After the eighth round of the Tata Steel chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands, D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa are among the three joint leaders with 5.5 points each. There is nothing unexpected about it because these Indian players are in the elite of the world.
The surprise lies at the bottom of the table. Having started the year’s first top competition as World No. 4, Arjun Erigaisi is winless. With four draws and as many defeats, he has just two points. The top-rated Indian languishing at last in the 14-player field is something that nobody saw coming. He has drawn and lost against the kind of opponents he was crushing at will last year.
Arjun’s former coach and Grandmaster N Srinath is surprised to see some chinks in his game, but not totally taken aback by the turn of events. “He (Arjun) plays a high-risk game. When it comes off, it looks spectacular. Sometimes, it can go askew,” Srinath told RevSportz.
“His general playing style is like that. There can be sharp ups and downs. There is no one particular reason. In the past also, there were phases when things didn’t go well, and he stabilised after that. He’s a bit off-form at the moment. I think this is temporary,” noted Srinath, who was the coach of the gold-winning Indian men’s team at the Chess Olympiad in 2024.
He felt that in the fourth-round defeat against Vladimir Fedoseev, Arjun made a blunder. “In general, his opening preparations have not been what you expect of him… I am a little bit surprised the way things have happened, but considering the nature of his game, these things can’t be ruled out,” said Srinath, who worked with Arjun as a mentor first from 2018 and then a full-time coach until 2023.
For the Latest Sports News: Click Here
Not a regular in elite events like Gukesh or Praggnanandhaa, the 21-year-old had been ruthless against players rated below 2700 at the Olympiad in Budapest last September. That’s why he was fielded on the third board despite his superior rating. In the Tata Steel event, there are five players below 2700. Arjun has played against four of them and lost twice. The defeat against No. 82 Max Warmerdam of the host nation in Round 7 has easily been the upset of the tournament so far.
Performance can plateau sometimes after a sharp rise and even dip. But Arjun’s graph has plummeted as spectacularly as it had risen in a short span of time. Star performer at the Olympiad, who became only the 15th player in history to cross the 2800 mark in Elo ratings, his task will only get tougher in the last five rounds. There is no respite in an event of this quality.
After a rest day on Monday, Arjun faces defending champion and Chinese World No. 9 Wei Yi. In the last two rounds, he will take on world champion Gukesh and Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov, the other joint-leader and World No. 6. He will play with black pieces in three of these five games.
“It can be an agonising and torturous experience,” said Srinath when asked how a player feels during a sudden slump and such a horror one. “And it’s difficult to recover during the tournament. The best way to deal with this is to switch off and restart after a while. That’s not possible on one rest day… The mind keeps asking for solutions. He needs time off the game for mental clarity. He will figure out what is going on.”
Also Read: ‘Behind schedule’ Pakistan worries ICC days ahead of Champions Trophy