Erigaisi looking to qualify for next Candidates through World Rapid & Blitz

Erigaisi looking to qualify for next Candidates through World Rapid & Blitz

Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi will have to tackle obstacles to retain his chances of becoming the first Indian to enter the 2026 Candidates when he opens his campaign at the World Rapid and Blitz chess tournament.

Erigaisi, who currently trails Fabiano Caruana of the United States in the list of players slated to qualify from 2024, will have a tall order to win the World Rapid Chess Championship.

It may be noted here that the last time an Indian won the crown was in 2019 when Koneru Humpy triumphed and in 2017 Viswanathan Anand had defied all odds.

Magnus Carlsen will be back to defend his title as the top seed in both rapid and blitz. For Erigaisi to eclipse Carlsen as well as Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States is easier said than done, given the proficiency of the trio in quick chess.

The participants list comprises the who’s who of the chess world and the only big name missing is D. Gukesh, who withdrew after winning an exhausting World Championship match against Ding Liren of China just a couple of weeks back in Singapore.

From India, much can be expected from R. Praggnanandhaa as well. He is well rested and must be looking forward to this event to end the year on a high note.

Apart from Erigaisi and Praggnanandhaa, Raunak Sadhwani and Aravindh Chithambaram are the other two Indians to take note of in the open section.

In the women’s section, Humpy will start yet again as favourite amongst the Indians. R. Vaishali and Divya Deshmukh are two emerging stars who have been doing pretty well over the last one year.

Vaishali, in fact, had taken the chess world by surprise by qualifying for the Women’s Candidates in 2023.

Deshmukh was one of the mainstays for Team India in the gold medal winning performance during this year’s chess Olympiad.

The rapid championship will be held over 13 rounds of swiss and blitz in the open section, while in the women’s category there are 11 rounds from which the top eight will qualify to play the knockout in the blitz section.

There is USD 90,000 up for grabs in the open section of both rapid and blitz and in the women section, the figure stands at USD 60,000.