4 min learnUp to date: Might 4, 2026 09:24 PM IST
Shoan Raj has proven the picture to no less than 30 folks.
It’s a screenshot from a chess sport, taken at transfer 11. It exhibits that Shoan — a 3rd 12 months Electrical Engineering scholar at IIT Delhi and captain of its chess group — had a +3 benefit over Praggnanandhaa, one of many strongest grandmasters within the nation.
A +3 benefit in chess is the equal of getting an additional bishop or knight over your opponent — or three extra pawns on the board. A place most gamers would convert with out considering twice.
Shoan didn’t convert it.
“If it had been every other opponent in entrance of me, I wouldn’t even assume twice earlier than enjoying the right transfer,” he says. “However just because I used to be dealing with Pragg, I felt like he’d performed some trick. So I didn’t capitalise. There’s a psychological issue hooked up to enjoying among the best gamers in India.”
He fumbled. Pragg gained. The screenshot stays — a doc of the second a grandmaster’s popularity did the work his items couldn’t.
Final week, 19 gamers from IIT Delhi acquired to expertise that psychological issue firsthand when Praggnanandhaa visited the campus for 2 occasions organised by his sponsors IMC Buying and selling.
R Praggnanandhaa additionally performed a simul towards 12 gamers at IIT Delhi’s Dogra Corridor, the place he gained all video games. (IMC Buying and selling)
Within the first, seven members of the chess group confronted him in a handicap match — one minute on his clock, 5 on theirs. All seven had been FIDE-rated gamers, some near 2000. A video posted on YouTube by ChessBase India exhibits Pragg’s hand a blur throughout the boards, his thoughts computing quicker than a pc. Even when issues regarded furry on the board, the 20-year-old tremendous GM politely replied to commentator Sagar Shah’s queries standing beside him, and sometimes made wisecracks about his opponents.
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He defeated all seven. He mentioned he had “barely made it” in lots of them. The largest praise he supplied: the seven video games had been a “problem.”
A type of challenges got here from Soham Palkar, a fourth 12 months Arithmetic and Computing scholar who had watched Pragg terrorise opponents as a 10-year-old in age-group nationals. Soham performed a gap Pragg admitted he had no thought about. Pragg defused it anyway — with one fifth of the time on his clock.
“I used to hope I’d play him someday,” Soham says. “We had been by no means paired towards one another. So to face him now was an amazing expertise.”
The Jedi thoughts methods arrived in one other sport, towards Sumit Biswal, the incoming chess captain. Pragg performed the Scotch Gambit — a gap he not often employs in severe video games — purely to unsettle.
It labored.
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“When he performed that I used to be type of scared I might fall into some entice,” Sumit remembers. “So I ended up spending over two minutes in a five-minute sport simply considering my third transfer.”
R Praggnanandhaa additionally performed a simul towards 12 gamers at IIT Delhi’s Dogra Corridor, the place he gained all video games. (IMC Buying and selling)
Later that day, Pragg performed a simul — an occasion the place a grandmaster concurrently takes on a number of gamers by transferring from board to board — on the well-known Dogra Corridor. Twelve opponents, all with white items, waited with 45 minutes every. Pragg had 45 minutes too.
He gained all twelve.
One opponent, Aniket, had a +2.5 benefit by transfer 10. He made an error on transfer 11 and by no means recovered. As the sport wound down, the organisers diminished Pragg’s time from quarter-hour to at least one minute. Then, to make issues actually fascinating, they made him flip his again on the board and end the sport blind.
He completed it.
It’s uncommon for the brightest younger minds within the nation to be simply impressed. However there’s something about watching a grandmaster’s popularity arrive within the room earlier than he does — watching a +3 benefit dissolve as a result of the opponent merely can not imagine what they’re seeing — that stays with you.
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Shoan Raj nonetheless has the screenshot. He’ll in all probability present it to extra folks.
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