Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin finish in top eight at Esports World Cup 2026 Chess
Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin finished in the top eight at the Esports World Cup 2026 Chess tournament on August 15, 2026, after both were eliminated in the quarterfinals; each player earned $75,000. India’s challenge ended at that stage despite a strong contingent entered at the event.
Erigaisi, representing Gen.G Esports, was ousted by Team Falcons’ Hikaru Nakamura in an Armageddon tiebreaker, while S8UL’s Nihal Sarin lost 2.5-0.5 to defending champion Magnus Carlsen of Team Liquid. The two Indian exits concluded the country’s campaign in the quarterfinal round. The report noted India fielded its largest chess lineup yet at the Esports World Cup.
Erigaisi’s quarterfinal against Nakamura echoed last year’s third-place match, which Nakamura had won. All four regulation games in this encounter finished as draws, forcing an Armageddon decider. Playing White in Armageddon, Nakamura delivered a checkmate to advance to the semifinals.
Nihal’s matchup against Carlsen was a rematch of last year’s knockout tie, in which the first game had been drawn before Carlsen won the next two. In this edition Carlsen won the opening two games and the third was drawn, producing a 2.5-0.5 scoreline that sent him through to the semifinals.
The remaining quarterfinals produced two other winners: AG.AL’s Denis Lazavik defeated Natus Vincere’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov in an Armageddon tiebreak, and Team Falcons’ Alireza Firouzja beat GodLike Esports’ Hans Moke Niemann 2.5-1.5. Those results completed the last-eight phase.
S8UL’s Pranesh M, who exited the competition in the Lower Bracket a day earlier, secured $55,000 (~INR 52.5 lakh), while his S8UL teammate Aravindh Chithambaram, eliminated in the Play-Ins, took $23,000 (~INR 21.9 lakh). The tournament’s total prize pool stood at $1.5 million (~INR 14.3 crore).
The playoffs are conducted on a single-elimination basis. The semifinals are scheduled as six-game matches, and the grand final will be contested as a best-of-three sets format, with the first two sets comprising four games each and a potential third set of two games.
The semifinal pairings are Hikaru Nakamura versus Denis Lazavik and Magnus Carlsen versus Alireza Firouzja, with the winners progressing to the final under the stated format.