Frenchman Maxime VachierLagrave (Elo 2737) and Iranian GM duo Parham Maghsoodloo (2712) and Amin Tabatabaei (2686) will not be short on motivation to provide serious challenge to top seed and world No. 4 Arjun Erigaisi (2799) in the Chennai Grandmasters chess tournament starting at Anna Centenary Library from Tuesday.
The eight-player tournament, part of the FIDE circuit which acts as a series of qualifying events for the World Championship Candidates tournament, will also have stalwart Levon Aronian (2739).
Vidit Gujrathi (2739) - Candidates player and member of the Olympiad winning Indian team - is also in the fray. So is local boy Aravindh Chithambaram (2706), India No. 6 besides Serbia's Alexey Sarana (Elo 2679).
The average rating of the players is 2725 , making it Category 19.
The sole winner of the event is expected to earn about 25 FIDE circuit points. Arjun currently leads the FIDE circuit standings with 102.79 points. Tabatabaei is 5th (56.01 points) with Lagrave (35.77) and Maghsoodloo (33.35) 12th and 14th respectively.
The eight-player Chennai challenger event which will be held concurrently will see all GMs from India including two women - D Harika (2493) and R Vaishali (2490). The absence of Divya Deshmukh, who was instrumental in India winning the women's team gold at the Olympiad, will be jarring. But she is playing FIDE Women's Grand Prix in Kazakhstan, an important tournament with regards to Candidates qualification..
