Praggnanandhaa played out an easy draw as black against Wei Yi of China and stayed in joint lead on 1.5 points after the second round of the FIDE Candidates tournament here on Monday.
After a brilliant first-round win over Anish Giri, Praggnanadhaa appeared to be in fine fettle for the second day running, putting a bit of pressure on his Chinese counterpart out of a French defense game with black pieces.
Wei Yi decided against a complicated struggle, and the pieces changed hands at regular intervals, resulting in a drawn opposite-coloured bishops’ endgame.
Praggnanadhaa had an extra pawn to boast, but white’s position was simply impregnable. The peace was signed in 46 moves.
Standings | After Round 1 | FIDE Candidates & Women’s Candidates 2026🇺🇿 Javokhir Sindarov, 🇺🇸 Fabiano Caruana, and 🇮🇳 Praggnanandhaa R share the lead after the first round.#FIDECandidates #Chess #FIDE #Cyprus pic.twitter.com/9hKPnFkzME
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) March 29, 2026
At the end of Day 2, Pragg addressed the media in the post -match press conference, and spoke about his form said, “I think I still need to learn from it because I played like five tournaments in the last six months, and all five of them went poorly. I think it’s something I should learn to recover from a bad tournament. But here, it’s just a start. A good start is great, but I still have to play my best. There are 12 more games, so I have to keep focusing and keep giving my best.”
Talking about his game, he explained, “I don’t think the French defense itself was a surprise. I mean, I’ve played the French recently, so I don’t think it will come as a big surprise. But yeah, it’s not clear what I actually played after that, because I have played a lot of lines, many different lines even though I have only a few games,” he told FIDE.
“So I thought what I played would come as a little surprise. And I think I got a good position out of the opening and a good time advantage. I can’t really complain about the opening today,” he added.
Analyzing a key moment from the game, the Indian grandmaster pointed to a missed opportunity.
“I think castle f6. Black should be okay. Yeah, I was quite happy with my position, like knight e5. I thought queen c7 is good. And then this plan of rook f7. I mean what happened in the game later… but I think I should have just played c4 here instead of rook f7.” It offered Wei Yi an off-ramp to get out of trouble.
“It stops f5 and I can play rook f7 next and then just start rolling the pawns. I don’t see White’s plan clearly and Black’s moves are just free flowing. I don’t know what the computer says here, but I think c4 should be practically good for Black,” he said.
Even so, Praggnanandhaa remained satisfied with the overall outcome of the game. “Maybe we could have played a bit better but I think it was just fine for both of us. I don’t think I’m sure there were many other options which were also equal but I think what we played look logical and look like decent moves,” he concluded.
