Why Arjun Erigaisi missed out on 2800 points despite winning 2024 WR Chess Masters Cup

Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi won the 2024 WR Chess Masters Cup on Thursday, having beaten Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in the finals but he missed out on crossing 2800 Elo rating points. Vishwanathan Anand is the only Indian chess player so far to cross the 2800 mark.

Overall Erigaisi picked up 27.84 FIDE Circuit points by winning the WR Chess Masters Cup and took home €20,000 prize money, but he missed out on crossing 2800 points as Vachier-Lagrave drew the two classical games in the finals but lost to the Indian in Armageddon.

Armageddon is a chess game that is used in finals as a tiebreak after draws.

“Basically I thought I should finish it off in classical,” Erigaisi said after winning the WR Chess Masters.

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Earlier in the tournament, Erigais defeated fellow Indians Vidit Gujrathi and R Praggnanandhaa.

Erigaisi inches close to 2800 points

Arjun currently has 2796.1 points in live chess ratings and is placed fourth in the world in the live ranking behind Magnus Carlsen (2831), Fabiano Caruana (2806.3), and Hikaru Nakamura (2802).

India’s Grandmaster D Gukesh, who will be taking part in the Chess World Championship against China’s Ding Liren next month, is fourth with 2794 points.

Recently on being labelled as the favourite for the Chess World Championship, Gukesh said: “I don’t really buy into these things that people say about the match. I’m sure he (Ding) will be coming into the match with the right spirit and he’ll be trying his best. My approach is to treat every game with the utmost respect and energy and give it my best."

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Erigaisi and Gukesh make history

Earlier this month Erigaisi and Gukesh made history by entering the top five in the chess world ranking as India for the first time had two players in the top five.

The 21-year-old Erigaisi from Telangana was also India’s best player at the Chess Olympiad recently as the men's team won the Open section gold for the first time .

He secured a total of 10 out of 11 points, winning nine and drawing two games on Board 3.

Apart from the men’s team, the women’s team also won the gold medal.