Exclusive | 'Freestyle Chess definitely future of sport, but not in next 10 years': Arjun Erigaisi

The inaugural Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour got underway earlier this month with the first of five events taking place at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort located on Germany’s Baltic coast. And it wasn’t just the Chess960 format that turned out to be unpredictable, with the starting positions on the board revealed just 15 minutes before a game.

The spotlight was fixed on the trio of Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Gukesh Dommaraju – who occupy the top three spots in the FIDE ratings – before the start of the Weissenhaus event. And in the end, it was a relatively unfancied Vincent Keymer, the home favourite, who took home the winner's trophy along with a cash prize of US$200,000.

Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi will be making his Freestyle Tour debut in Paris in April, where he will be competing alongside compatriots Gukesh – who had a forgettable run in Weissenhaus – and R Praggnanandhaa.

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‘Can’t wait to make my Freestyle debut in Paris’

In an exclusive conversation with Firstpost, Arjun looked forward to showcasing his skills in a format that is vastly different from what he has been used to so far in his career. He also shared his thoughts on whether Freestyle Chess will eventually overtake Classical Chess in terms of popularity and become the sport’s primary format – a notion that world No 1 Carlsen has been propagating for quite some time now and is ready to go to war with FIDE over.

“Yeah, I do think it’s definitely the future of the sport. Not the immediate near future but for the next-to-next generation, or maybe a century later, at some point in the future. But probably it won’t happen in the next 10 years.

“But still, I’m happy that there’s this Freestyle Grand Slam Tour, which happens across all continents. And it’s definitely a big project with the intention of making Freestyle more popular. I’m very happy about that and I can’t wait to make my debut in April in Paris,” said Arjun, who is set to represent Gen G in the ESports World Cup in Riyadh later this year.

For Arjun, the Freestyle Chess event in Paris will be an opportunity for him to bounce back after a disappointing start to the year. Though he had defeated Carlsen as well as world No 4 Fabiano Caruana in an online event in January, Arjun would endure a disappointing run in the 87th Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.

Arjun finished 10th out of 14 competitors – five of whom were Indian – in the ‘Masters’ section of the prestigious tournament. What was worse was the fact that he failed to win a single game in the first 11 rounds, losing four of those games including against Praggnanandhaa.

He did sign off on a high by defeating Uzbekistani GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Gukesh in the last two rounds, denying the latter the chance to be crowned champion by finishing on top of the standings. For Arjun, however, the two wins at the end did not matter much other than making a “horrible tournament” slightly better.

“A good finish definitely makes a horrible tournament slightly better, but that doesn’t mean it makes it a good one. It’s still a pretty bad tournament. And I have many learnings from it and I’ll work on them and try to improve on them. The first half of the tournament was just very tough,” Arjun added.

‘Simply the best year we have had for chess’

Indian chess experienced arguably its greatest year ever in 2024 with the ‘Golden Generation’ – comprising the trio of Gukesh, Arjun and Praggnanandhaa among others – firing as a unit and reaping rewards in the form of extraordinary achievements.

From Gukesh becoming the youngest world champion as well as the youngest winner in the history of the Candidates Tournament to India making history in the Chess Olympiad by winning gold in the Open as well as Women’s sections.

The year also witnessed Koneru Humpy become only the second female player to be crowned world rapid champion and Arjun Erigaisi join the legendary Viswanathan Anand as the only Indians to achieve an ELO rating of 2800.

According to Arjun, pulling off even one of these achievements would have made the year a special one for Indian chess, and for all of them to happen in a span of 365 days is something that few would have dreamed of.

“I think it’s simply the best year we have had for chess. Firstly, Gukesh winning the Candidates. Firstly, three Indians being in Candidates in men and two in women. And one of them winning the Candidates. And then later winning the match (vs Ding Liren) and becoming the youngest world champion.

“And also both the men and women Indian teams winning gold at the Olympiad. Then Humpy winning world rapid towards the end of the year. So like all this is very tough even if they were to happen in like different years and now they all happen in the same year. So yeah it’s clearly the best,” Arjun said.

Arjun had played an important role in a couple of those extraordinary events, including the 45th Olympiad in Budapest, where he was the only one from the Indian ‘Open’ team to participate in all of the rounds and had also won gold on board 3.

Arjun reflects on camaraderie in historic Olympiad campaign

Reminiscing the historic Olympiad campaign in the Hungarian capital , Arjun spoke on the friendly camaraderie that existed between him, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, as well as senior Grandmasters Vidit Gujrathi and Pentala Harikrishna and non-playing captain Srinath Narayanan.

“We all shared a very friendly camaraderie. We used to like share the positive moments after the game, like at the end of the day. And before the start of the event itself, we made this decision that we won’t talk about the negative moments because we don’t want negative vibes.

“And, but fortunately, like there was no negative moments to even talk about, so that’s just the best scenario,” Arjun said.

Any mention of the ‘Golden Generation’ of Indian chess, however, would be incomplete without giving due credit to the legendary Anand – India’s first Grandmaster who also happens to be a five-time world champion, a former world No 1 and the man widely credited for shaping the current stars.

“Not just me Gukesh, Pragg, but most people from our generation in India, whenever we start chess, that’s the first name that we hear. And we feel like we want to become like him, and we pick up the sport. And some of us want to become very big, some of us to an extent, and so on.

“He definitely has an influence on a whole generation. At some point, we played some training games as well, and he was really helpful,” said the 21-year-old from Warangal, Telangana.

As for how his career has progressed so far and what his immediate and long-terms goals are, Arjun firmly insists that the 2800-rating that he had achieved recently will hardly mean anything if it does not translate to titles.

For now, his attention appears to be fixed on qualifying for the Candidates next year, besides shining in the ESports World Cup later this year.

“I think it’s not about ratings anymore. It’s about like the titles. So for this year, it will be to try and qualify for Candidates. And after that, to try and win it and qualify for the World Championship and try to become world champion. That’s the ultimate goal. So it’s a one step at a time,” Arjun signed off.