Arjun Erigaisi breaks into world top-5 in FIDE rating list

Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi’s strong showing in the French Team Chess Championship has helped him reach the fifth spot in the FIDE standings, making him the highest ranked Indian by live rating.

Arjun, with a ELO rating of 2769.7, has so far added 8.7 points to his tally, behind Magnus Carlsen of Norway, USA’s Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.

He had briefly reached a career-high live rating of 2771.2 earlier this week and is the only Indian since Viswanathan Anand to do so.

The 20-year-old, who is representing Metz Fischer Chess Club, has won four of the five matches he has played so far including victories over compatriot P Harikrishna and Germany’s Vitaly Kunin. Two more rounds are remaining in the competition.

Arjun has been in fine form over the past few months, finishing second in the TePe Sigeman Chess Tournament and had finished joint-fifth in the Sharjah Masters Open Tournament. He also won the Menorca Open crown in April by edging out GMs Kirill Alekseenko and Maksim Chigaev.