Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa is an Indian chess grandmaster and currently the fourteenth highest-rated player in the world. A long-time prodigy, “Pragg” is a two-time World Youth Champion (2013 U8, 2015 U10), and is the fifth youngest ever player to become a grandmaster, which he did at the age of 12 years and ten months. Considered along with Gukesh to be one of India’s top talents, Pragg qualified to the 2024 FIDE Candidates after a phenomenal second place finish in the 2023 FIDE World Cup. Praggnanandhaa won a gold medal for India in the Budapest Chess Olympiad (2024). He started the next year off with a bang, winning the Tata Steel Chess Tournament (2025), defeating Gukesh Dommaraju in a thrilling tiebreak playoff. Pragg became the first Indian player to win Tata Steel since Viswanathan Anand’s victory in 2006.