Gukesh's colleague and India No. 1 Arjun made to wait for US visa
Arjun Erigaisi has less than five days to attain the visa or he will miss the World Rapid & Blitz Championships in New York.
Arjun Erigaisi has less than five days to attain the visa or he will miss the World Rapid & Blitz Championships in New York.
Arjun Erigaisi has less than five days to attain the visa or he will miss the World Rapid & Blitz Championships in New York.
Less than ten days after D Gukesh triumphed in the World Chess Championship, India's top-rated chess player, Arjun Erigaisi, has been made to wait for a visa to the US.
Erigaisi was forced to appeal on social media as the US Embassy had not stamped his visa with just a few days remaining until the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championship began in New York's Wall Street. The event will begin on December 26.
"Last week I submitted my passport to you for visa stamping and it still has not been returned. I request you to please expedite the process and return my passport as soon as possible as I need it for my travel to New York for World Rapid & Blitz Championship," Erigaisi posted.
With an Elo rating of 2801 in the classical format, Erigaisi is the highest-ranked Indian. He ranks fifth in the world, behind Magnus Carlsen (2831), Fabiano Caruana (2805) and Hikaru Nakamura (2802). Carlsen is the reigning Rapid and Blitz world champion.
World champion D Gukesh, ranked fifth in classical chess, is not participating in the World Rapid & Blitz. Ding Liren of China, Gukesh's opponent in the title clash in Singapore, has also skipped the event. Gukesh and Erigaisi were teammates at the Olympiad, in which Indian men and women claimed gold.
However, almost all the world's leading players are competing in the mega event in New York. R Praggnanandhaa is the other leading Indian player in the men's category. Erigaisi and Praggnanandhaa have starting ranks of 16th and 17th, respectively, as the Elo ratings are different for rapid and blitz chess.
In the women's section, Koneru Humpy is the top-rated Indian, while Dronavalli Harika and Divya Deshmukh are the other leading contenders.
The rapid and blitz events in the open category have 13 rounds each. In the women's category, there will be 11 rounds. The rapid event is scheduled for December 26 and 28, while the blitz rounds will be played on December 30 and 31. The time control for the rapid games is 15 minutes with a 10-second increment per move, and that for blitz is three minutes and a 2-second increment.