HYDERABAD: It was no surprise for Arjun Erigaisi to witness his teammate and friend D Gukesh become a world champion. The India No 1 had predicted the recent World Chess Championship to be a one-sided event in favour of Gukesh while speaking to TNIE.
Speaking to TNIE from Doha, where he was participating in the Qatar Masters (finished in a tie for second place), Erigaisi said, "Gukesh's achievement is massive and I am very happy for him. The result was not a surprise in any way but it was a pleasant surprise to see it happen today (Thursday) as it looked like it was going to head into playoffs."
The Qatar Masters outcome means that GM Fabiano Caruana still maintains a narrow lead over him in the 2024 FIDE Circuit, the leader of which will qualify for the 2026 Candidates event. As per a social media chess tracker handle 'Chess Numbers India,' Ergaisi needs to win the World Rapid Championship or tie at most with three players and win on tie breaks to overtake Caruana in the FIDE circuit.
However, the Telangana chess prodigy believes that it is still "very early" to think about that now while stressing upon celebrating Gukesh's historic achievement. "I think we should all just enjoy Gukesh's victory for now."
At the start of the year, Erigaisi’s FIDE live ratings were near 2740 but as the year progressed, the Warangal chess prodigy officially crossed the 2800 mark in FIDE's December rating list. The 21-year-old is now the second Indian after former world champion Viswanathan Anand to officially go past the rating barrier.
In October this year, where Erigaisi defeated Russian GM Dmitry Andreikin in round five of European Club Cup (Serbia), he reached 2802.1 by live rating, becoming 16th player in the history to be part of the rare club.
During an interaction with TNIE before the Qatar Masters, Erigaisi said,"When it happened (crossing 2800 by live rating), I was happy because I won my game and I knew before this would happen if I win the game but I did not care much about it and it was an important match for the team. But unfortunately, our team lost the game that we supposed would end in a draw. But it still matters a lot and feels nice that I am in this list with the absolute top players of Kasparov (Garry), Carlsen (Magnus), Anand sir. It feels good to join them. In less than a year, I made a gain of 60 points."
He views 2024 as a "huge moment", especially winning the coveted Olympiad title, including an individual gold. He also earned victories at the Menorca Open A, the Stepan Avagyan Memorial, and the WR Chess Masters Cup in London.
"When I began the year, I was at 2738 (live rating) and now I reached 2800, so that's a big rating game and winning gold at the Olympiad, both in team and individual events was a huge moment. Also, winning the WR Masters Cup was very good as it was one of few invitational tourneys where I played against a strong line-up of Abdusattorov (Nodirbek), Alireza (Firouzja), Pragg (R Praggnanandhaa) and Anand sir," he recalled.
The World No 4 will be among the five Indians who will be featuring in the World Rapid & Blitz Championship to be held in New York from December 26 to 31. Erigaisi believes that ratings in chess are unpredictable and keeps on fluctuating. "It is possible (Gukesh being the next Indian to cross 2800) but you cannot say these things for sure. For instance, he was 2796 in live ratings but he had a few bad games after that and his ratings went down. At the start of the year, Pragg was higher-rated than both of us but it changed as the year passed. So these things keep fluctuating and anything can happen," Erigaisi said.
One of the standout moments for the 21-year-old was beating Carlsen, who is considered the greatest chess player of this generation (and all-time by many).
The Norwegian champ was defeated by Erigaisi in just under six minutes and with a mere 20 moves on the board in a blitz game. This was Carlsen's first defeat in 17 games across the rapid and blitz formats at the Tata Steel Chess India tournament, Kolkata.
"My preparation was already in a complicated situation. By move 12, it was already a big mess and there was not much time to think. He (Carlsen) made a move which made sense if not for the technical blunder. At first, I also did not spot it as I was going through other moves but then I noticed this. Usually, he would have resisted better and it would not have been that easy because he is excellent at defense in the worst positions. But I think the fact that he was losing a piece on move 12 with white, it just tilted him and he did not resist so well," explained Erigaisi.
While Erigaisi has many other highs this year, he has also endured a few setbacks. Chennai Grandmasters, which was won by Aravindh Chithambaram, was once such occasion. Aravindh defeated Erigaisi en route to the title.
"I just made bad errors and he (Arvanidh) capitalised on it quite well and never gave me a chance. The whole tournament my quality was not great.I do feel disappointed about the way it ended ( was leading and finished third) but considering my quality of play I should be happy with whatever game I won, game with Amin (Tabatabaei) and Vidit (Gujarathi)."
While there is only a single round of classical in a day, Erigaisi was forced to play two (both finals against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave ) in a day in the WR Chess Masters Cup, London in October. The two games ended in a draw and Erigaisi ultimately won in the Armageddon, which was played the next day. He added that albeit he did find two classical games exhausting in a day, he would prefer only a single game a day.
"It was a unique experience because the last time it happened, it must have been long ago. Almost all the tournaments have a single round a day but this time I really enjoyed it as time control was very interesting (60 mins for the first 30 moves). Overall, the game could take up to four hours max to finish and it was like a few mini-rapid games, you can say, in the same game. Even for spectators it would have been very exciting because generally the excitement starts in the second or third hour but in this format, there is excitement from the start," he said.
Just like many others, Erigaisi is impressed by three-year-old Anish Sarkar, who in November became the world's youngest-rated chess player with FIDE ratings 1555 after playing against five rated players. "When I got to know this, I was very impressed because when I was three I didn't even know what chess is — I heard the rating was actually 1550 and my starting rating was somewhere in the 1500s. My sister recently showed one of his videos where he had displayed incredible not only his chess skills but the way he was speaking was very impressive," he said.
Erigaisi believes there is a good chance that Sarkar would become the youngest GM in the world and break records by a big margin. "When such things happen, it is always good for the sport," he observed.