'Pragg extremely focussed'

Coach Ramesh speaks about the 18-year-old's work ethics, how they stay in touch & more...

- INDRANEEL DAS

R Praggnanandhaa is on a roll at the World Cup in Baku. He drew against World No 1 Magnus Carlsen on Tuesday and is set to play the second classical game on Wednesday. Miles away, in Chennai, his coach RB Ramesh has been following each and every move of his online. During a conversation ahead of the semifinals against Fabio Caruana, which Pragg won, he revealed how they keep in touch, what he thought when he met the 18-year-old for the first time and more. Excerpts from concluding part...

On what he saw in Pragg when he first came to him

When we started working probably nine or 10 years ago. He was already a good player. He was, I believe, world Under-8 champion. But U-8, generally there is not much competition, but he was also eight, like every other child. And back then his (elder) sister (Vaishali) was stronger than Pragg. She had probably like 200 or 300 points above Pragg. They learned their chess from Bloom Chess Academy before coming to me. The academy has done a really good job. One thing they have is right work ethics. I would say that their heart was in the game. They both really loved chess and they both were extremely ambitious. They wanted to be the world champion and they also very talented. But talent is something which is available in abundance. It's not such a rare phenomenon, but this passion, extraordinary passion, the hardworking ability and they're willingness to pay the price (for a bigger prize) is great. Usually what happens, when people pursue excellence in some field, they are focussed largely on the target. They want to get it by any means.