Indian Grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa became the country’s highest-ranked chess player in the live ratings after he won the UzChess Cup Masters 2025 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Saturday, June 28.
Praggnanandhaa now has a live rating on 2778.3 which has made him world no.4. This is the highest ranking that the 19-year-old has achieved in his career so far.
Praggnanandhaa has overtaken reigning World Champion D Gukesh who has a rating of 2776.6. Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh’s compatriot Arjun Erigaisi has a rating of 2775.7.
Norway’s Magnus Carlsen continues to remain world no.1 with a rating of 2839.2. He is followed by the American duo of Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. Hikaru has a rating or 2807.0 while Caruana has a rating of 2784.2.
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Praggnanandhaa kick-started the final day of the UzChess Cup Masters behind Uzbekistans Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Javokhir Sindarov. The Indian was trailing Nodirbek by a a point and was half-a-point behind Javokhir.
By beating Abdusattorov in the final round Praggnanandhaa tied up with the two Uzbekistan players as the three Grandmasters had 5.5 points each.
Erigaisi could have spiced up the tournament by making it a four-way tie but he needed to beat his countryman Aravindh Chithambaram in his final game of the round-robin stage. Erigaisi could only draw that match.
The final standings of the competition was decided by tiebreaks in a double round-robin blitz format.
Javokhir and Nodirbek drew their two matches against each other while Praggnanandhaa beat the two players with white pieces but lost the games with the blacks.
This is Praggnanandhaa’s third title in 2025. Earlier this year he won the Tata Steel Chess Tournament and the Grand Chess Tour Superbet Classic in Romania.
In 2023, at the age of 18, Praggnanandhaa became the youngest chess player to reach the final of the prestigious Chess World Cup. He also became only the second Indian after Vishwanathan Ananad to qualify for the World Cup. Last year, he was part of the Indian team that won the gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in the Open section.
Prakhar Sachdeo
The Sportz Planet Desk
