Vaishali's mother Nagalakshmi, Pranesh M, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and Vaibhav Suri (Photo by Michal Walusza) BENGALURU: Bengaluru's Lalit Ashok hotel, where season 4 of the Global Chess League (GCL) is unfolding, has not been short on marquee pairings this week, but the one that turned heads on Monday belonged to a 20-year-old who wasn't even supposed to be here. Chennai-born Grandmaster Pranesh M walked into this year's tournament as a late replacement for Vladimir Fedoseev, slotted onto Mumba Masters' board two, and has spent the tournament making that footnote look increasingly irrelevant, first by beating Anish Giri on the opening day, then, more strikingly, by dismantling Levon Aronian's position from the white side of a Sicilian, punishing an over-optimistic kingside pawn push with the kind of clean, calculated finish that has become his signature."
com during an exclusive conversation on the sidelines of the GCL. " He went for g5, slightly a mistake, but I don't know what else he could have done.
It just looked so bad for him. I had clear plans, and it's hard to play faster than one moves."
Board 2, he says, hasn't intimidated him the way some might expect from a teenager thrown in among a field this strong. " I'm just feeling really happy.
I think I can actually compete with them," he added with a smile. In August, just before joining his GCL side, Pranesh won the Kanizsa Open in Hungary outright, going unbeaten across nine rounds to push his rating into the world's top 50.
It capped a stretch that began, less visibly, in Cyprus, where he spent weeks not playing for himself at all, but working as GM Vaishali Rameshbabu's second and training partner through her run to the Women's Candidates title. From an 1800-rated player to Vaishali’s trusted confidantVaishali and her coach RB Ramesh have been candid about why Pranesh was brought into that camp in the first place.
Vaishali, for all her poker-faced reputation at the board, takes losses hard, and Ramesh and his wife Aarthie wanted someone around who could keep the mood light. Pranesh's own account of the job is characteristically low-key, though."
Mainly Vaishali akka gets really serious during the game, and after the game she'll be wondering where she made a mistake," Pranesh revealed. " I'll just tell her, don't care; even if you don't blunder, you'll win the tournament.
There were a lot of blunders in that tournament, so. I was just being myself."
