Praggnanandhaa set to face Samuel Sevian in Sinquefield Cup 1st round

All nine regular tour players will be back in the Sinquefield Cup, making it one of the strongest tournaments of the year, alongside the Norway Chess Classic, which was also won by Praggnanandhaa.

Caruana starts as the favourite yet again, as classical chess is his forte, while fellow Americans, Wesley So and Levon Aronian, will also be among the contenders for a podium finish.

Add to that, World Championship contender Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan, Vincent Keymer of Germany, Anish Giri of the Netherlands and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, and it becomes an extremely formidable field.

The other player is Jorden van Foreest of the Netherlands, who, on his day, can make anyone bite the dust. The tournament will be played over nine rounds between 10 players on a round-robin basis, with a total prize pool of USD 475,000.

In the recently concluded St. Louis Rapid and Blitz, Praggnanandhaa won by a 1.5-point margin over Sindarov, and the Indian can certainly hope for an encore given his superior recent form. Praggnanandhaa will have five Black games out of a possible nine and will look to make the most of his four games with the White pieces.

Pairings – Round 1: Savian Samuels (USA) vs R Praggnanandhaa (Ind); Javokhir SIndarov (Uzb) vs Levon Aronian (Arm); Vincent Keymer (Ger) vs Wesley So (USA); Fabiano Caruana (USA) vs Jorden Van Foreest (Ned); 8. Anish Giri (Ned) vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra).

(With agency inputs)