St. Louis: In high spirits after his victory in the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz, which elevated him to second place in the overall Grand Chess Tour rankings, R. Praggnanandhaa, barring a debacle here, is likely to feature in the finale later this year.
The Grand Chess Tour (GCT) Finals are contested by the top-four finishers on the tour, and currently, American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana is ahead of Praggnanandhaa.
Samuel Sevian is a surprise entry in the Sinquefield Cup, after French Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja decided to withdraw from the tour.
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, who turned 21 on Monday, 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).
