Arjun Erigaisi

Biography

Arjun Erigaisi was born on 3 September 2003 in Warangal, Telangana, and began training at Bollam Sampath's BS Chess Academy in nearby Hanamkonda. He earned the grandmaster title in 2018 at 14 years, 11 months and 13 days old, and quickly built a reputation as one of the most active and aggressive players on the circuit — entering an unusually heavy schedule of open tournaments while his rating climbed year after year.

2022 was his breakout season: he won the Tata Steel Chess Challengers with 10½/13 to earn promotion into the Masters group, was crowned Indian National Champion at the 58th MPL National Championship with 8½/11, took the 19th Delhi Open on tiebreak, and won the Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival with 7½/9. That August he also made his Chess Olympiad debut for India-1 on board 3 in Chennai, scoring 8½/11. He followed up in 2023 by winning the Sharjah Masters outright with 6½/9.

The rise accelerated through 2024: after tournament wins at the Menorca Open A and the Stepan Avagyan Memorial, he crossed 2800 for the first time on 24 October 2024 at the European Chess Club Cup, then climbed to World No. 2 on the live rating list the following month, overtaking Fabiano Caruana, before topping out at an official 2801 in the December 2024 FIDE list — only the second Indian player, after Viswanathan Anand, to pass 2800, and the fifteenth-highest rated player in history. That October he also won the WR Chess Masters Cup, beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in an armageddon final, and at the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest he went 10/11 on board 3 for an individual gold medal and a 2968 performance rating as India won its first-ever Olympiad team gold. In 2025 he won double bronze at the World Rapid and World Blitz Championships, becoming the first Indian since Anand in 2017 to medal at both, and in 2026 he tied for first with Magnus Carlsen in the classical portion of the TePe Sigeman tournament before finishing runner-up on blitz tiebreaks.

Key achievements

• Second Indian player ever to surpass a 2800 FIDE rating: 2801 (December 2024), the 15th-highest rating in history
• Reached World No. 2 on the live rating list in November 2024, overtaking Fabiano Caruana
• Individual gold medal at the 45th Chess Olympiad, Budapest 2024 — 10/11 on board 3, 2968 performance rating — as India won team gold
• Double bronze at the 2025 World Rapid and World Blitz Championships, first Indian since Anand (2017) to medal both
• Tournament wins include the 2022 Tata Steel Chess Challengers (10½/13), 2022 Indian National Championship, 2023 Sharjah Masters and the 2024 WR Chess Masters Cup

Ratings

Titles

Classical Tournaments

Team Events

Source: OlimpBase (olimpbase.org) individual Olympiad records, cross-checked with Wikipedia.

Read more on Wikipedia or view his FIDE profile.