden Generation’ in particular has made giant strides towards establishing himself as the top dog during this period – GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.

Pragg finally gets his moment under the sun

It’s worth noting that ‘Pragg’ had got his first big break around the same time as Gukesh, having become only the second Indian after Anand to reach the FIDE Chess World Cup final in 2023. A year later, he would make headlines across the chess world by defeating Carlsen in a Classical battle at Norway Chess, the latter’s home event.

The year 2024, however, truly belonged to Gukesh, which resulted in Praggnanandhaa and fellow chess star Arjun Erigaisi – who had also emulated Anand by breaching the 2800-rating barrier – being forced to take a backseat.

This year, however, couldn’t have been more different – Gukesh has had a mixed run across and formats and has struggled to make an impact outside of Standard chess while Praggnanandhaa and Arjun have been basking in glory for a change. Especially Praggnanandhaa.

‘Pragg’, who had become the youngest International Master and the second-youngest Grandmaster – at the time – in 2016 and 2018 respectively, made an emphatic statement right after Gukesh was crowned world champion by winning the prestigious Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.

Gukesh was on a roll at the time and was on the verge of winning consecutive tournaments when Pragg caught up with him on the final day and defeated him in tie-breaks to pull off the biggest win of his career.

That would then set the tone for the rest of the year until the end of August. Pragg would also win Superbet Chess Classic Romania and UzChess Cup in May and June respectively and had finished runner-up at the Prague Chess Masters 2025, where he was beaten by another Indian GM Aravindh Chithambaram.

Gukesh, on the other hand, experienced a rapid decline after finishing runner-up at Tata Steel Chess for a second year running. His struggles in the Freestyle format were well-documented in the first two legs of the Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus and Paris respectively.

And while Gukesh showed some spark in the Rapid section of the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia last month, his performance in the Blitz category once again served as a reminder of the fact that he still is a work in progress in faster time controls.

Sinquefield Cup 2025 highlights the gulf in form between the two Chennai boys

And what highlights the disparity between the two as far as their current form is concerned is how they fared at the Sinquefield Cup, which concluded on Thursday (Friday early morning in India) with Fabiano Caruana being crowned champion.

While Pragg was neck-and-neck with world No 3 Caruana and Wesley So – with the trio finishing level on 5.5 points that led to the winner being decided via tie-breaks, Gukesh finished at the eighth spot with just four points in what is supposed to be his main format.

And what makes it even more disappointing is the fact that he collected just one victory in the tournament – against Uzbekistani GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the second round while playing as white.

Just last month, Russian chess icon Garry Kasparov had hailed Gukesh for defeating Carlsen in consecutive tournaments and in different formats – in Norway Chess and in the Rapid section of SuperUnited Croatia – going to the extent of portraying him as someone who could end the Norwegian’s domination.

Less than two months later, Kasparov expressed a vastly different opinion on Gukesh after the youngster suffered his first loss at the hands of So.

“Gukesh won fair and square but you can hardly call him the strongest player in the world. I don’t want to sound offensive but I think Magnus ended the era of classical world champions. Gukesh’s world championship title is very different,” Kasparov had said on the live broadcast of the Sinquefield Cup on Saint Louis Chess Club’s YouTube stream.

“It’s still clear that Magnus is the strongest and Gukesh is yet to prove his superiority over others. Even players of his age category. The Round 1 game against Praggnanandhaa at the Sinquefield Cup was very unimpressive. The rules are the rules and the games are the games,” he added.

Now it’s not exactly Gukesh’s fault that Carlsen had decided against defending his world title in 2022 citing declining interest in the Classical format, and that he has shown little interest in competing in that format outside of Norway Chess.

Then again, Gukesh had outshined the likes of world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura, Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi to challenge Ding for the world title in Singapore and has also defeated Carlsen recently, highlighting the fact that he deserves to be counted among the world’s elite.

At Praggnanandhaa’s rise has little to do with Gukesh’s sudden loss of form; he too has beaten some of the very best in the world this year to establish himself as the Indian No 1. Whether you look at Tata Steel Chess, the Grand Chess Tour or the Sinquefield Cup.

“Last year, for example, me and Arjun were doing great and Pragg was not doing great. This year, Pragg has been winning a lot of tournaments,” Gukesh had said in an interview on Saint Louis Chess Club’s YouTube channel, highlighting Praggnanandhaa’s progress this year.

The year, of course, is by no means over just yet, with another major event set to take place in a couple of months’ time.

The FIDE World Cup is being hosted by India in the months of October and November, and after Divya Deshmukh and Koneru Humpy headlined a historic all-Indian final in the women’s edition, the spotlight shifts to the trio of Pragg, Gukesh and Arjun and whether they can pull off something similar.

Pragg will have earned the right to be considered the title favourite over Gukesh heading into the tournament, taking his heroics this year into account. And while a victory might not necessary change the complexion of what has been a mixed year for Gukesh, it will help end things on a happy note at the very least.

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