India’s campaign at the ongoing FIDE World Cup ended on Wednesday as Arjun Erigaisi crashed out in the quarter-finals against China’s Wei Yi in the rapid tiebreaks. The result means that no Indian will earn one of the three Candidates quotas on offer in the World Cup for the top three finishers. This means India’s R Praggnanandhaa could be the only Indian in the eight-man Candidates, which is a tournament held to select a challenger for the next World Chess Championship against reigning world champion D Gukesh.
After both their classical games in the quarter-finals ended in draws on Monday and Tuesday, Erigaisi and Wei Yi returned to the board on Wednesday to fight it out in the rapid tiebreaks where both players had 15 minutes on their clocks with 10 seconds increments on offer for each move. There, Erigaisi showed remarkable resilience to escape from a lost position in the first game and salvage a draw with black pieces.
INTERACTIVE: How Arjun Erigaisi salvaged a draw vs China’s Wei Yi
But in the second rapid game, there were no miracles on offer for the Indian grandmaster as he lost in 79 moves. This is the second successive time that Erigaisi has crashed out in the quarter-finals of a World Cup: in the 2023 edition too, he had lost to Praggnanandhaa in the quarters. At that event, Pragg had reached the final and lost to Magnus Carlsen but had secured a Candidates spot in the event.
INTERACTIVE: How Arjun Erigaisi lost to China’s Wei Yi
The Indian grandmaster had also experienced a similar heartbreak last time around when he had faltered in the final step of qualifying for the 2024 Candidates in the final step.
Gukesh had snuck into that spot, and from there had gone on to win not just the Candidates tournament, but also deposed Ding Liren as the world champion.
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India had started the tournament with an unprecedented 24 players in contention including world champion Gukesh, Women’s World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh, Pragg, Nihal Sarin and Pentala Harikrishna. But Erigaisi was the only one who had reached the quarters.
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