If any Indian can contend in opposition to a number of the world’s greatest chess gamers within the freestyle format, it needs to be Arjun Erigaisi. He was the one one from the nation to qualify for the knockout rounds of the Paris leg of the Grand Slam Tour. Those that didn’t advance included R. Praggnanandhaa, Classical world champion D. Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi.
The fairytale, which started on Monday when Arjun took down World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in simply 29 strikes and the third highest-rated participant in historical past – USA’s Fabiano Caruana – in 35 strikes within the opening two rounds, ended on Tuesday when he completed fourth within the standings after 11 gruelling rounds of fast classifications video games.
Arjun, who had pocketed three wins going into the second day, grabbed two extra victories to complete with 6.5 factors out of a attainable 11 behind Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi and native favorite Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
When the day began, it was all about Gukesh’s redemption as he started with two consecutive wins over Praggnanandhaa and his Second on the World Championships, Vincent Keymer. He appeared poised to make his second quarter-final on this tour however three back-to-back losses took him out of the match.
Praggnanandhaa had his possibilities however will rue not changing them into wins.
Vidit, in the meantime, had a horrible outing. He misplaced 9 rounds out of 11, which included seven losses in a row as he completed final.
Arjun began the day within the high half and stayed there all through. With the fame of a ‘mad man’ over the board who likes to disrupt the very nature of the sport, he seemed to be essentially the most suited Indian participant for this variant.
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What’s working for Arjun is his daring method – typically criticised for being too precarious – as the character of freestyle chess permits him to stay to his type. With every new place in a brand new sport, which virtually nullifies the opening principle, Arjun can very nicely manoeuvre the sport to create intriguing positions and positional imbalances, a sport state of affairs the place he shines essentially the most.
“I typically take further dangers and exit of my method to create fascinating positions. In Freestyle, these fascinating positions come up naturally, even with out me taking deliberate dangers. Maybe that fits me,” Arjun had mentioned forward of the match.
Path much less travelled
Whereas Praggnanandhaa earned the respect of his colleagues early in his profession via repeated success in tournaments such because the Grand Chess Tour and the Champions Chess Tour, Gukesh’s regular rise and skill to step up in high-stakes Classical tournaments propelled him into the chess elite through a comparatively simple route.
Arjun, in the meantime, needed to take the highway much less taken. His steady grind in Open occasions was getting him the score, thrusting him upwards within the rankings, however invites for tremendous elite tournaments nonetheless remained out of his attain.
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It was solely when he breached the 2800 score mark – turning into the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand and solely the sixteenth participant in historical past to take action – that compelled the chess world to take the Warangal Wunderkind critically.
Nonetheless, after the Tata Metal Masters 2025 droop – Arjun’s first large invitational match – the place he misplaced 24 hard-earned score factors in simply two weeks, it appeared as if he was not lower out for elite-level chess.
However Arjun stayed motivated and saved grinding. He spent the vast majority of the Freestyle Fridays making ready for his first look. He ended up profitable three consecutive Freestyle Fridays, ensuring he was battle-ready.
Dynamic Play
It’s also value noting his capability to swiftly change between totally different time codecs. He gained three back-to-back Freestyle Fridays, a web based 11-round Swiss format match with a 3+1 (3 minutes plus 1-second increment per transfer) blitz time management. Within the classifications spherical, he was given a ten+10 (10 minutes plus 10-second increment per transfer) fast time management and within the knockout spherical, he should play within the classical time management of 90+30 (90 minutes plus 30-second increment per transfer).
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Arjun is new to this variant and determining his method within the format which he believes is the way forward for chess. “I went into these tournaments (Freestyle Fridays) with completely no expectations as a result of, other than watching as a fan, I had little Freestyle expertise to this point,” he has mentioned.
“I simply needed to get some observe earlier than the Paris Grand Slam. However I stunned myself by doing nicely in my first occasion in February, and that gave me extra confidence and raised my expectations for the following occasions. The absence of the opening section helps me; my video games enter immediately into the center sport, the place I appear to navigate a bit higher than a few of my opponents,” he added.
