World Chess Champion D Gukesh becomes India No. 1 again

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Recently crowned World Chess Champion D Gukesh has reclaimed the India No. 1 position. Gukesh edged Arjun Erigaisi to become India's top-ranked player in the FIDE live ratings following the completion of the fifth round of Tata Steel Masters at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands after midnight on Wednesday.
Gukesh has gained 7 Elo points to get his live rating up to 2784, while Erigaisi lost a massive 21.5 points to reach 2779. When the event started on January 18, Erigaisi was in the 2800-club, only the second Indian ever to breach that barrier after five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand.
The Elo rating is a measure of a player's relative skill level, with 2800 being the mark of exceptional genius. To put it into perspective, only 16 players have crossed 2800 Elo points in the history of the game in the classical format. World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen holds the record for the highest-ever Elo of 2882. When higher ranked players lose or draw with lower-rated players they drain Elo points. For example, immediately after his victory over Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship match in mid-December, Gukesh lost 6.2 points because his Chinese opponent was much lower ranked at the time.

Erigaisi's significant slump in live ratings is down to his performances in the ongoing event, where he has lost three games and drawn two thus far to remain joint bottom with compatriot Leon Luke Mendonca.
Erigaisi started the event as the second seed behind World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana. He lost to Pentala Harikrishna (2695), R Praggnanandhaa (2741) and Vladimir Fedoseev (2717), and drew with Anish Giri (2731) and Mendonca (2639).
In contrast, Gukesh is unbeaten in the event, with two wins and three draws. While he dropped slightly after draws with Fedoseev and Alexey Sarana (2677), the wins against Giri and Vincent Keymer (2733) helped him make a modest gain. The live ratings could still fluctuate during the course of the event in the Dutch countryside, depending on the results in the eight remaining swiss rounds and potential playoffs.

Gukesh had lost his position as India No. 1 following the rapid rise of Erigaisi toward the second-half of 2024. Gukesh had been India No. 1 for a short period before Erigaisi shot up. The first time Gukesh became India No. 1 was in September 2023, when he edged Anand in the live ratings. He became only the second Indian to reach the summit of Indian chess after Pentala Harikrishna, who had a brief stay at the top in March 2016.
Anand, or Vishy as he is affectionately called, was India No. 1 for 37 years. He was just 16 when he became India No. 1 in 1986, the same year Diego Maradona delivered Argentina the FIFA World Cup. Anand had surpassed GM Pravin Thipsay to be India No. 1 and retained the position for nearly four decades. Anand (2750), who is not quite active these days, is the fourth-ranked Indian currently, with Praggnanandhaa occupying the third position.