It was a move that made the jaws of elite grandmasters drop and Ian Nepomniachtchi’s heart rate spike. With one flick of the wrist, Arjun Erigaisi had thrown a Hail Mary on the board that made his opponent ponder for 17 minutes about a response. And even after that prolonged period of thought, the Russian ended up making a blunder with his reply. 12 moves later, Arjun was victorious, pushing the playoff for the 5th to 8th spot at the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour into a tiebreaker. In the tiebreakers later on, played with 10 minutes on clock for both players, Arjun won the first game with white before defending out of his skin with black pieces to salvage a draw and secure a spot in the fifth-place playoff at the Paris tournament.
The move itself — pushing his queen to the d8 square (12. Qd8), thus offering it up as a sacrifice for Nepo’s rook stationed at f8 — sent the Russian’s heart pumping blood at 125 beats per minute. Arjun’s heart, meanwhile, seemed to be under the delusion that he was enjoying a beach siesta because it was trotting along at 58 beats per minute. Never mind that he has just played one of the moves of the day, that too in a situation where he needed to win on demand after losing the first game of the playoffs against Nepo on Friday.
“What a stunner we’ve seen. It’s crazy,” explained grandmaster Peter Leko in the commentary booth for Freestyle Chess. “It has completely paralysed black’s construction.”
Until that move from Arjun, Nepo’s king had been chilling on g8, flanked by rooks on either side and an entourage of three pawns stationed as sentries on the seventh rank.
How Arjun Erigaisi took down Ian Nepomniachtchi
What Arjun had done with the move was that it started a countdown to checkmate. Nepomniachtchi’s king was about to be forced to flail about for survival on each move. In the official commentary booth, grandmasters like Leko, Judit Polgar and Anish Giri struggled to find even a single way that the Russian would emerge from the situation without being worse than his Indian opponent.
When Nepo finally moved, playing 12…g6, it was a blunder. The evaluation bar shot up to suggest that Arjun had an overwhelming advantage now. The engine seemed to suggest that the Russian should have moved his h pawn forwards rather than the g pawn. Even that best move from the engine would have led to Nepo fighting for survival all the way through. What made the game even better was the fact that while Arjun’s queen was living up to its full potential as the most powerful piece on the board, Nepomniachtchi’s own queen never got the chance to move out of its opening square on a8 (as per the position no 4 in Freestyle Chess).
Arjun Erigaisi’s 12th move — pushing his queen to the d8 square (12. Qd8), thus offering it up as a sacrifice for Ian Nepomniachtchi’s rook stationed at f8 — sent the Russian’s heart pumping blood at 126 beats per minute while his own was beating under 60 beats per minute. (Screenshot via Freestyle Chess YouTube)
“Nepo is one of those players who finds all sorts of brilliant ideas for himself, but it’s the more arrogant types, they think they’re the great players and everybody else are nobodies… so he doesn’t expect Arjun can come up with a move like this,” remarked Anish Giri.
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What made the game even better was that Arjun started to force Nepo’s hand with even more stunning piece sacrifices: on move 17, he offered up a rook which Nepo was obliged to capture; on move 20, Arjun cast away his other rook into purgatory; on move 21, he casually offered up a knight; after move 24, the game was over as Nepo surrendered.
The tiebreaks saw more drama. Arjun won the first game in the rapid format in 39 moves. In the second game, Nepo raced to a winning advantage with white pieces. By the 26th move in the second tiebreak game, Arjun was in deep trouble. All of his pawns were isolated and could have been easy for his opponent to pick off. But then Nepo played three inaccurate moves in a row, to allow Arjun a window of opportunity. Arjun played exceptionally well from that point to grind out a draw and secure a spot in the 5th place playoff against local star Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Should Arjun defeat Vachier-Lagrave and finish fifth, he will take home $50,000 (approximately Rs 43 lakh).
The day also saw Praggnanandhaa defeat Richard Rapport to end in 9th place at the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Tour, thus taking home $15,000 (approximately Rs 13 lakhs). The other two Indians, world champion Gukesh and newly-wed Vidit Gujrathi were eliminated pretty early from the event, sharing the 11th spot in the standings.
While one more round is still left in the event, Arjun has already proven that from India’s golden generation, he has adapted to the demands of Freestyle Chess the best. Coming into his first event of the Freestyle Chess Tour, Arjun had won the Freestyle Friday online event thrice. And now is poised to be the best finisher among the Indian quartet in Paris.
