‘Playing in World Blitz great learning experience’

Hyderabad: Playing in his maiden World Blitz event, Telangana chess player Arjun Erigaisi finished at a credible 24th overall in a field comprising top players across the globe. The Warangal lad, who recently became India No.1 in blitz surpassing Viswanathan Anand, scored 12.5 points from 21 rounds. Considering the tough competition, Arjun’s performance was impressive. […]

Hyderabad: Playing in his maiden World Blitz event, Telangana chess player Arjun Erigaisi finished at a credible 24th overall in a field comprising top players across the globe. The Warangal lad, who recently became India No.1 in blitz surpassing Viswanathan Anand, scored 12.5 points from 21 rounds. Considering the tough competition, Arjun’s performance was impressive.

The 19-year-old Arjun played out impressive draws with Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Daniil Dubov and Ian Nepomniachtchi. He was also in a good position with 11.5 points after 16 rounds and was just 1.5 points behind leader Aronian. However, he slipped from there and suffered three losses – against Vachier-Lagrave, Firouzja and Kravtsiv – that hurt his chances.

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Arjun, though disappointed a bit not to play his best, said it was a great learning experience. “Playing against strong players in the event was a very good experience. I could have done better. I am disappointed with the overall result, but it was a good experience,” he said.

He also revealed that his decision to take a draw offered by Nepomniachtchi, the World Championship contender, in the 17th round was a momentum breaker for him. “Till round 16, I was doing well. In the 17th round, Nepomniachtchi offered me a draw. I was mesmerised by it as he was such a big player and he offered me a draw. And I took it. But later I realised that I was in the advantageous position against him. That was a big learning lesson for me. I then lost the next three rounds and I fumbled in the end. I also learnt that I should not let the previous performance affect me in the next games,” he elaborated.
Was he under any pressure going into such a big tournament for the first time? “No, I wanted to do my best and see how it goes. I didn’t think that I was India No.1 and should do well. I was not nervous as well. I did pretty well for the better of the tournament,” he said.

Arjun, who will be seen in action next in the Tata Steel Chess tournament main event in Netherlands beginning January 14, targets 2700 rating points in the classical format. His current rating points are 2633.

“I want to do well in this tournament and want to improve my rating points. The target is to achieve 2700 rating points by the first half of the year. I am working on my openings,” said Arjun, who is India No.8 and No. 120 in the world rankings in the classical format.