Indian grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa crushed world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen for the first time in classical format to emerge as the sole leader in the Norway chess tournament here.

Having beaten him a few times in online and faster versions of the game and after losing to him in the finale of the last World Cup, Praggu finally got past the home favourite in what would be known as a clear classical triumph.

Following the third-round win, the 18-year-old Indian now leads the men’s section with 5.5 points in all, half a point clear of US grandmaster Fabiano Caruana who scored his first victory in classical against reigning world champion Ding Liren of China.

Carlsen, on three points, looks like a distant third for now in the updated standings but with each classical win worth three points, this might not hold for too long.

Hikaru Nakamura of the US, Firouzja Alireza of France and Liren are all joint fourth currently on 2.5 points in the six-player double round-robin contest.

“I wish Magnus would take similar risks against us old folks,” said Nakamura on Carlsen’s choice of playing a risky battle against Praggnanandhaa.

Classical chess allows players a significant amount of time to make their moves, usually at least one hour. Carlsen and Praggnanandhaa had drawn their previous three encounters in this format.

In the women’s event, Praggnanandhaa’s elder sister Rameshbabu Vaishali maintained her sole lead after getting past Anna Muzychuk of Norway in the Armageddon game after drawing the Classical. Vaishali inched up to 5.5 points too and enjoys a full-point lead over women’s world champion Wenjun Ju of China who is sole second by a half-point margin over compatriot Tingjie Lei.

Muzychuk, Pia Cramling of Sweden and Koneru Humpy share the fourth spot on three points each.

It was a Sicilian-Kann, an opening that does not find many favours in the elite chess circles, wherein Praggnanandhaa got an advantage through better space control right from the beginning.

The middle game saw Magnus’ king stuck in the centre and the Indian super-talent capitalised with some deft manoeuvres after the minor pieces were off the board.

Carlsen called Praggnanandhaa’s 10th move — pushing the pawn to h3 — as a “waste of a move”.

“Obviously, a pretty risky opening choice. I think his move 10.h3, though, was a little bit soft. He thought about it for a long time there. I guess he was calculating f4 and queen c5. I don’t really think that’s worse for black. So that was a little bit of a waste of a move. Apart from that, sometimes h3 can be used for rooks and queens for attacks. I wasn’t overly impressed with that one,” Carlsen said in the middle of the game.

Eventually, the King’s vulnerability came to question as Praggnanandhaa posed some dangerous checkmate threats. The game lasted just 37 moves.

Caruana outclassed Liren out of an Italian opening game. Launching the offensive on the King side the American, who had lost the first two rounds under Armageddon, sacrificed two minor pieces for a rook to rip apart black’s King side and another exchange sacrifice soon sealed the game in his favour.

In the other game of the day, Nakamura proved superior as white against Alireza in the $1,60,000 prize money event.