Arjun Erigaisi crossed 2800 in October 2024, becoming the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to reach the rating mark and the sixteenth player ever. He was twenty-one years old. He had been an international master at twelve and a grandmaster at fourteen, but his climb into the elite top ten came faster than expected, driven by a string of strong tournament results in 2023 and 2024.
His style is the most aggressive of the new Indian generation. Where Pragg’s games tend toward technical accuracy and Gukesh’s toward restrained build-ups, Arjun seeks sharp positions out of the opening and accepts theoretical risk to do it. His preferred weapons include the Najdorf as Black and broad 1.e4 systems as White, and his game selection at the highest level has produced more decisive results than most of his rating peers — both wins and losses.
He led the Indian team to gold at the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest, where he and Gukesh both scored individual gold on their boards. The 2024 Candidates Tournament missed him; the 2026 cycle is his first serious championship pathway. At twenty-one, with the rating to back the ambition, he is among the players widely expected to compete for the world title within the decade.
Career data
Arjun Erigaisi was born in 2003, in Warangal, Telangana, India. They earned the Grandmaster title in 2018, at the age of 14 y 11 m. They represent the All India Chess Federation. Their peak FIDE rating was 2801, reached in 2024. The current published rating stands at 2789. Their playing style is characterised as: Aggressive · sharp openings · positive risk-taking. They competed for India at the international level throughout their career. This biography summarises the publicly recorded career data; for game records and tournament results, follow the related-content links elsewhere on this page.
Notable games & rivals
Notable rivals: Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Viswanathan Anand.