Arjun Erigaisi clinches victory at first leg of the MPL Indian Chess Tour

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
4/4/2022 – Arjun Erigaisi won his fourth consecutive individual tournament as he bagged the first leg of the MPL Indian Chess Tour. This was his fifth overall triumph of the year 2022. He qualified to the Tour finals and will also play at the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Runner-up Raunak Sadhwani scored only two draws in the 15-round event, while Gukesh and Surya Ganguly were placed third and fourth. The top eight finishers get an automatic invitation to the next leg, which is scheduled to take place in June.

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A fantastic year for Arjun

Arjun Erigaisi’s run of good form started last summer at the Goldmoney Asian Rapid, when he reached the quarterfinals against incredibly strong opposition. Then he won the rapid section of the Tata Steel India tournament in Kolkata and the Challengers in Wijk aan Zee. The current Indian national champion has now grabbed another victory, at the first leg of the MPL Indian Chess Tour, an online event which serves as a qualifier to the elite Meltawer Champions Tour.

At the 15-round tournament, a football scoring system was in place, with 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw. Arjun collected 8 wins, 6 draws and 1 loss for a 30/45 final score. In sole second place, three points back, finished 16-year-old Raunak Sadhwani, while Gukesh and Surya Ganguly each got 25 points to get third and fourth places respectively.

On Sunday, Arjun, who was already the sole leader, defeated Sankalp Gupta with the black pieces in his first game of the day.

 
Sankalp vs. Arjun - Round 13

In this knight endgame with equal material, White made a couple of consecutive inaccuracies, as 33.h3 e5 34.c4 turned things in Black’s favour.

Arjun had a 5-point lead with two rounds to go, and secured first place with draws against Sethuraman and Adhiban in his last two games of the event. He later tweeted:

In the official FIDE ratings list of classical chess for April, Arjun is ranked number 4 in India, only behind Anand, Vidit and Harikrishna. Given his great form, he is likely to make it into the national team at this year’s Olympiad — India will host the massive team event in about three months’ time.


Final standings (win = 3 pts; draw = 1 pt)

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Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.

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