For 6th time in two World Championship cycles, Arjun Erigaisi so near but misses out on Candidates

INTERACTIVE: How Arjun Erigaisi salvaged a draw vs China’s Wei Yi

For Arjun, the list of near-misses in his ambition to qualify for the Candidates grew longer with the defeat to Wei Yi. After both their classical games in the quarter-finals ended in draws on Monday and Tuesday, Arjun and Wei Yi returned to the board on Wednesday to fight it out in the rapid tiebreaks. There, Arjun showed remarkable resilience to escape from a lost position in the first game and salvage a draw with black pieces. But in the second rapid game, there were no miracles on offer from the Indian grandmaster as he lost in 79 moves with the white pieces.

INTERACTIVE: How Arjun Erigaisi lost to China’s Wei Yi

The result means that India’s campaign at the ongoing FIDE World Cup is now over and 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 next year in Cyprus.

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.

For Arjun, this is, in fact, the sixth time in two World Championship titles, through three different qualification routes that he has almost secured a spot in the Candidates.

At the last World Cup in 2023, he was knocked out in the quarter-finals—once again in tie-breaks—by close friend Praggnanandhaa. At that World Cup two years ago, since Magnus Carlsen had already expressed his disinterest in not competing in the Candidates or playing for the World Championship crown, anyone making it to the semis was guaranteed a Candidates spot. Arjun had won the first classical game against Pragg, but then lost the second and then was eliminated in tiebreaks.

In 2023, Arjun had also finished fourth at the Grand Swiss tournament, where the top two were assured a spot in the Candidates. A measure of how close Arjun was to the top 2 can be gauged by the fact that his final tally was just half a point less than Hikaru Nakamura’s, who sealed the second spot.

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At the end of 2023, Arjun ended fifth in the FIDE Circuit race (an accumulation of points gained over a year from performances at tournaments) with Gukesh, who ended second in the race still securing his spot because table-topper Caruana had already qualified via the World Cup. In that race too, Arjun had his chances: Gukesh and Arjun had finished level on points at the Chennai Grand Masters tournament, which Gukesh only won via tiebreaks. Later that year, Arjun needed to win the FIDE Rapid Championship to overhaul Gukesh and finish second. With this the door on Arjun’s hopes of qualifying for the 2024 Candidates was shut.

Given his no-holds-barred attacking style that has endeared him to fans and other grandmasters alike, there were predictions that Arjun would easily make it to the 2026 Candidates. Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri had summoned up the sentiment in the chess world with a post on X: “My prediction is that Arjun is going to qualify to the Candidates through ALL of the available qualification routes.”

Then, last year when the new race to qualify for the 2026 Candidates started, Arjun could have secured a spot into the event via the 2024 FIDE Circuit race. He led that race most of the year, but Fabiano Caruana snuck into top spot at the end of 2024 by winning back-to-back titles at the US Masters and the Saint Louis Masters.

At the Grand Swiss 2025, he was again in the running to finish in the top 2 but had ended 6th in the standings, once again just half a point behind Matthias Bluebaum, who took the second spot. The story of his life.