GM Ding Liren won the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour’s Chessable Masters despite a comeback by GM Praggnanandhaa R, who won Thursday’s second mini-match. It was Ding who clinched the title anyway and the $25,000 first prize by winning a two-game playoff.

Praggnanandhaa has been impressive throughout the tournament, leaving the whole chess world sharing more or less the same thought: how did this kid become so strong so fast?

The climax of all that happened on Thursday when the 16-year-old prodigy from Chennai won game two and drew the other three games. Still eight rating points away from the world’s top 100 himself, Pragg had just beaten the world’s number two in classical chess on equal ground.

The endgame that arose after move 40 looked somewhat similar to the classic Capablanca-Ragozin, Moscow 1936 with which Mikhail Shereshevsky starts his book Endgame Strategy.

Unlike Ragozin, Ding decided to quickly trade the minor pieces but eventually couldn’t hold the endgame either. Very mature play by the teenager!

The playoff consisted of two 5+3 games and in the first, yet again Praggnanandhaa seemed on his way to take the lead, in another knight+rook vs bishop+rook endgame, but in time-trouble he let it slip away:

Also in the second playoff game Pragg was doing well but in a very sharp middlegame and also with little time on the clock, he started to go astray. Congratulations to Ding, who won his first Champions Chess Tour event! (With apologies to him as the author focused more on his opponent instead…)

All Games Day 8

Chessable Masters Knockout Results

The 2022 Champions Chess Tour’s fourth event, the Chessable Masters, runs May 19-26, 2022 on chess24. The preliminaries are a 16-player round-robin from which the top eight qualify for the knockout stage. The time control is 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment; the scoring system is three points for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss. The prize fund is $150,000.

Previous reports:

• Ding Leads Final: Chessable Masters, Day 7
• Ding, Praggnanandhaa Reach Final: Chessable Masters, Day 6
• Carlsen-Ding, Giri-Pragg In Semifinals: Chessable Masters, Day 5
• Giri Undefeated Entering Knockout: Chessable Masters, Day 4
• Giri Grabs Lead; Carlsen Tries 1.h4: Chessable Masters, Day 3
• Carlsen Blunders Piece vs. Pragg: Chessable Masters, Day 2
• Wei Yi Leads, Mishra Shines: Chessable Masters, Day 1