Praggnanandhaa vs IIT Delhi - an incredible day filled with chess

by Sagar Shah - 03/05/2026

IITs - Indian Institute of Technology are considered to be the most coveted colleges in India to pursue your engineering. Hence, the students who get in there are considered by many as the smartest minds in the country! What happens when one of India's brightest chess minds comes to their campus and challenges the best chess players from the institute to a game of chess! This happened on the 24th of April 2026 when Pragg visited IIT-Delhi. Read on to know what transpired!

Praggnanandhaa lights up IIT-Delhi

24th of April - I had just arrived a couple of days ago from Cyprus after finishing the FIDE Candidates 2026. I got to know that there was going to be an event in IIT Delhi where Pragg was going to visit. I was excited on two counts! To see Pragg in his element in a slightly relaxed environment (After all Cyprus was very intense). And the second reason was I wanted to explore the chess culture in IIT Delhi. When IMC Trading asked if I would interested to come, I instantly agreed!

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IIT Delhi - one of the most popular spots inside the premises where everyone gathers to have a quick drink or a snack!

It was so amazing to see such huge hoardings of Pragg inside the IIT Delhi Premises

At around 11 a.m. Pragg made his entry into the IIT-Delhi premises

The tireless Nagalakshmi, Pragg's mother, was here to ensure that her son was well taken care off.

Pragg was in good spirits during lunch. He quickly got to know what lay ahead of him in the day.

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Pragg signed a lot of mugs which were given as giveaways

Look at the number of mugs he had signed!

Meeting the IIT Delhi Director

IIT Delhi Director is usually extremely busy. Prof. Rangan Banerjee is the current Director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, having taken charge in early 2022. He is a distinguished academic specializing in energy management, modeling, and policy, formerly serving as a professor at IIT Bombay. He also acts as the ex-officio member of the IIT Delhi Board of Governors. But when he got to know Pragg is coming to the campus, he took out special time to meet the youngster.

Two geniuses from different fields greet each other

He also got a chess board signed by Pragg

The round table inside the director's office

A beautiful picture and a wonderful memory

Pragg vs IIT Delhi Chess Team

The IIT Delhi team consisted of 7 players:

1. Sumit Biswal (1572)

2. Rohan Gupta (1623)

3. Shamil Mohammad (1579)

4. Raghav Singla (1770, rapid)

5. Jairam G (1587)

6. Shoan Raj (1670)

7. Soham Palkar (1728)

Now these are nowhere close to the strength that Pragg is. However, with the odds that Pragg accepted - 5 mins to his opponent and 1 minute for himself, the games became super exciting. In fact in one of the games, Pragg even blundered right out of the opening, but his opponent did not punish him. Overall the games were pretty smooth and Pragg managed to beat the IIT Delhi Chess Team 7-0.

Praggnanandhaa posing with the IIT Delhi Chess Team

Shoan Raj vs Praggnanandhaa

Pragg took the pawn on d4 and here Shoan could have won the game with axb4 Qxa1 Qxa1 Nc2+ Ke2! Nxa1 and Rxa1! This is what Pragg had missed - the king could move up and he would lose the knight! But Shoan was unable to find this during the game.

Shoan Raj was the only one who could trick Pragg, but he didn't take his chance!

The toughest opponent for Pragg was Soham Palkar, whose chess.com rating was 2500!

Soham also showed that he was out there for blood as he was the only one (check the center jersey) who wore the Magnus jersey!

Everyone was on the edge of their seats for this encounter, but eventually it was Pragg who triumphed!

It was only natural that Soham now had to take with himself the Pragg jersey

It's always interesting to see how Pragg is keen to learn from just about any game that he plays! The players go over the analysis on the phone!

Pragg vs IIT Delhi Chess Team - the video has over 350,000 views!

Pragg with IMC interns from IIT Delhi

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Amidst all of this action, Pragg also found the time to meet Aarit Kapil, a young talent who is 10 years and 8 months old and is already 2350 rated with one IM norm.

Together they also discussed an interesting queen vs rook endgame!

The Pragg vs IIT Delhi Simul

The IIT Delhi vs Pragg simul was held in the Dogra hall inside the campus and more than 700 students came to watch the action LIVE. 12 players had been selected via a grueling process. There was an online tournament that shortlisted some of the players and then an over the board tournament that led us to the 12 participants. These are the players who took part:

Name of the player	Department	Year of study	Preferred Entry Song
Aadit Prakash Bhagade	Computer Science and Engineering	1st	Mai hoon Don
Kaushik Panigrahi	Mechanical Engineering	2nd Year	Whats up danger (cuz why not)
Aniket Vishwakarma	Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology	3rd	Pirates of the Caribbean Main Theme
Amaan Qamar	Mechanical Engineering	3rd	none (sounds embarassing, id rather prefer no song intro)
Bhavishya Motwani	Computer Science	1st year	Natalie Holt - TVA (From "Loki")
Priyanshu Yadav	Computer science	4th	Tokyo Drift - Teriyaki Boyz
Ayush Sahu	Applied Mechanics	3rd	No preference as such
Raj Dakshit	Computer Science	2nd year	The Imperial March (Darth Vader Theme)
Amar Sinha	Computer Science	2nd year	Song name: Let it Happen, Artist name: Tame Impala
Nivesh Kumar Dhirwal	Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology	2nd	Beethoven - Für Elise
Neev Mittal	Mathematics	First year	Sapphire by ed sheeran
Aarnav Jain	Mechanical Engineering	2nd Year	Hall of Fame by The Script

These were the 12 players who took part and each one had their preferred entry song! This was actually played as the players entered to take their spot on the stage! I am sure they really enjoyed this part!

More than 700 students from IIT Delhi turned up to watch Pragg in action at the Dogra Hall

Nagalakshmi, the super mom of Praggnanandhaa and Vaishali, was given a standing ovation by the entire crowd

Remember the signed IMC mugs? We did a special Pragg quiz with all the people in the crowd and those who gave the right answer got the IMC mug signed by Pragg!

It was an absolute honour for me to host this event in front of a thoroughly chess loving crowd!

Pragg entered the stage with the music of Dhurandar playing in the background!

The General Secretary of IIT Delhi and the Captain of the Chess Team gave Pragg a special IIT Delhi jacket before he started playing! A very nice gesture indeed!

Pragg took black pieces in all of his games at the event

Pragg started off the simul in a jolly mood. He opened with a different pawn on almost all the boards - e6, d6, b6, even a6. He had 45 minutes for himself to finish off all the games and his 12 opponents also had 45 minutes for themselves. There was no increment. In addition we tried spice things up. As the games were shown LIVE on the screen (boards were connect to DGT setup), we gave the players an option to ask for the bar 1 time in the game. This option was given to each of the players! Imagine, Pragg's nightmare, when Aniket asked for the bar in this exact position given below:

Aniket Vishwakarma vs Praggnanandhaa

With the move g4 Aniket signals his intention to go all out against Pragg. It was an absolute pity that he couldn't finish off the game. Pragg made a comeback and won it. But at this point, it was clear that Aniket was in the driver's seat.

At this point, Pragg was surely worried. To every question that I was asking him, his answers were short. He found himself in trouble on the Aniket board and was trying to figure his way through others as well.

The boy who gave Pragg his toughest fight in the simul

Pragg had calmed down after a few minutes and then I could ask him to explain the positions in more depth!

This beautiful setup is what kept all the viewers glued to their seats as they could follow all the action closely on each of the board!

Pragg played the final part of the final game blindfolded!

Pragg beat all of his opponents one after another and the score stood 11-0 in his favour. In order to spice up things, he took 1 minute on the clock for the final game (against Aniket) and tried to finish it without looking at the board (blindfold). Pragg did it incredibly well and the final result stood 12-0 in his favour.

Three players received the special signed board from Praggnanandhaa for giving him a tough fight

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Thom Valks, Senior Sales and Partnership Manager at Team Liquid had a great time at the event!

An epic final photo!

As the day ended I was extremely happy. I was thrilled because of the love that IIT Delhi had showered towards chess. And I was amazed at what a fantastic ambassador of chess Pragg really is! In few hours, he spread the joy and love of chess to thousands of people with his humility and talent.

Check out the vlog where you get to see how the entire day unfolded

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Special thanks to Manikantan MVL, the head of marketing at IMC India, whose love for chess is making the sport reach different places across the country!

About IMC:

IMC is a global trading firm powered by a cutting-edge research environment and a world-class technology backbone. Since 1989, they have been a stabilising force in financial markets, providing essential liquidity upon which market participants depend. Across IMC's offices in the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and India, their talented quant researchers, engineers, traders, and business operations professionals are united by an uniquely collaborative, high-performance culture, and a commitment to giving back. From entering dynamic new markets to embracing disruptive technologies, and from developing an innovative research environment to diversifying our trading strategies, they continuously innovate and collaborate to succeed.

Important Links

Visit IMC official's website

Replay the games of Pragg vs IIT Delhi Chess Team

Replay all the games of the Simul

A big thank you to my team members Adarsh and Anmol for their work in covering this event. After the event ended I visited Adarsh's home in Gurgaon. This picture is a nice memory I take back with me!