French Team Chess Championship: Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi’s strong showing in the French Team Chess Championship 2024 has seen him reach the top-5 of FIDE Live Rating standings, making him the highest ranked Indian in live rating.Arjun, with a ELO rating of 2769.7, has so far added 8.7 points to his tally and is only 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 Vishwanathan 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.