Close to the Finish Line – Qatar Masters

The last minute entrant in the 2024 Qatar Masters, Arjun Erigaisi fancied his chances to take the lead over Fabiano Caruana on the FIDE Circuit leaderboard before the final gamble, World Rapid & Blitz! After Fabiano’s success in the US Masters and Saint Louis Masters, Arjun needed to win the Qatar Masters outright to outstrip the American #1.

Qatar Masters – Round 8
This deep into an Open tournament it is fairly common to see a lot of draws on the top boards but the number of decisive results at Qatar Masters is a testament to the ambition all the contenders have.
Andrey Esipenko is about to close in on 2700 once again with a phenomenal performance, beating Shant Sargsyan in this round. Arjun Erigaisi kept his FIDE Circuit dream alive by beating his countryman Murali Karthikeyan. After a rough start of 0.5/2, Nodirbek Abdusattorov is back to his winning ways and is currently tied for #3 after another win. 8 out of the top 10 boards saw decisive games!

This is what the final round pairings look like:

Andrey Esipenko is putting up quite the show in Qatar, performing at 2896 with an undefeated 7/9!
Arjun, half a point behind in sole #2 position, is going to face the leader with the white pieces and has his destiny in his hands.

Follow the Round 9 games here