Praggnanandhaa vs Carlsen goes into tie-breaker after two draws: How Chess World Cup final will be decided

Two games, first a 35-move draw on Tuesday, followed by another 30-move draw in Game 2 on Wednesday has forced the Chess World Cup 2023 final between Indian teen sensation R Praggnanandhaa and Magnus Carlsen into the tie-breaker, which will take place on Thursday.

Both Game 1 and Game 2 were played in the classical format but the tie-breaker will be played in a shorter format.

Ahead of the much-anticipated clash, with 18-year-old Praggnanandhaa standing one step away from scripting history in Baku, Azerbaijan, we try to make it simple.

Here’s how the Praggnanandhaa vs Carlsen tie-breaker at the FIDE World Cup will be conducted

The tie-breakers will be played in the rapid and blitz format. It will start with the rapid format, which is a set of two games. Both the players will have 25 minutes of time control and will get an increment of 10 seconds per move, starting from move 1.

If that fails to give us a winner, the players will then engage in two more games but with a time control of 10 minutes for each player. The players, however, will continue to receive a 10-second increment per move, starting from move 1.

But if that too fails to produce a winner, two more games will be played but with the time control now reduced to 5 minutes per player. In this round a player will only see an increment of 3 seconds per move, starting from move 1.

If the contest still hangs in balance, the blitz portion of the tiebreak, which is similar to sudden death, will come into play. The previous rounds were played in a set of two games, however, here the rule changes to one game with a time control of 3 minutes, plus a 2-second increment per move, starting from move 1. This will continue until we have a winner.

Praggnanandhaa’s incredible run

Despite Carlsen being the one with more experience between the two, Praggnanandhaa will head into the tie-breaker high on confidence, considering the past results. The chess prodigy had defeated Carlsen thrice on the trot in rapid and blitz in 2022.

Praggnanandhaa has also been enjoying an incredible run in the tournament, having already beaten world No.2 Hikaru Nakamura and world No.3 Fabiano Caruana before becoming the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to reach the finals of the Chess World Cup. Anand had won the first two World Cups back in 2000 and 2002.

Meanwhile, Praggnanandhaa’s feat in Baku also helped him qualify for Candidates 2024 tournament, making him the third youngest player after legendary Bobby Fischer and Carlsen to qualify for the Candidates tournament.