Praggnanandhaa is riding a wave. He missed out on his biggest target of the year — the Candidates, where he finished seventh out of eight players — but quickly realigned his goals, and conquered Norway Chess and now the Grand Chess Tour’s season-ending finale. In winning both those titles, there was some history to be made as well, since no Indian had ever won those two events before Pragg got there.

A day after his Grand Chess Tour Final triumph, Praggnanandhaa sat down with for a free-flowing interview on all things chess. He spoke about enjoying his chess, finding his confidence again after the Candidates, why he would even be okay with being a reserve player in India’s Olympiad team and a lot more.

Excerpts

Q: You’ve had a crazy year: Norway Chess, now the Grand Chess Tour Final. Have you changed something in your training or fitness?

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Praggnanandhaa: No, nothing special. I worked a lot for Candidates and other tournaments and I think it’s showing off now. I’m just enjoying chess right now. I’m not really aiming for anything. In the last two years, I was focusing on Candidates, but now I’m just having fun with the game. I enjoyed fighting yesterday; no matter how the result would have ended, I still enjoyed the match.

Q: Not making it to Candidates free you up mentally?

Praggnanandhaa: Yeah, could be. Ideally, you want to do well there (at the Candidates). In a way, the results are coming a bit late, but I’m happy that it’s showing off now. It shows that I can play well in all formats.

Q: How would you rate this GCT title in your career?

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Praggnanandhaa: It’s high up there. Every tournament is special in its own way. Norway Chess… coming back from last place, Wijk (Wijk aan Zee – Tata Steel Masters in 2025) was special in its own way. I also won some GCT tournaments in between but of course, when you win a final, the whole tour, it’s amazing. I think it’s somewhere on top with Wijk aan Zee 2025 and Norway Chess 2026.

Q: After the Candidates disappointment, did you ever imagine this year would turn out like this?

Praggnanandhaa: I knew I can do it. I had confidence. But of course, when you’re going through tough results, it’s difficult. You start to lose some confidence in yourself, and I think sometimes you need those one or two wins to get it back. After the Candidates, I was mainly not happy with my game quality. I didn’t feel in control.

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Then I would say Bucharest, which was before Norway, I already felt like I had control. I felt I was playing well. But I finished tied for 5th, not a great result. Still, I felt my play was a lot more in control. I felt more confident, and it showed in Norway that I could come back. Once I got my confidence back, I knew that I can do it. I can win. I can play like this. But of course, this is what you aim for. It’s not given that you can win such tournaments.

Q: What is the difference between the confident version of you and the one who is not?

Praggnanandhaa: Sometimes your confidence is low. You don’t feel the usual thing and you start to second-guess your decisions. You double-check everything. You don’t believe in some lines you see. You take fewer risks. But I think more than the results, how you play, how your brain is thinking, and the moves that flow… all these things are important. I felt during Bucharest that I was a lot more in control. Whatever I was seeing was pretty decent. I was playing good quality chess compared to the Candidates or tournaments before that. I felt that changed, and obviously, it’s showing in the results now. But I think it started from Bucharest, where I felt in control.

Praggnanandhaa poses with the 2026 GCT Finals trophy. (Lennart Ootes/Grand Chess Tour)

Q: Does confidence give you a sense of invincibility?

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Praggnanandhaa: No one is invincible. Anyone can have a bad day. I was basically blundering one or two moves in the finals. You need to be cautious. You shouldn’t be over-confident, but you shouldn’t be under-confident either. You should be confident about yourself but should also respect the game and do what’s required.

Q: Does confidence only come from winning, or can it come from training?

Praggnanandhaa: You have to believe that you can be the best. That is also a form of confidence. When you go to a game, you have to try and win. So for me, as you said, you can get confidence from training as well. I was confident before the Candidates because I felt I was doing well in training. I felt I was in shape. I felt confident going into the tournament and I won the first game. So I thought this could be the tournament. But then a few games later, I was in seventh position or something, trying to fight for the last spot. So all these things are great, but ultimately what you do on the board is what matters. You can have good confidence, but if you don’t play well, it doesn’t matter. These things do help, but on a given day, you need to show your best against the best guys on the board.

Q: Have you ever woken up feeling like you’re going to destroy whoever sits in front of you?

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Praggnanandhaa: I don’t think it happens in one day, but there are things that change. For example, after a loss, you’re not feeling too high, but the next morning you feel fresh and you want to fight. You feel great about the game. I don’t think suddenly one day you become so confident that you go to the board and if it doesn’t happen, that’s it. But sometimes you just feel good about a game. Before a game, you feel confident and it turns out to be good. So all these things do happen.

Q: Hikaru Nakamura said all top players are arrogant and that even Indian players are not an exception to this. Do you agree with that view, or do you see it differently?

Praggnanandhaa: When it comes to chess, we all want to win. So when we lose, we don’t take it lightly. We all want to give it back the next day. In that way, we all have an ego. We don’t want to lose. We want to fight back. But I think most chess players are nice. I mean, there is nothing I have against anyone. Everyone is just nice. But when it comes to chess, we all want to beat each other. So in that way, there is a high competitive spirit. That does give you some ego. When you lose, you don’t take it lightly… you’re annoyed. I am sure there are a few outside chess who probably are arrogant at the top, but I don’t think everyone is.

Q: Two back-to-back rapid wins against Fabiano Caruana, or two classical wins against Magnus Carlsen in the same event, what would you choose?

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Praggnanandhaa: Both were important. Both were needed to win the tournament. I’ll have to take both. Without one of them, I wouldn’t have won.

Praggnanandhaa poses with the 2026 GCT Finals trophy. (Lennart Ootes/Grand Chess Tour)

Q: How tough was it to deal with the Candidates performance?

Praggnanandhaa: For all top players, more than outside pressure, there is always self-expectation. I know I can win top tournaments. So every tournament I play, I expect myself to do well… not win every tournament, but at least fight for the top spot, at least be in the contention. But, it’s disappointing when you don’t do well. Obviously, at the Candidates, I was really hoping for this cycle. I was looking at the Candidates already from November or December 2024 itself. I was already thinking about it and focusing towards playing for the FIDE Circuit, playing all these tournaments. I was planning myself towards that. And of course, it’s disappointing when it ends in such a way.

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But it happens. It’s just one tournament and anyone can have a bad event. I took some lessons from it and moved on. Of course, it was disappointing, but I was never really in contention. If I had maybe fought for the first place, it would have been more disappointing. But I was never in the fight. I don’t think anyone of us were in the fight, Javokhir Sindarov just did too well.

Q: You’ve been playing continuously. How do you recover mentally?

Praggnanandhaa: Usually, nowadays I try to avoid playing too much. My schedule towards the end of the year is going to be very light. I’m not playing too many tournaments, maybe one per month or something. So, I’m taking a lot of breaks. But yeah, this is something you can’t really avoid. This is for everyone who played the GCT. If you make it to the finals, you have to play for a month. And I think it’s the same for everyone. That’s why we saw a lot of mistakes in the finals and semifinals (at GCT). It happens when everyone is tired. You prepare and play for five hours every day. Then it gets to you at some point.

Q: You dedicated a lot of time to Vaibhav Suri after your win. How does that relationship work?

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Praggnanandhaa: He probably worked more than me in this tournament. He is a dedicated person. He worked a lot. It’s difficult to put it into words. He basically always has a plan for my next game before I even finish a game. So it’s much easier for me to come back and decide for the next games. Even when I’m playing rapid and blitz games, he’s always there checking if there is some improvement needed or if we need to shift to a different opening or something. It’s nice to have someone like that who is always there to help. Huge thanks to him. As I said, doing it remotely with this time difference is difficult.

Q: You said GCT is second only to the World Championship. Did you actually mean it?

Praggnanandhaa: No, when I say World Championship, I mean the cycle. The cycle’s ultimate goal is the World Championship match. So when I say World Championship, I mean the whole cycle to get there. But I believe if you take the World Championship cycle out of the equation, the Grand Chess Tour is still an important thing. You have to prove yourself in a series of tournaments and then do it again in the finals. It’s a traditional event. It takes a lot of effort from players. It’s a challenge. I believe this is up there. There are a few tournaments in chess that are extremely important like Wijk aan Zee, Norway Chess, and the Grand Chess Tour events. And I think the World Championship cycle, these are the most important events that I consider.

Pragg after winning 2026 Norway Chess.

Q: In three months, you’ll play the Total Chess World Championship. Do you feel you are the most well-rounded player?

Praggnanandhaa: It’s difficult to answer when there’s a guy like Magnus Carlsen coming to play. Everyone is super strong. It’s just one event, so we can’t really determine anything from it. We can’t dig too much into it. But I feel confident about my rapid and blitz. They are getting better, and I’m happy to see that. It will be interesting. It’s a new tournament, and there will be new players who haven’t played yet. So it will be a different challenge altogether.

Q: The Olympiad is coming up. Who plays on board one for India? How is it decided?

Praggnanandhaa: We haven’t really had any call about this. Our captain Srinath anna is really smart. He usually thinks about all possibilities and comes up with a logic idea. For me, I don’t mind playing anywhere… board 4 or even being the reserve player. Whatever he chooses, I’ll happily take it as long as we win.

Q: In Norway, you told us there are things you want to do away from chess, like hobbies. Any plans now?

Praggnanandhaa: It depends on my day. Sometimes I want to learn cooking, sometimes learn some art. I believe having a hobby apart from chess will certainly help. I’ll have some break towards the end of the year, so maybe I can try something. Maybe I will share more details once I try it.