Chess World Cup: Third win on the trot for Arjun

bombay: Among the vainglorious trio from this young, dominant multiplication of Indian chess players, Arjun Erigaisi was the only one to miss out on qualifying for the 2024 edition of the Candidates Tournament - the pathway to the World Championships. That was a miss that took a toll on him.

“That was very tough for me,” he had said to Chessbase India. “The first few days of January (2024) were very hard on me.”

But the 22-year-old from Warangal moved on. He became the highest ranked Indian player, moving to the world No.4 spot. And now at the Chess World Cup in Goa, where three spots for the 2026 Candidates are up for grabs, Erigaisi has shown his intent.

As the second seed, Erigaisi received a bye from the first round. He then went on to win both his matches in the second round against Bulgarian GM Martin Petrov. And on Friday, Erigaisi made it three wins in three matches, using the white pieces to register a 30-move win over Uzbeki GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov.

At the last edition of the World Cup, in 2023, Erigaisi lost in the quarter-final to compatriot and eventual runner-up R Praggnanandhaa. This time though, he has made a quick and telling start to his campaign.

Erigaisi however, was not the only Indian to pick up a win on Friday.

Arguably even more clinical on the day was veteran Pentala Harikrishna. The 39-year-old GM from Guntur took 25 moves while using the white to beat Belgium’s Daniel Dardha.

“I had prepared something new,” Harikrishna said after the match. “Of course there was help for me but I could not recall all the moves in this variation. But there were some nice tricks that happened and some moves my opponent missed. Basically, he didn’t realise the danger properly in the game.”

While Erigaisi and Harikrishna won early, Pranav V played a match that lasted nearly six hours to get the point.

The reigning junior world champion, while using white pieces, was locked in a match against Lithuanian GM Titas Stremavicius that lasted 102 moves before the Indian managed to secure the win.

Among the top contenders for the event, top seed and reigning world champion Gukesh D and third seed Praggnanandhaa were both held to draws. Both players however, were using black pieces as they shared the spoils from Day 1 of the third round against Germany’s Frederik Svane and Armenia’s Robert Hovhannisyan respectively.

There are 10 Indians still active at the World Cup from the 24 that had begun the 206-strong competition last week. On Friday though, no home-player lost.

Pranesh M was rather impressive. Using the black pieces, he held off sixth seed Vincent Keymer of Germany before ending the match in a draw. Diptayan Ghosh, who picked up the biggest upset of the World Cup so far, when he beat former world No.2 and two-time Candidates winner Ian Nepomniachtchi in the second round, drew against Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia on Friday.

Also playing out draws were Vidit Gujrathi (black pieces, against USA’s Sam Shankland), Karthik Venkataraman (white pieces against Deac Bodgan-Daniel of Romania) and Narayan S (white pieces against China’s Yu Yangyi).

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