FIDE Chess World Cup: Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa lead charge

Only 32 players, including five from Indians have advanced to the fourth round of FIDE World Cup being played at Resort Rio in Goa. The 206-player knock-out event spread over eight rounds in four weeks began with 24 Indians in fray. Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, Pentala Harikrishna, Pranav Venkatesh and Karthik Venkataraman have qualified to the fourth round.

The biggest jolt for India was the ouster of World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju in the third round. Another notable elimination was of Vidit Gujrathi in the tie-break on Sunday.

With just four more rounds remaining, the event remains as unpredictable as ever with most of the other pre-tournament favourites like Ian Nepomniachtchi, two-time World Championship Challenger Anish Giri, Nodirbek Abdusattorov being knocked out in the early stages. The World Cup lives up to its reputation of being a graveyard for most of the top guns, the intensity and pace taking a toll on the best in business.

Apart from the prize money and the title, at stake are three qualifying berths to the ‘Candidates Tournament’ an eight-player double Round Robin event with the winner challenging the World Champion for the title. FIDE also announced that Cyprus has the venue for the Candidates event scheduled from March 28 to April 16.

Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Giri have already qualified for the Candidates. Pacing with a rhythm is a very crucial aspect for a long and stressful event like this one, where you face elimination from the second game itself if you have either lost or drawn the first game of every round.

Arjun Erigaisi so far has been the pick of Indian players both in terms of game quality and temperament while R Praggnanandhaa has been skating on thin ice, right from the time he joined the event in the second round.

Round 4.1 pairings: GM Peter Leko (HUN) - GM Arjun Erigaisi; GM R Praggnanandhaa  - GM Daniil Dubov; GM Pranav Venkatesh - GM Nodirbek Yakubboev (UZB); GM Nils Grandelius (SWE) - GM Pentala Harikrishna; GM Liem Quang Le (VIE) - GM Karthik Venkataraman