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We don’t want to get you too excited, and we don’t want to pile too much pressure on John Bartholomew to get his next norm.

But we thought you’d like to know Chessable’s resident IM has beaten the 12-year-old Indian super talent Ramesh Praggnanandhaa at the GM Norm Invitational in Charlotte.

Praggu, as he is known, is of course the wonderkid everyone is talking about who is launching an assault on Sergey Karjakin’s long-standing record for being the youngest ever grandmaster.

Against John though, he came unstuck. Playing white, John essayed a nice win out of the Zurich Variation of the Nimzo-Indian. This opening is covered in IM John Bartholomew’s 1.d4 Repertoire for White chess opening trainer, but Praggu played an early move order shuffle with 3… Nc6 and then departed entirely with 11… a5.

GM Yasser Seirawan\'s Winning Chess Strategies

John took full advantage, pressing him with solid positional play before Praggu blundered then wilted in the endgame. It was another impressive win for John at the tournament.

John now needs 6.5/9 to secure his second GM norm. Praggu, unfortunately, is now out of the running for a norm in this tournament, but has the Gibraltar Masters to look forward to.

Here is the game:

[Event "Winter 2018 CCCSA GM/IM Norm Invitational"] [Site "?"] [Date "2018.01.11"] [Round "5"] [White "IM JOHN BARTHOLOMEW (2459)"] [Black "IM PRAGGNANANDHAA RAMESHBABU (2515)"] [Result "1-0 (white won)"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Bd2 O-O 6. a3 Bxc3 7. Bxc3 d6 8. g3 Qe7 9. Bg2 e5 10. d5 Nb8 11. Nd2 a5 12. b4 Nbd7 13. O-O axb4 14. axb4 Rxa1 15. Qxa1 b5 16. e4 bxc4 17. Nxc4 Nb6 18. Nxb6 cxb6 19. Bd2 Qb7 20. Qa3 Bd7 21. Ra1 Rc8 22. Qa6 Qxa6 23. Rxa6 Rc2 24. Be3 Rb2 25. Rxb6 Kf8 26. h3 Rb1+ 27. Kh2 Ke7 28. Bg5 h6 29. Bxf6+ gxf6 30. g4 Bc8 31. Bf3 Rb2 32. Kg3 Rb3 33. Kg2 Ra3 34. Be2 Ra2 35. Bf3 Ra8 36. Be2 Ra2 37. Bf1 Ra1 38. Rc6 Bd7 39. Rb6 Bc8 40. Bb5 Rb1 41. Bc6 Kd8 42. Ba4 Ke7 43. Rb8 Kd8 44. Bc6 Kc7 45. Ra8 Rxb4 46. f3 Rb2+ 47. Kg3 Rb3 48. Ra7+ Kb6 49. Rxf7 h5 50. Rxf6 hxg4 51. hxg4 Kc5 52. g5 Rb1 53. g6 Rg1+ 54. Kf2 Rg5 55. Be8 Bh3 56. Ke3 Bf1 57. f4 exf4+ 58. Rxf4 Bh3 59. Rh4 Bc8 60. Rh7 1-0 your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard; alternatively your wordpress theme might suppress the html iframe tag from articles or excerpts

After the game, John said: “I’m very happy with this game, I think it was my best game of the tournament. A pretty smooth, strategic win.

“Every game is tough, you can’t expect to enter a tournament like this and beat up on anyone really… I’ll do my best with my remaining games here.

“It’s just cool to play a guy like Praggnanandhaa, he’s a fantastic player and 12 years old just to see the focus he has is incredible. I think this time next year he could be 2600.”

Time for @fins0905 to finish strong! Good luck on the final day — Eric Hansen (@hansenchess) January 15, 2018

John is currently leading the pack in Charlotte with 5/7, and needs 1.5 from his remaining two games today. But he has two tough games – against GM Denis Schmeliov (2420) and in the afternoon IM David Brodsky (2405).

If you want to cheer him on, the Charlotte page is here.

And if you haven’t already, check out John Bartholomew’s 1.d4 Repertoire for White – we think it is one of the best chess books on this site – it is rated 5-stars by our users, and it is free.

Leon is a national newspaper journalist from London, England. He is an avid chess fan, and writes regularly about the game. Apart from chess, he loves cricket, Tottenham Hotspur FC and spending time with his son.