GCT Grand Finale: Praggnanandhaa sails into summit clash

St. Louis (USA): Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa cruised into the finals of the Grand Chess Tour's last leg after clinching a crushing 19-9 win over Germany's Vincent Keymer here.

Pragnanandhaa will take on pre-event favourite and defending champion Fabiano Caruana of the USA States in the event finale.

Having won the second Classical game, the Indian enjoyed a huge lead of six points coming into the final day on which games of shorter duration were played.


He defeated Keymer in back-to-back rapid encounters to nearly seal his spot in the finals taking an unassailable 17-3 lead before another victory in the first game of blitz took his points tally to 19.

As per rules, all the games have to be played and Keymer fought his way back by winning the last three blitz games even though the score-line was beyond repairs for him.

Caruana is not known to be a power in the faster version of the game but on Monday he proved that he could prove that assessment wrong.

Caruana won 18-9 thanks to his skills in the blitz games, leaving nothing to chance.

The GCT finale is a USD 450,000 tournament of which USD 200,000 is reserved for the winner and USD 125,000 goes to the losing finalist.

Even though Caruana starts as the favourite, Praggnanandhaa has it in him to turn the tables. In the third place play-off, Keymer will play against another American Wesley So.

The top three from here will get a direct invite to the next year's Grand Chess Tour.

Results Semifinals:

R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 19) beat Vincent Keymer (Ger, 9); Fabiano Caruana (USA, 18) beat Wesley So (USA, 9).