3 min readOslo (norway)Updated: Jun 6, 2026 11:35 AM IST
On June 1, a few hours before R Praggnanandhaa went into his game against Alireza Firouzja he was on a call with his mother. A constant presence by his side at tournaments abroad usually, Nagalakshmi had chosen to skip this year’s Norway Chess tournament. But that didn’t mean she was not at hand to offer words of encouragement. On this particular day, Praggnanandhaa needed it. He was at the bottom of the standings in the six-player elite tournament. His previous two games had been frustrating losses, including a game against compatriot D Gukesh, which he should have won.
In need of a bounceback, his mother had some words of soothing encouragement. It’s the start of a new month, she told him, so it was the perfect moment for a restart. ‘You’ll play well now,’ she consoled him.
Praggnanandhaa dismissed the very notion. “I thought it was just one of things my mother says,” he said sheepishly on the official broadcast.
Five days later, her words came true. The 20-year-old won the Norway Chess tournament by winning all the four games he played in June, defeating the youngest player ever to reach a 2800 rating Alireza Firouzja, world no 1 and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, world champion D Gukesh and Vincent Keymer, who came to Oslo a day after winning the Super Chess Classic in Bucharest.
With a remarkable final burst towards the finish line at the end of the 10-round tournament, Praggnanandhaa became the only Indian player ever to win the super-elite tournament in 14 editions. This is the 20-year-old prodigy’s first title of the year. In contrast, world champion D Gukesh finished sixth in the six-player standings. In the women’s section, Divya Deshmukh (5th spot) and Koneru Humpy (6th) were the bottom two in the standings.
Praggnanandhaa had some significant wins in the first half of 2025, including a title at the Tata Steel classical chess tournament. But he ranked the Norway Chess title as his best.
“For me, it’s more special that I won a tournament, especially when Magnus is playing in it,” Praggnanandhaa told Indian journalists in Oslo. “I think this edition of Norway Chess is stronger (than Wijk Aan Zee) in terms of average rating. Because you have like some 2600-rated players in Wijk Aan Zee. Here it’s just the top players. Winning this is more special. Also adding to it, Magnus was there, then winning four games in a row. Certainly this will come at the top in my career.”
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Pragg revealed that over the second half of the tournament, he made two adjustments that worked for him.
“I made a conscious effort to play faster, which certainly helped in my games, I had more time than my opponents in most of the games (after that),” Pragg said. “I think as the tournament progressed, I decided to sleep more. If you have more time in the morning, you are looking at your computer, it’s just more tiring. It’s something I decided to do – sleeping a bit later and waking up a bit later.”
(The writer is in Oslo at the invitation of Norway Chess)