World No. 4 Arjun Erigaisi, Indian chess grandmaster and top seed will face compatriot Vidit Gujarathi in the Chennai Grand Masters on Tuesday. Erigaisi will play for the first time in India, having reached the historic 2800 ELO ranking mark. In the opening round of the eight-player classical event, Aravindh Chithambaram will face Iranian Amin Tabatabaei, Vachier-Lagrave Maxime will face Maghsoodloo Parham, and American Grandmaster Levon Aronian will play Alexey Sarana.
For the first time, female players will compete in the Challengers event during the second edition of the seven-round competition. MGD1 and ChessBase India organized the event, which was sponsored by the Tamil Nadu Sports Development Authority.
The event will also include two Indian women, Harika Dronavalli and Vaishali Rameshbabu. The Challengers competitors will compete for a prize pool of Rs 20 lakh, with the winner receiving Rs 6 lakh and a direct seat in the Masters next year. In the Challenger category, Vaishali will face Mendonca Leon Luke, while Harika will face Pranav V.
In the remaining two matches, Raunak Sadhwani will face Karthikeyan Murali, while Pranesh M will face Abhimanyu Puranik. The Challengers event, which debuted this year, will let Indian prodigies to play in top-tier competitions. D Gukesh won the first tournament last year, but will miss this year’s competition because he is training for the world championship title versus