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India’s Prraneeth Vuppala defeated top-seeded Hans Niemann of the US in the Baku Open 2023 and became India’s 82nd Grandmaster. The win against Niemann helped Vuppala cross 2500 in the live rating, and his exact rating point is 2500.5. The 15-year-old who hails from Telangana scored his final IM-norm and maiden GM-norm in the same event in March 2022. However, Prraneeth lost his final round to fellow Indian GM Luke Mendonca, who was crowned the tournament champion.
Prraneeth won his first GM norm in March 2022, where he also earned the title of International Master (IM). He, then, earned his second norm in July 2022. He scored his first IM-norm at Narcis 7 in Divcibare, Serbia in October 2018, when he was merely 11 years old. He had won over GM Eduard Andreev (Ukraine), GM Milko Popchev (Bulgaria), IM Igor Solomunovic (Serbia), had a draw with GM Bogdan Lalic (Croatia) and GM Miodrag R Savic (Serbia). He earned his third and earlier this year at the 2nd Chessable Sunway Formentera Open 2023.
Prraneeth belongs to the Ilagadapa village, in Nalgonda district of Telangana, and started playing chess when he was merely 5 and half years old. Having grown from strength to strength, the 15-year-old holds the distinction of being a former world number 1 in the under-11 age group category. He is the sixth Grandmaster from the Telangana.
