Erigaisi Arjun’s 6-0 scoreline vs D Gukesh underlines India’s chess might

D Gukesh turned his face away from the table after resigning against Erigaisi Arjun in the second round of the Norway Chess tournament in Stavanger on Tuesday. The 18-year-old world champion was really upset.

He tried to hide his face, didn’t look at Arjun, arranged his pieces back on the board and left the playing hall. He was in no mood to analyse the position on the board either.It was understandable. Gukesh had lost to Magnus Carlsen in the previous round and could not capitalise on the slip-up from Arjun. In a crazy bishop and pawn versus knight and four pawns endgame, Gukesh threw away his drawing chances with a dubious bishop move on the 56th turn.

It was their 10th meeting in classical chess and Gukesh has won none.It was Arjun’s sixth win over Gukesh. It is somewhat like a younger PV Sindhu winning a global-level honour before Saina Nehwal, but the latter enjoying a clear ascendancy in head-to-head battles.The depth of Indian chess can be seen with four players now a part of the world’s top 12 in the May 2025 FIDE rating — No. 3 Gukesh, No. 4 Arjun, No. 7 Praggnanandhaa and No.

12 Aravindh Chithambaram. Interestingly, Gukesh has not won the national title yet.Of course, there are two important reasons for that: his rapid rise within the elite bracket and AICF’s utter failure to organise the National Championship in the round-robin format, which generally offers up an undisputed champion as compared to the Swiss League format, which has fewer than optimal rounds vis-à-vis number of entries for correct final standings.Indian chess is so strong now that but for the world crown, even a player of Gukesh’s calibre would struggle to prove that he clearly is the best of the lot.Arjun had suffered a heartbreaking defeat to Pragg in the quarterfinals of the 2023 World Cup, thereby hampering his chances of sealing a Candidates spot. But Pragg is not the only Indian that has troubled him.Arjun lost to P Harikrishna in the opening round of the 2023 Chennai Masters and went down to Aravindh in the same tournament last year.As long as these world-class players fumble their lines against their compatriots, the Indian fans won’t complain much.