Arjun Erigaisi (with microphone), Sjugirov Sanan, Pavel Eljanov, Alexandr Predke, Levon Aronian, Parham Maghsoodloo, D. Gukesh, and P. Harikrishna at the inauguration of the Chennai Grand Masters Chess Championship on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: B. VELANKANNI RAJ
The Chennai Grand Masters Chess Championship that will get underway on Friday supplies three members — Indians D. Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi, and Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran) — the probability to enhance their probability of qualifying for the 2024 Candidates match.
With six members for the Candidates finalised and two slots left, each Gukesh and Arjun have the probability to qualify by topping the FIDE Circuit leaderboard.
Presently, Anish Giri is the chief with 84.3 factors. Gukesh is third with 79.5, and Arjun fourth with 71.6.
“If Gukesh manages to finish first or joint-first, he surpasses him (Anish). And if Arjun finishes sole first, not joint-first, then he tops the leaderboard.
“So, from this event, if they finish at the top, they have a chance to finish at the top of the (FIDE Circuit) leaderboard, and that makes it highly likely that they could get a spot in the Candidates,” stated ChessBase’s Sagar Shah, one in every of the match organisers, at the opening ceremony on Thursday.
This is India’s strongest classical tremendous chess match with the common score of 2711.
“I didn’t see this coming. After Grand Swiss, I thought my hopes of Candidates ended. But this like an unexpected opportunity for me. I’ll try not to take any Candidates pressure and just play freely,” stated Arjun.
Maghsoodloo can qualify for the Candidates by the score factors.
The match, which options eight gamers, may have seven rounds of classical chess in the round-robin format.
First-round pairings: D. Gukesh vs. Levon Aronian (USA), Parham Maghsoodloo (Iri) vs. Pavel Eljanov (Ukr), Sanan Sjugirov (Rus) vs. Alexandr Predke (Srb), P. Harikrishna vs. Arjun Erigaisi.
