India’s highest-rated chess player GM Arjun Erigaisi continued his top run as he dominated the 10-player field to win the Stepan Avagyan Memorial 2024 on Monday in Jermuk, Armenia, with a round to spare.
Arjun beat Russia’s Volodar Murzin with white pieces in 63 moves to end the penultimate round (eight) with six points, a full 1.5 points ahead of the three-player deadlock on second position with 4.5 points.
With four wins and as many draws in eight rounds, Arjun accounted for 9 Elo rating points; his live rating of 2779.9 took him to world no. four behind Magnus Carlsen of Norway, USA’s Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
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The 20-year-old will face the local lad Manuel Petrosyan in the last round of the single round-robin tournament.
Earlier, the Warangal lad’s strong showing in the French Team Chess Championship helped him reach the top five in the FIDE standings, making him the highest-ranked Indian.
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.
WORLD TOP 10 IN FIDE LIVE RATING LIST
- 1. Magnus Carlsen (NOR) — 2831.8
- 2. Hikaru Nakamura (USA) — 2801.6
- 3. Fabiano Caruana(USA) — 2795.6
- 4. Arjun Erigaisi (IND) — 2779.9
- 5. Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS) — 2770.0
- 6. Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB) — 2768.5
- 7. D. Gukesh (IND) — 2763.0
- 8. R. Praggnanandhaa (IND) — 2757.4
- 9. Wesley So (USA) — 2757.0
- 10. Wei Yi (CHN) — 2755.0
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