There was some extent in his second spherical match in opposition to India’s Arjun Erigaisi when grandmaster Hannes Stefansson (rated 2471) did a double take as he checked out his board. In some way, his opponent had unleashed such chaos on the board that three of his pawns stood in a neat queue on three squares on the e file.
If having doubled pawns (two pawns on the identical file) is unhealthy on the chessboard, having tripled pawns is frankly inexcusable. And uncommon! So what if it had value Arjun Erigaisi two knights to have his opponent’s pawns standing one behind the opposite.
Arjun Erigaisi had began attacking Stefansson’s king as early as on the tenth transfer, together with his h pawn. By the sixteenth transfer, he held a substantial benefit on the analysis bar, one which Arjun Erigaisi — christened by Magnus Carlsen because the Mad Man of the Chess Board in an interview with The Indian Categorical — had no hassle changing right into a win.
Arjun Erigaisi thus gave the Indian staff a 1-0 lead within the second spherical in opposition to Iceland, which was then transformed to a 4-0 victory. Gukesh took down grandmaster Vignir Vatnar Stefansson (rated 2531) and Vidit Gujrathi defeated worldwide grasp Hilmir Freyr Heimisson (2391). Harikrishna additionally floor out a win later to present India a 4-0 win, which secured the 2 video games factors. India selected to relaxation Praggnanandhaa in spherical 2.
“Arjun is only a full mad man on the board. He desires to kill you in each single recreation. Has loopy preparation and performs extraordinarily ambitiously and that’s what makes him very harmful,” Carlsen had instructed The Indian Categorical in Might this 12 months.
A few of Arjun Erigaisi’s ways within the first spherical in opposition to Jacques Elbilia, who’s rated 2343 at current and is a FIDE Grasp, proved Carlsen’s level.
Within the opening spherical match, there was one transfer that made even the engine analysis bar’s jaw drop! Together with his twelfth transfer, Arjun threw his bishop at Elbilia’s pawn, which had harmlessly parked itself on the b file. As Arjun Erigaisi made the transfer, the digital camera caught gamers from the adjoining board, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Ouakhir Mehdi Pierre, fully forgetting about their very own battle and gawking at Arjun Erigaisi’s bishop, presumably questioning if the piece had been seized by a short lived bout of lunacy. Elbilia was largely emotionless and hunched over the board finding out his response, however Vidit and Pierre appeared shocked. Arjun Erigaisi has chosen to sacrifice a bishop simply to take a pawn. Within the arithmetic of the chess board, that merely didn’t add up: a pawn is value only one level whereas the bishop is value three.
Arjun Erigaisi defeated GM Hannes Stefansson within the second spherical of the Chess Olympiad. (PHOTOS: FIDE / Michal Walusza, Anna Shtourman)
However it was not a blunder. It was a calculated sacrifice. Tellingly, Elbilia’s benefit lasted all of two strikes, with the Moroccan ill-advisedly capturing Arjun Erigaisi’s second bishop together with his rook, within the course of letting that piece get captured as effectively.
The truth that Arjun Erigaisi performs on the third board for India is likely one of the Indian staff’s largest benefits. Hikaru Nakamura, the top-ranked American chess participant who has skipped the Olympiad, had rated India as the new favorites, regardless of Group USA being the highest seeds within the open part.
“India are very formidable. I do know that for India, Arjun is not going to be taking part in on Board 1, so if Pragg is in kind and Gukesh performs decently, India can be very formidable. I don’t see any manner by which this staff just isn’t the clear favorite,” he’d stated on his YouTube stream.
Vantika overcomes time strain to win
Vantika Agrawal (rated 2370) withstood excessive time strain to defeat girls’s grandmaster Teresa Rodshtein (rated 2159) as the highest seeded Indian girls’s staff defeated Czech Republic 3.5-0.5 in Spherical 2 of the Olympiad with Divya Deshmukh and Harika profitable and Tania Sachdev drawing.
At one level, Vantika wanted to make 28 strikes in 38 minutes. As the one participant from the Indian girls’s staff who had not gained her first spherical conflict, she would have felt the strain. However she performed as precisely as potential, at one level pinning considered one of Rodshtein’s knights to her king, the opposite knight to her queen and forcing Rodshtein’s rook to remain frozen on the c8 sq..