Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

Thank you, Kent, for the nice introduction and also for your kind words.

So my approach to opening changed over the years, like when I was much younger, then the journey with Anand, and then now also training at different levels, like whether it's a 1400 player or I'm training someone like Vidit or Praag or, you know, like all top Indian players.

So it's completely different aspect.

When it comes to opening, I feel...

So what is the point of doing this? So that's the short answer.

Now, the longer answer is actually, I do not think there has to be a one system for different players.

What Praag is lacking, Vidit might not lack.

What Anand needs, Magnus might not need that.

Mm.

When it comes to India, it's very hard to say because again, it's, it's based on, like Pragg has been doing great recently, great form for sure, uh, but Gukesh has not.

I mean, his form hasn't been there, but that can change any moment.

Arjun, I think has been in good, good form, but I haven't seen him play for half-

Uh, except for the 2025 Vaikunth event, his first event after becoming world champion.

He did quite well there.

Um, although he lost to Prague in the tie break, but still, it was a good event.

Since then, [coughs] it has been a series of disappointing events for him, undoubtedly.

It was Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Hans Niemann, Levon Aronian, Wanda Liang, who played very, very well on board five.

Team India, which had Gukesh on board for it, had Prague, it had Arjun, it had Nihal, it had Vidit.

Nihal probably didn't have the tournaments he would have liked, and I don't think Prague and Arjun necessarily won as many games as they would have liked.

Considering Origins got the kind of reputation of being a very good player, beating 25, 26 hundreds.

Maybe not quite the performance that they would have been hoping for.