Atreyo Mukhopadhyay in Goa
He strides around the playing arena and the adjoining places like a colossus. Not huge in physical stature, but he is massive by his standing in the chess world at the age of 21. Only the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand and 14th in history to have crossed the 2800 ELO rating mark, Arjun Erigaisi is a star and the country’s biggest hope in the FIDE World Cup.
In the second game in the fifth round of the competition today, he takes on Levon Aronian of the USA after a draw yesterday. Experts thought he had a minuscule edge, which was not significant and he was unable to convert that into victory with white pieces. He was never in trouble though, which augurs well for him in the return game.
Truth be told, Erigaisi has seldom been in strife in this competition. He got a bye into the second round as one of the 50 top-rated players in the field of 206. He posted three straight wins and drew the fourth when he didn’t have to push for anything. The last three classical games he played ended in draws. In between, he defeated Peter Leko of Hungary in the tie-breaker to advance to this stage.
What does it mean? Is he one of the favourites? The official FIDE media release after his first game against Aronian said that this was a contest between two “potential finalists”. That won’t happen because one of them will be out after this round. But the player from Andhra Pradesh has lived up to his billing as the highest-rated player in this event.
He missed out on a berth to the Candidates through the FIDE Circuit 2024 route after finishing second behind Fabiano Caruana of the USA. This is his only chance to make it to the elite, eight-player competition, by finishing in the top three at the World Cup. He is still to be there and there is a gap between the cup and the lip.
That doesn’t suppress the fact that Erigaisi is looking well and truly menacing. He has not just won but dominated opponents. When on song, he can crush them and that’s what he did in the first few games. Against Leko and Aronian in the first game, that didn’t happen and that was expected. They are venerated rivals who won’t go down easily. Aronian, in fact, is one of the most in-form players at the moment.
Having said that, Erigaisi still remains the favourite. The gap is thin, but it exists. He didn’t make it to the Candidates last time when D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi qualified. This is something that Erigaisi wants to set right. He doesn’t say it, but it’s clear that this is top of his bucket list at the moment. With a bit of luck and pluck, who knows what’s in store this time?
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