2025 is popping out to be an thrilling yr for Arjun Erigaisi. In the course of the Tata Masters in Wijk aan Zee, Erigaisi had a disastrous, and solely discovered his type in direction of the tip, when all hope was misplaced for him, as he defeated title contender Nodirbek Abdusattorov within the second-last spherical, after which beat chief and reigning world champion D Gukesh within the 14th spherical.
Magnus Carlsen and Arjun Erigaisi throughout a recreation.(Twitter (FIDE/Anna Shtourman))
Erigaisi was the chaos maker as his win towards Gukesh noticed the title determined within the tie-breaker. Gukesh needed to face R Praggnanandhaa within the tie-breaker and the youngest-ever world champion needed to ultimately accept second-place.
Arjun Erigaisi weighs in on ESports World Cup
In April, Erigaisi is ready to make his Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour debut in Paris. He may also make his ESports World Cup debut later this yr. For the ESports World Cup, he has been signed by Gen.G and he lately defined his choice to Firstpost. “Yeah, definitely. I think there are a lot of people who don’t follow other sports, but follow Esports a lot. So I think for all of them, this is a chance to look at chess, which is very good for the sport. So that way it definitely opens new doors,” he mentioned.
“Chess can be played not just as a like physical over-the-board sport but also as an e-sport and this is very unique to just chess like no other sport can be played that way. So I’m glad this is happening and I hope it will become huge and open many doors.”
He additionally credited Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura for igniting his curiosity in Esports chess. “So first I got to know about the ESports World Cup when Magnus and Hikaru spoke about it, like, towards the end of last year. Okay. Then I, like, I checked the format and things related to that and that excited me. And then Gen G approached my team and because I was already excited about it, like I was also interested,” he mentioned.
“We had a few discussions and then we decided that I’ll play for them and I’m so glad I made that decision. Also, they are the champions in League of Legends and this is their first time with chess, and I’m so glad that they chose me and I’ll try my best to make them proud.”
Erigaisi additionally weighed in on dishonest in on-line chess, one thing which has as soon as once more come underneath the highlight, particularly after Carlsen’s look on the Joe Rogan podcast. The World No. 1 spilled particulars on his notorious dishonest controversy with American GM Hans Niemann.
“With online, there is this benefit of like just being sitting at home and playing. That’s always nice when you can just be home and play. But also there are other factors like cheating is a bigger concern. There’s also the mouse factor. Some people can play very fast with their mouse and not all can do that,” he mentioned.
“And also internet connection. I haven’t faced any disconnections as such, but it’s definitely the case that the servers in, at least for Chess.com, the servers in US are better. So when you play from US, your move reaches the server faster. So you lose less time and that. So there are these factors,” he added.
He’s additionally at present World No. 5 and India No. 1. He misplaced his India No. 1 place to Gukesh through the Tata Masters in January this yr.