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Journalism of Courage
In a race to confirm his qualification for the Candidates Tournament 2026, Indian chess prodigy Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa has put a strong foot forward, jointly leading the open event of the London Chess Classic 2025.
After six rounds, Praggnanandhaa is the co-leader of the 120-player field with five points alongside Serbia’s Velimir Ivic. The Grandmaster from Chennai was 3.0/3 after beating Stanley Badacsonyi, Eldar Gasanov and Nico Chasin in the first three rounds. A couple of draws against compatriot Pranav Anand and Hungary’s Tamas Jr Fodor saw him fall out of the top 10 before he came back to winning ways in the sixth round, beating Israel’s Eytan Rozen.
The LCC Open is a 120-player, nine-round Swiss tournament with an average rating of 2581 Elo.
Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who is chasing Praggnanandhaa in the FIDE Circuit Leaderboard of 2025, is also on a roll in the London event. The former World Rapid Champion is one full point ahead of second-placed Frenchman Alireza Firouzja to lead the elite closed event. A win for Abdusattorov would significantly spice up the Candidates race through the FIDE Circuit; however, surpassing Pragg would still be a far cry for the Uzbek.
Praggnanandhaa currently leads the 2025 Circuit leaderboard with 107 points from seven eligible events. He is followed by Anish Giri (81.18), Fabiano Caruana (65.55), and Matthias Bluebaum (63.94). However, since all three have already qualified for the Candidates through other paths, Praggnanandhaa’s closest rival — Germany’s Vincent Keymar, with 55.83 points — remains too far behind to pose a serious threat.
For Praggnananadhaa, the FIDE World Cup 2025 was a rather disappointing affair, with the last edition’s finalist crashing out in the fourth round. He was knocked out after losing to Russia’s Daniil Dubov in the tiebreaks. While the 20-year-old did not appear convincing in his wins, he also looked shaky right from the start. Having received a bye in the opening round, Praggnanandhaa was dragged to the eighth game in the tiebreaks of Round 2 by Australian-Uzbek player Kuybokarov. Pragg then defeated Armenia’s Robert Hovhannisyan in the third round before facing Dubov.
