Erigaise looking to qualify for next Candidates through World Rapid Blitz

     New York, Dec 26 (PTI) Grandmaster Arjun Erigaise will have to tackle obstacles to retain his chances of becoming the first Indian to enter the 2026 Candidates' tournament when he opens his campaign at the World Rapid and Blitz chess tournament here.
     Erigaise, who currently trails Fabiano Caruana of the United States in the list of players slated to qualify from 2024, will have a tall order to win the World Rapid chess championship that gets underway here.
     It may be noted here that the last time an Indian won the crown here was in 2019 when Koneru Humpy triumphed and in 2017 Viswanathan Anand had defied all odds to win the title.
     World's top rated Magnus Carlsen will be back to defend his title in the faster version of the game as the top seed in both rapid and blitz and he will certainly be the most formidable rival for anyone in the fray.
     For Erigaise to eclipse Carlsen as well as Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States is easier said than done, given the proficiency of the trio in quick chess.
     The participants list is a virtually who's who of the chess world and the only big name missing is D Gukesh, who withdrew after winning an exhausting world championship match against Ding Liren of China just a couple of weeks back in Singapore.
     From India, much can be expected from R Praggnanandhaa as well. He is well rested and must be looking for this event to end the year on a high note.
     Apart from Erigaise and Praggnanandhaa, Raunak Sadhwani and Aravindh Chithambaram are the other two Indians to take note of in the open section.
     In the women's section, Humpy will start yet again as favourite amongst the Indians. R Vaishali and Divya Deshmukh are the two emerging stars and have been doing pretty well in the last one year.
     Vaishali, in fact, had taken the chess world by surprise by qualifying for the Women's Candidates in 2023.
     Deshmukh was one of the mainstays for Team India in the gold medal winning performance during this year's chess Olympiad.
     The rapid championship will be held over 13 rounds of swiss and blitz in the open section, while in the women's category there are 11 rounds with a catch that top eight from here will qualify to play the knockout from the blitz section.
     There is USD 90000 up for grabs in the open section of both rapid and blitz and in the women section, the figure stands at USD 60000.
     Indian participants:
     Open: Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, Raunak Sadhwani, Sandipan Chanda, Aravindh Chithambaram, Harsha Bharathakoti, Pranav V, Bharath Subramaniyam, Diptayan Ghosh and Karthik Venkataraman.
     Women: Humpy Koneru, Harika Dronavalli, Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Vantika Agrawal, Sahithi Varshini M, Padmini Rout, and Priyanka Nutakki.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)