It has been an interesting watch for me during the concluded Norway Chess Tournament. It was one I followed closely on lichess broadcast and the Magnus Carlsen YouTube channel. For Prag it was a 4 straight wins at the concluding rounds and Bibisara won with a round to spare. At first Norway Chess Tournament is quite designed to favour classical games with 3 points for a classical win and if the game ends in a draw after 30 moves, players head off to Armageddon where the points are lesser, 1.5 points for the Armageddon win and 1 point for a loss in Armageddon.
It was not a good event for the world number one chess player by rating and the current world chess champion as they both ended up in 4th place for the world number player (Magnus Carlsen) and 6th place for the world champion (Gukesh). For Magnus Carlsen it was considered to be his worst tournament performance in a while and the first bad one that YouTuber Gothamchess ever covered.
While it was not good for some players, it was amazing for other players like Praggnanada and Wesley So. It was a 15+ rating gain with some pretty prize cash to be added to the player's bank account. The event was interesting because after losses from round 8 game against Grandmaster Wesley who was the tournament for a long while only to lose it in the final round, and Grandmaster Gukesh in round 7, Praggnanada did not hold back. It was all wins from that point onwards and it was not win in Armageddon rather, wins in the actual classical games. With a win in the final round game against Grandmaster Keymer Vincent from Germany, Praggnanada was able to win the tournament ahead of the tournament leader Wesley So by half a point. It was sad to see GM Wesley So who was in the lead for a while lost the tournament win when he drew against GM Alireza Firouzja in the final round which took the game to Armageddon. Although he won the match in Armageddon, it was not enough to get him the tournament win since Praggnanada won in classical and got 3 whole points while Wesley So got only 1.5 since it was a win from Armageddon.
In the female section, it was not a good event for the current Women World Champion as well but she ended the event in 4th place while the tournament spot light was on Bibisara and Zhu Jiner. Bibisara had the last round to spare but I have to say she played some pretty good chess. After coming back from closely winning the candidate tournament, she did not hold back with her dominance in Norway Chess. A part of me sees it as a form of getting back into the game after a close victory at the candidates. It was lovely to see the current challenger for the world championship title in the men's section, Sindarov, was there to support her and enjoy himself by watching his soon to be opponent in the championship match, play chess. There is nothing like having support during chess tournaments, it helps to calm the nerves. It was regarded that Gukesh and Ju Wenjun were hiding their preps because of upcoming world chess championship. It is quite normal but let's see things evolve during the championship. I hope to see more lines like I saw in Norway Chess 2026.
Congratulations to the winners. A well deserved win.
I am 
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