GothamChess and Pragg Finally Meet in Exclusive Interview!

I'm Levy Rosman and right now I'm joined by Prague Prague first of all very nice to meet you yeah nice to meet you finally I feel like I've covered so many of your games and read so many stories about you 2747 official rating number 14 in the world I believe at the moment first candidates what are the emotions right now I'm just excited uh for the event you know I've watched uh many candidates and yeah it feels uh great to be playing here in one of them is there anything you can learn from some of the maybe previous let's say the most recent one the story of fuja right there's so many eyes so much pressure or some previous is there anything you can learn from some of the previous editions uh going into this one yeah first of all it's a long event things can change a lot in the second half of half of the event so yeah you have to stay alert uh for your chances and if they come you just have to grab them I want to just start off by addressing a an elephant in the room which is is uh let's say the photo of you at the airport coming back from it was the Olympia or it was um World Cup yeah World Cup it was the the photo where uh as a spectator of the game it's completely fascinating like it looks like you can't move like the car cannot drive forward because there are so many people right like how has it been for you after the World Cup qualifying the wins against Magnus all the publicity what's that been like for you to handle yeah it's something new it kind of started from 2022 and then I think World Cup kind of uh made it bigger yeah people do recognize me a lot nowadays and I I see it as uh a good thing for the game um new people coming into the game for me personally I'm just focusing on on my chest and working hard uh towards that so it doesn't um put me under any pressure as of now maybe it will change in the future but for now I'm yeah I'm just doing uh what I do normally I guess last question on sort of the subject of uh let's call it attention not from the public necessarily but from in this case Magnus himself like it's pretty rare to get on interview or at least on footage so much support from the world champion okay he's technically not the world champion but he's the best in the world and there's a clip of him congratulating you at the World Cup which a lot of people make a big story out of it and it looks very very cool but it's it must be a little bit deeper than that for you it must be just kind of a respect for your game like respect as a competitor and um has it affected you in any way has it sort of like just made you go back to you know working as hard as possible and realizing like you really could be the next World Champion yeah it feels good um when when the best player kind of acknowledges you and yeah whenever we have played we always had exciting games I think that's something that Magnus has himself said in some interviews I've only had few moments to discuss some CH with him but I've thoroughly enjoyed all of them uh to get to know his thought process and yeah it's always fascinating to hear from him talk to me a little bit about Waka like I know about Waka I know and and I'm sure the Indian audience does as well but uh how important is that for just Improvement for support and really what is it for somebody that doesn't know yeah so Waka is West Bridge arest Academy West Bridge is a company and an and Sir they together started this thing and I'm one of the student there and four coaches there um b girlan sir sand aruru and gski Al s um take some sessions uh sometimes it's more than that just being in touch uh with Anan sir um you know discussing lot of stuff uh starting from you know technical chest stuff so mentally you know physically how to being ship and there are many small small questions regarding the candidates you know how to build a team and how to manage all these stuff and always in touch with him yeah truly grateful to be in this uh to be in this initiative and learning a lot from Baka it started in um during the pandemic and especially at that time it was very important U because we had this group with um other other angers like Gish uh Nial aun and we had this group every week we would have like three three sessions together and it's always fun basically at that point you don't have much to do and then in these sessions are all always like competitive and you know fun and yeah I really enjoyed uh enjoyed them I'm very fascinated by the way with this whole group of of young players from India uh like yourself gash like you mentioned Arjun but it is interesting because chess is an individual sport at the end of the day of course there's the Olympiad there's these team events but you're all around the same age which me and you're all the bright stars of one nation so is it difficult to have that you know that balance of well we're kind of teammates at certain events and we can help each other get better but like it's kill or be killed like we're at the candidates there's no teammates here right like one of us can win and one of us will it's first or last basically in the candidate so is that difficult like a little bit of a difficult balance to strike never felt uh difficult to adjust um you know we are as I've said in previous interviews we are friends of the board and uh on the board we fight in team events let's say we obviously we'll help each other also we it's not that we reveal everything in team events is so something that we if it's very important we do share with each other and but most of the time we play individual um individually yeah so it's it's not like we share our opening ideas is just if there is some position in front of us we will discuss about it but yeah that's about it like we just play our games when we meet Prague you're obviously you you love chess and you're obviously very good at it but is there something in your life that you love to do but are very bad oh there are many do love to play sports other sports yeah to play a badon okay uh cricket sometimes it's not the usual one but T tennis and recently I tried uh volleyball wow okay yeah I feel like that would work well cuz you're pretty tall I started playing very recently so I mean I'm still horrible at it but I'm learning it must be a bit weird to be incredible at something but then start something and be a complete beginner or do you enjoy it I do enjoy it uh I think it's much more fun when you play uh s h in some other sport than and you know playing playing like a master yeah because it's much more pressure there because you feel like you're good at it and you want to show it but there okay you don't care even if you lose all the games it's just you're playing it for fun I guess the uh the last fun question I have for you is uh if you could eat a food for the rest of your life same food what would it be oh definitely Indian uh Indian Cuisine uh if I have to pick one so I'm from the south of India and from my play uh DOA is famous uh so that's something that yeah I can definitely eat for my my life I had my first Dosa yesterday Saga and there was a place here in you like it yeah it was amazing I don't know if it was cuz you know maybe it's not the proper one but still I was just going to say like you know in the states and in UK I know there's like chicken tick Masala this is like the most popular dish and it's not really like they say it's not really Indian and I don't know but it it it felt yeah probably this one it's easier to make it similar to the similar to like proper uh stuff because it's doesn't require too much uh variety stuff so I guess it's closer any uh final words to the to the fans watching back home yeah just uh follow the candidates and um keep rooting for all of us and yeah we mostly prog yeah but yeah in general we are we probably have a lot of fighting games so yeah just enjoy the games frog thank you so much for the time all the best in the tournament yeah thank you

Channel: Chess.com

Views: 236,218

Keywords: chess, checkmate, chess videos, chess.com, chess content, best chess players, chess games, gothamchess, gotham, gothamchess pragg, pragg interview

Id: rTNuaXc0cOM

Length: 8min 51sec (531 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2024