Hyderabad: India's grandmaster (GM) Arjun Erigaisi became the only second Indian after legendary Vishwanathan Anand to surpass the gold-standard ELO rating of 2800. Arjun achieved the incredible feat after securing a thumping victory over Russia's Dmitry Andreikin in the fifth round of the European Chess Club Cup 2024 while playing for Alkaloid team. He registered this win with White Pieces and has also become the World No.3 in the live rating list.
Apart from being the only second Indian, he became the youngest Indian and overall 16th chess player to achieve the elusive milestone. France's GM Alireza Firouzja is the world's youngest chess player to breach the 2800 ELO barrier, crossing the mark at the age of 18 years and five months while World champion Magnus Carlsen is second on the list. Arjun breached the 2800 ELO rating mark at the age of 21 years and 91 days.
Arjun has had a great time in the last few months, having clinched the individual and team gold in the Chess Olympiad 2024 in Budapest and then finished second in TePe Sigeman Chess Tournament. He also won the Menorca Open title while ended fifth in the Sharjah Masters Open.
🇮🇳 Arjun Erigaisi has become the 16th player in history to break the 2800 Elo barrier in classical chess ratings!@ArjunErigaisi joins five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand as the second Indian to achieve this milestone. In the December 2024 #FIDERating list, his rating… pic.twitter.com/fBZKDoVoiC
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) December 1, 2024
Arjun had earlier clinched the 2024 WR Chess Masters Cup after defeating French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Armageddon. Arjun is the top-ranked Indian player in the FIDE standings in the list led by Carlsen with 2831 rating points.
All-time highest-ranked players:
1. Magnus Carlsen (NOR) - 2882
2. Garry Kasparov (RUS) - 2851
3. Fabiano Caruana (USA) - 2844
4. Levon Aronian (ARM) - 2830
5. Wesley So (USA) - 2822
6. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE) - 2820
7. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) - 2819
8. Viswanathan Anand (IND) - 2817
9. Vladimir Kramnik (RUS) - 2817
10. Veselin Topalov (BUL) - 2816
11. Hikaru Nakamura (USA) - 2816
12. Ding Liren (CHN) - 2816
13. Alexander Grischuk (RUS) - 2810
14. Alireza Firouzja (FRA) - 2804
15. Arjun Erigaisi (IND) - 2802.1
