Arjun Erigaisi enters the world top 10!

Since achieving the Grandmaster title in 2018, Arjun (https://lichess.org/@/Inventing_Invention) has been in the midst of an enormous pack of talented Indian players. He was the 54th Grandmaster from India, and in a little over 5 years, 30 more players have achieved the title from his country. Still, Arjun has been thriving, and he is currently #1 in India, and top 10 in the world. I thought this would be a good time to review some of his major competitive victories and some details of his story. Arjun has been my favorite young player for quite a while now. He is cool under pressure, an incredible calculator, and his chess is very well rounded. Chessbase India described him as 'composed but ruthless'.

Arjun learned chess as a youth in Hyberabad, India, where he was coached by Narahari Ramaraju. He performed well in many small tournaments in his area, and began to face stronger opponents at tournaments in Russia and Dubai. Before long he was already considered one of the top talents of his region of Telangana. He won a silver medal in the 2015 Asian Youth Championship, and also competed in the World Junior Championship

Arjun’s first major tournament victory against world class opponents was at the Tata Steel Rapid tournament at Kolkata, India, in November 2021. He finished 6.5/10 and defeated Levon Aronian in the final. He had recently started working with legendary coach Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Kasimdzhanov had also been Anand’s second, and Anand was on site for Arjun’s victory. The former world champion commented on Arjun's skills, saying, ‘his calculation is simply superlative’.

Erigaisi's 2021 Tata Steel Rapid - https://lichess.org/study/Wc9C4Gq1/

In January 2022, Arjun won the Tata Steel Challengers tournament with 10.5/13 , which qualified him for the 2023 Tata Steel Masters. For this tournament he was working with his long term coach, Srinath Narayanan. After Arjun’s victory, Srinath revealed that in the past, Arjun was intimidated by strong players, but that was over now. Arjun had achieved a goal he had set for himself - winning the tournament by 2 points!

Erigaisi's 2022 Tata Steel Challengers - https://lichess.org/study/PLb5UxBT/

In March 2022, at age 18, Arjun won one of his sweetest victories, the Indian National Championship, scoring 8.5/11 and defeating D Gukesh and Iniyan P in tiebreaks. After the win, Arjun mentioned he was also helping the winner of the women’s National Championship, Divya Deshmukh. He further commented that he was still working with Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Erigaisi's 2022 India National Championship - https://lichess.org/study/QrFRLrwc/

Later in the same month, Arjun once again defeated his rival D Gukesh and won the Delhi Open, scoring 8.5/11. He didn’t even plan to play the event, it was a last minute addition after losing rating at a tournament in Bangladesh after his National Championship victory. He described his performance as ‘a redemption’.

Erigaisi's 19th Delhi Open - https://lichess.org/study/AIuDFVuA/

The next month, April 2022, Arjun won the first leg of the MPL Indian Chess Tour, an online event, scoring 11/15. It was his fourth individual tournament win of the year, and he mentioned that one of the big reasons for his success was deciding to focus solely on chess after the 2021 World Rapid and Blitz, ending his educational pursuits. After being questioned about his thoughts on not having a sponsor, despite his success, he commented that ‘it’s not about money right now’.

Erigaisi's 2022 MPL India Chess Tour (first leg) - https://lichess.org/study/W8M5M2En/

Arjun won the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival unbeaten, scoring 7.5/9 with a 2893 performance rating. With his win, Arjun secured the coveted 2700 rating necessary for Super GM status. When I watched the tournament feed, it was the first time I saw a characteristic that Arjun is famous for, looking away from the board when calculating. It must be quite disconcerting for his opponents.

Erigaisi's 2022 Abu Dhabi Masters - https://lichess.org/study/d2IrVuAO/

In November 2022, Arjun and his rival D Gukesh were selected for Chessbase India’s Deathmatch 2.0. The competition included elements such as blindfold chess, 960 chess, no castle chess, ritz (7+2) and the more standard blitz and bullet. Arjun played well, took the lead early, and never let go.

Erigaisi's Chessbase India Deathmatch 2.0 - https://lichess.org/study/NVs5EWTE/

In December 2022, Arjun won the Tata Steel Blitz tournament, scoring 12.5/18. Arjun twice took down Hikaru Nakamura in the tournament and won with a round to spare. Not long after his victory, he finally earned a well deserved sponsorship by the stock trading firm Quantbox Research.

Erigaisi's Tata Steel Blitz 2022 - https://lichess.org/study/r0dQwlea/

In May of 2023, Arjun scored his only tournament victory of the year at the Sharjah Masters. He started slow at 2/4 but finished on top with 6.5/10. He mentioned he had taken a break after his successes in 2022 and had hoped he would come back strong, but that it hadn’t quite worked out that way. Despite his troubles, he was still over 2700 after his win.

Erigaisi's 2023 Sharjah Masters - https://lichess.org/study/uWhK7tod/

So I hope you enjoyed checking out some of Arjun’s games and history. Personally, I am hoping he continues to climb the top 10 and someday lives up to his old chess24 account name “future_world_champ”!