If I ask you to name the current India number 1 in chess who is also world number 4 who would you say that person is? Chances are you’re going to say Vishwanathan Anand or, if you’ve followed the news, you’d say that Tamilian kid who beat Magnus…Praggnanandha or at max, you’d say Gukesh the world champion challenger! These would be excellent guesses but unfortunately, you’d be wrong. The current India no. 1 and World no. 4 is GM Arjun Erigaisi. Arjun is not a household name like the ones I mentioned above, but he will soon be just that. Read on to know why. Arjun is 20 years old and hails from Warangal a town 2 hours drive from the Telangana capital city of Hyderabad. He does not come from a state which supports chess like its neighbour Tamil Nadu yet is in this position through his sheer will and the support of his family, coaches and team. Having obtained the title of a GM at the age of 14 thereafter Arjun immediately turned pro. After multiple years of struggle, Arjun reached a current rating of 2778 which is the second-highest rating ever achieved in chess after Anand. The reason I mentioned that Arjun is going to be a household name very soon is because of what he's achieved in the last 6 years, especially in the last 6 months. To explain what he's done in the last 6 months I'll need to give a brief background of how chess functions at the top. At the top of this sport are players like Magnus, Hikaru, Caruana, Anand, Pragg, Gukesh, Noderbek, Vidit and more. Now there are 2 types of tournaments in chess 1. Open 2. Invitational. Open tournaments are where anyone can participate as long as they fit the criteria as decided by the organisers. Now in the invitationals only invited players can participate. The top players only play when they are invited. This is because invitations come with conditions such as a good appearance fee and a very high prize money. The open tournaments are not able to provide this and thus top players avoid playing them. There is another risk in an open tournament for top players and that is they can lose their rating very rapidly. The rating of a chess player is calculated based on many factors such as win/loss/draw, black/white, opponent rating and so on. Now in an open tournament since anybody is welcome to participate the top players end up getting paired with lower-rated players. Even a draw against a lower-rated player means a major loss in rating points for the top players and a loss means a major downfall in rating. A win on the other hand doesn't give much gains for the top player. On the other hand, the lower-rated player with a draw gains a lot of rating from the top players. Thus an open event has a lot of downside and very little upside for the top players. This is the reason they avoid the open tournaments and wait for invitations. Since India is on a chess boom and there are many top players from India there are only so many Indians who are going to get invited and Arjun missed out.
Congratulations Arjun on reaching India No. 1 and World No. 4 in Chess! https://lnkd.in/dAMA7ige
amar wadhwa
5mo
It has been an amazing run for Arjun. He is quite fearless in the way he plays.
Sameer Pathak
5mo
Very helpful!
Good point!
Co-Founder at MGD1
5moArjun instead of sitting and sulking decided to climb the mountain from the steeper side. He played in opens and rose above. Opens which had more downside than upside. In the last 6 months, he played 70 games, with 41 wins, 27 draws and just 2 losses and gained close to 41 rating points. He did something that top players thought was impossible. With this, he reached India no. 1 and World no. 4! We at MGD1 are proud to be managing Arjun whose belief, grit, perseverance and love for the sport make it an exciting ride!