Arjun Erigaisi during an Express Adda earleir this year at Chennai. (Express photo)
Arjun Erigaisi made history late on Thursday by breaking into the elusive 2800 rating club in the live ratings at the European Chess Club Cup.
In history, only 16 players in the world have touched Mount 2800 in the live ratings, which are updated in real time. However, so far just 14 players were in the 2800 club in the published ratings that are updated on a monthly basis with Anish Giri touching the 2800 mark in the live ratings, but not managing to stay there when the monthly published ratings were released.
Besides Arjun Erigaisi, there are currently three players who have a live rating over 2800: Magnus Carlsen (2831.0), Fabiano Caruana (2805.2) and Hikaru Nakamura (2802.0).
Arjun Erigaisi, playing for his club, Team Alkaloid, defeated Dmitry Andreikin (2729) with the white pieces in the 5th round of the European Chess Club Cup, where plenty of Indians are in action including Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa.
Arjun Erigaisi is now only the second Indian chess player to break the hallowed 2800 rating mark after five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand.
Where Arjun’s peak ranks on the all-time highest rating list
In the coming days, world championship contender Gukesh could also break into the 2800 club.
Gukesh is currently on 2785.8 but he had come within six points earlier this month, achieving his peak rating of 2794.
Arjun Erigaisi was unbeaten at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest last month, where he won the individual gold medal while playing on the third board for India with nine wins and two draws.
He was, in fact, the only player for the gold medal-winning Indian team to play in every clash in the 11-round Olympiad.
