The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour made its debut with its first leg at Weissenhaus this month, as Vincent Keymer defeated Fabiano Caruana in the final to reign supreme in Wangels, Germany. Keymer also took home 200,000 dollars, and Caruana received 140,000 dollars as the winner. Meanwhile, Indian fan favourite D Gukesh had a disappointing campaign, remaining winless to end eighth. The India No. 1 was awarded 20,000 dollars for his position in the standings, which is approximately ₹17,33,367 lakh. Meanwhile, Arjun Erigaisi, who is also part of the Freestyle Chess Players Club, hit the jackpot, earning a massive amount of 27,132 dollars ( ₹23,51,485 lakh approximately, including tax deductions) as a non-participating member.
The FCPC’s non-participating members will also receive a share of the prize money for each event, but they need to have a classical Elo rating of more than 2725 in the month of the Grand Slam. So, for the Weissenhaus Grand Slam, the FIDE ratings published for February were used. The prize pool for non-participating members is 90,000 dollars.
Freestyle Chess confirmed to Hindustan Times that 357 dollars have been assigned per Elo rating point for non-participating members. But it is only for members who meet the Elo rating criteria. Erigaisi’s current FIDE Elo rating is 2801.
Meanwhile, World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen saw his run end at the semi-finals, losing to eventual winner Keymer. Carlsen pocketed 100,000 dollars.
Erigaisi will also participate at the upcoming Paris Grand Slam, which is scheduled for April 8-15. Freestyle Chess confirmed the news on their Instagram handle. Erigaisi had a disappointing Tata Masters campaign, where he finished in tenth spot out of the 14 competitors in his section. He managed to bag two wins, draw seven and lose four games.
His victories came at the end against title contenders Nodirbek Abdusattorov in round 12 and Gukesh in round 13. His win against Gukesh changed the tide in the tournament as R Praggnanandhaa caught up in the standings. Then Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa had to fight it out in a tie-breaker round to decide the winner, which the reigning world champion lost.
