Magnus Carlsen is considered to be possibly the greatest-ever chess player in history. But the Norwegian has claimed in the past that Garry Kasparov is the greatest chess player of all time.
Defeating Carlsen is very rare, and R Praggnanandhaa recently shared a hilarious story of when he defeated the veteran for the first time in 2022.
It was an online match, and the game made the 20-year-old a viral sensation on the internet. Taking a walk down memory lane, he spoke about it recently in a YouTube podcast show.
“Since it was 2 am in the night, at that time my parents were asleep. I went and woke my dad up and said: ‘I won’. He said, ‘Good’ and then he went back to sleep because he had to go to the office the next day,” he revealed.
R Praggnanandhaa on his thoughts during the match
He also spoke about what he was thinking when he beat Carlsen, and he had an interesting answer to that.
“I wasn’t thinking anything. I was just playing and I got my chance out of nowhere. Everything happened in like a few minutes. It was an online rapid game. I was quite happy,” he said.
“I was just excited like I wasn’t expecting it and then suddenly… I mean the game was also going in a trend where he was putting pressure on me and then suddenly I got my chance. I I had to play some accurate moves which I did and I won. So um I was just very happy and then I also didn’t expect so much reaction from outside after that. So that was also I think a good thing for the game. I think it brought more attention.
“I was more excited about the fact that I just beat Magnus than the actual game. I didn’t think the game was particularly great or anything like that. I did analyze it later. I realized I didn’t really play well. It was like the fifth game of the day or something. We were already tired and it was obvious that we were not not playing our best but I won and I think it was important for me back then. It gave me a lot of confidence and I realized that the top players are not invincible, you can beat them. Until you actually get that first win, you always feel like they are just in a different world. But once you beat them, you know that it’s possible,” he further added.
Praggnanandhaa also recently beat Carlsen at the Las Vegas Freestyle Chess Grand Slam event. Meanwhile, he beat Carlsen for the first time at the Champions Chess Tour in 2022.