Bengaluru: Arjun Erigaisi moved up to world No 2 in the live ratings on Thursday after his Round 3 win over Aleksey Sarana at the Chennai Grand Masters. Only five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen is now ranked ahead of him. The 21-year-old Indian who became only the sixteenth player ever to cross 2800 Elo in live ratings last month, before dropping and missing out on carrying forward the feat to November’s published rankings, is now at 2805.8. Viswanathan Anand is the only Indian so far to have made the 2800 mark in the published list.

Arjun has been having a phenomenal year so far – crushing all in his path, rocketing through the rankings and making a pressing case for a spot at the next Candidates. In a recent interview with HT, Arjun spoke of Gukesh’s win on his debut Candidates firing him up and making him believe in the possibility of doing the same.

Arjun currently leads the Fide Circuit standings (one of the pathways to the Candidates) and should he win the eight-player single round robin Chennai Grand Masters, he will gain 24.5 points. Last year, D Gukesh – who will play the World Championship later this month – won the inaugural Chennai Grand Masters title on tiebreak from Arjun to qualify for the Candidates.

This year, Arjun’s fearless, high-risk high-reward approach has so far paid off handsomely.

“Arjun plays a unique brand of chess which people following with modern engines can’t understand,” Dutch GM Anish Giri wrote on X on Thursday. The Super GM from Warangal has had very few losses this year and though he played a bunch of open tournaments, he hardly bled points.

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