Miami: The FTX Crypto Cup seems to be heading towards a tense two-horse race as Indian teenager Praggnanandhaa and Norway's World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen both crushed their opponents in the fourth round here and remained in joint lead.
The two front-runners look increasingly impossible to catch up with as they stretched their lead over the pack with three points each on Thursday, that took them to perfect 12/12 scores.
Pragg defeated American Levin Aronian 3-1 while Carlsen handed a similar verdict to Vietnam's Liem Quang Le in the fourth round.
The second Major of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour season may now go down to the final round on Sunday when Carlsen, the world champion, and 17-year-old Pragg face each other.
With three rounds to go, Carlsen and Pragg aren't completely in the clear yet though. The exciting teenager Alireza Firouzja is still in the hunt for the FTX title and sits third on the leaderboard with eight points.
In a crazy match, Firouzja beat Poland's World Cup winner Jan-Krzysztof Duda 2.5-1.5. He will need both Carlsen and Pragg to slip up badly to catch them, however.
Pragg again showed he's the real deal at just 17 by smoothly beating America's former world blitz and rapid champion Levon Aronian, the organisers of the tour, Play Magnus Group, informed in a release on Friday.
Following a draw in game 1 of the four rapid encounters, the youngster from Chennai had briefly looked in trouble both on the clock and on the board in a rollercoaster game 2.
But when the queens came off the board, it petered out quickly into a draw and after that it was one-way traffic.
Game 3 was unmitigated disaster for Aronian. Playing the Grunfeld Defence, an opening he rarely plays, the 39-year-old fell into an early trap.
After just 11 moves the computer suggested Aronian was losing with his queen hopelessly trapped on a5 and by move 14 he was dead lost.
"Wow! What a play by Pragg," said Grandmaster Peter Leko. "Beating Levon like this, or crushing him like this, tricking him like this. Unbelievable, never seen this ever before!"
Game 4 was a different story -- but the same result. In a brilliant game, Aronian threw everything at the youngster, yet Pragg defended for his life and then pounced when the older player blundered.
Pragg had won 3-1 and was immediately congratulated by his opponent.
Carlsen also made the breakthrough in game 3 after two draws. Vietnam's Liem Quang Le blundered with 33...Rb5? and then Carlsen found the winning 34.Rd8! and a mate-in-four.
Liem now needed to strike back to take the match to tiebreaks but crumbled as Carlsen closed out a 3-1 win for a third time in four rounds.
Elsewhere, Dutch No.1 Anish Giri picked up a first win of the tournament, defeating Hans Niemann 2.5-1.5.
—IANS
&nbsp;&nbsp;

The FTX Crypto Cup seems to be heading towards a tense two-horse race as Indian teenager Praggnanandhaa and Norway's World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen both crushed their opponents in the fourth round here and remained in joint lead.

 Champions Chess Tour: Pragg, Carlsen score similar 3-1 wins in fourth Rd, remain on top

Miami: India’s Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa came back strongly from a game deficit to stun world champion Magnus Carlsen in tiebreaks in the seventh and final round thus finishing runner-up in the FTX Crypto Cup, the second major on the Champions Chess Tour.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Starting the round two points behind the Norwegian Carlsen, the 17-year-old Pragg was looking down and out after losing the third of the four rapid games. But Carlsen, who was steering the fourth game to a draw, blundered in the endgame and the Indian capitalised on it to take the match into blitz tiebreaks.&nbsp;
In the four rapid games, Praggnanandhaa created a number of chances in the drawn first game, defended superbly in the second — another draw –, went down in a tense third encounter before capitalising on Carlsen’s mistake to win the fourth.
He dominated the blitz games to win two points, taking his total to 15. Iranian-French teenager Alireza Firouzja claimed three points in the final round to tie with Pragg at 15 points but eventually had to be satisfied with the third place.
The win in the third rapid game meant that Carlsen took his total to 16 points, and thus emerged the champion, winning the FTX Crypto Cup for the second year in a row.
Carlsen notched up a third win of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour season and his first Major win. The result also stretches his lead at the top of the USD1.6 million Tour leaderboard and wins him the tournament’s unique NFT trophy.
Pragg and Carlsen were neck-and-neck throughout the whole tournament with the youngster putting in a real statement performance throughout.
But in Round 7 of the all-play-all event, Pragg faced the real acid test — world No. 1 Carlsen. The youngster had chances in the first game and then had to defend like a lion in game 2. Finally, he ran out of steam in the third.
Carlsen clinched the win that guaranteed him the title and in classic Magnus-style — with a piece of endgame brilliance and a huge sense of relief, according to a release on Sunday by the organisers of the event, Play Magnus Group.
Reacting before the final rapid game, Carlsen said, “This game was very nervy, I think, for both of us. Today I haven’t been able to find a rhythm at all, but hopefully I can relax a bit in the last game.”
Carlsen did relax — but it barely mattered to him. In the fourth game, the champion looked to be steering the game to a draw but blundered in the endgame.
“I think Magnus just wanted to have more fun!” Pragg, who still had work to do to finish second, was quoted as saying in the release.
In the final tiebreak, Pragg won the first and then ended it in a dramatic second game in which Carlsen blundered badly. Pragg ended the tournament on a high, securing the runner-up spot.
Carlsen hailed his tournament win a “great result”.
The USD210,000 elite esports tournament, held at Florida’s Eden Roc Miami Beach, had gone into its final day with all eyes on Carlsen and Pragg’s eagerly-awaited showdown.
But in the other matches, Alireza Firouzja was battling to overtake Pragg at the last hurdle and secured at least a third place finish with a 2.5-1.5 win over Levon Aronian.
The struggles continued for 19-year-old New Yorker Hans Niemann, who has entertained everyone throughout with his interviews. Niemann finished pointless as he went down 2.5-1.5 to Vietnam’s Liem Quang Le.
However, the newly-crowned “bad boy of chess” can take away from the tournament memorable wins over Carlsen, Pragg and Aronian, plus an army of new fans.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda, the winner of the Oslo Esports Cup, finished off his tournament with a 2.5-0.5 win over Dutch No.1 Anish Giri.
Duda had a tough start to the event but finished with impressive wins over Carlsen, Pragg and then Giri.
The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour will return with its next “regular” event on September 19.&nbsp;
—IANS

India’s Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa came back strongly from a game deficit to stun world champion Magnus Carlsen in tiebreaks in the seventh and final round thus finishing runner-up in the FTX Crypto Cup, the second major on the Champions Chess Tour. 

 Champions Chess Tour: Praggnanandhaa stuns Carlsen in tiebreaks to finish runners-up in FTX Crypto Cup

San Francisco (The Hawk): Following its collapse this week, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has applied for bankruptcy protection, and its former billionaire CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned. This is a disaster for the business, which was only months ago valued at $32 billion.
After clients hurried to remove their assets from the company, Bankman-Fried sought billions of dollars to save it, but FTX collapsed a week later.
To alleviate a financial shortage, Bankman-Fried had requested $6 billion to $8 billion.
The 30-year-old apologised for the crisis on Thursday, saying, "I fucked up, and could have done better."
According to a statement released by FTX on Friday, Bankman-Fried will "stay to assist in an orderly transition."
Days after its rival Binance backed out of a planned deal, the announcements were made.
The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into FTX and its CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried to see if any criminal behaviour or securities charges were committed, according to the Associated Press.
The focus of the investigation is whether the company utilised customer money to finance wagers at Bankman-hedge Fried's fund, Alameda Research.
After undergoing the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run, FTX decided earlier this week to sell itself to larger rival Binance.
The cryptocurrency community had hoped that Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, could be able to save FTX and its depositors. But after Binance got an opportunity to examine FTX's books, it was obvious that the issues facing the smaller exchange were insurmountable.
(Inputs from Agencies)

Following its collapse this week, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has applied for bankruptcy protection, and its former billionaire CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned. This is a disaster for the business, which was only months ago valued at $32 billion.

FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, declares bankruptcy, and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried resigns

San Francisco (The Hawk): SoftBank, a troubled Japanese investment company, is said to have written off roughly $100 million in investments made by its Vision Fund 2 in the now-defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
MarketWatch reports that SoftBank stated "it would not face a major markdown in the value of its stake" as the investment was now marked down to zero.
After the business secured $400 million in January and was valued at $32 billion, SoftBank backed FTX.
A $100 million venture capital investment by SoftBank in the cryptocurrency broker FTX has officially been made public.
According to quotes from Softbank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto, the $100 billion Vision Fund invested in FTX "as a tiny share in the company."
Goto stated during the release of the company's second quarter (Q2) results that "if any case of markdown but still that is very not important for us."
SoftBank is known for investing large sums of money in unsuccessful ventures, such as the $18.5 billion investment in WeWork.
The Japanese VC firm also invested $500 million in better.com, a digital mortgage lender that fired thousands of people under the leadership of Vishal Garg, an Indian co-founder and CEO.
FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, has acknowledged that "unauthorised transactions" have removed hundreds of millions of dollars from its wallets. The business has since shifted many of its digital assets to a new "cold wallet custodian," it claims.
FTX did not disclose how much it lost to unauthorised transactions when it filed for bankruptcy last week in the US, although sources said the loss could have reached $600 million.
(Inputs from Agencies)

SoftBank, a troubled Japanese investment company, is said to have written off roughly $100 million in investments made by its Vision Fund 2 in the now-defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

The Hawk

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Champions Chess Tour: Pragg, Carlsen score similar 3-1 wins in fourth Rd, remain on top

Pankaj Sharma

The Hawk

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Champions Chess Tour: Pragg, Carlsen score similar 3-1 wins in fourth Rd, remain on top

Pankaj Sharma

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