Chess Olympiad: Arjun Erigaisi, the ‘Mad Man of the Chess Board’, delivers for India with no-holds-barred chess

September 13, 2024 | 00:00:00 133 Views

Vantika Agrawal withstood extreme time pressure to defeat women’s grandmaster Teresa Rodshtein as the top seeded Indian women’s team defeated Czech Republic 3.5-0.5 in Round 2 of the Olympiad.

There was a point in his second round match against India’s Arjun Erigaisi when grandmaster Hannes Stefansson (rated 2471) did a double take as he looked at his board. Somehow, 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 same file) is bad on the chessboard, having tripled pawns is frankly inexcusable. And rare! So what if it had cost Arjun Erigaisi two knights to have his opponent’s pawns standing one behind the other

Arjun Erigaisi had started attacking Stefansson’s king as early as on the 10th move, with his h pawn. By the 16th move, he held a considerable advantage on the evaluation bar, one which Arjun Erigaisi — christened by Magnus Carlsen as the Mad Man of the Chess Board in an interview with The Indian Express — had no trouble converting into a win

Arjun Erigaisi thus gave the Indian team a 1-0 lead in the second round against Iceland, which was then converted to a 4-0 victory. Gukesh took down grandmaster Vignir Vatnar Stefansson (rated 2531) and Vidit Gujrathi defeated international master Hilmir Freyr Heimisson (2391). Harikrishna also ground out a win later to give India a 4-0 win, which secured the two games points. India chose to rest Praggnanandhaa in round 2.

“Arjun is just a complete mad man at the board. He wants to kill you in every single game. Has crazy preparation and plays extremely ambitiously and that’s what makes him very dangerous,” Carlsen had told The Indian Express in May this year.

Festive offer

Some of Arjun Erigaisi’s tactics in the first round against Jacques Elbilia, who is rated 2343 at present and is a FIDE Master, proved Carlsen’s point.

In the opening round match, there was one move that made even the engine evaluation bar’s jaw drop! With his 12th move, Arjun threw his bishop at Elbilia’s pawn, which had harmlessly parked itself on the b file. As Arjun Erigaisi made the move, the camera caught players from the adjoining board, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Ouakhir Mehdi Pierre, completely forgetting about their own battle and gawking at Arjun Erigaisi’s bishop, possibly wondering if the piece had been seized by a temporary bout of lunacy. Elbilia was largely impassive and hunched over the board studying his response, but Vidit and Pierre looked stunned. Arjun Erigaisi has chosen to sacrifice a bishop just to take a pawn. In the mathematics of the chess board, that simply did not add up: a pawn is worth just one point while the bishop is worth three.




Vantika Agrawal withstood extreme time pressure to defeat women’s grandmaster Teresa Rodshtein as the top seeded Indian women’s team defeated Czech Republic 3.5-0.5 in Round 2 of the Olympiad.

There was a point in his second round match against India’s Arjun Erigaisi when grandmaster Hannes Stefansson (rated 2471) did a double take as he looked at his board. Somehow, 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 same file) is bad on the chessboard, having tripled pawns is frankly inexcusable. And rare! So what if it had cost Arjun Erigaisi two knights to have his opponent’s pawns standing one behind the other

Arjun Erigaisi had started attacking Stefansson’s king as early as on the 10th move, with his h pawn. By the 16th move, he held a considerable advantage on the evaluation bar, one which Arjun Erigaisi — christened by Magnus Carlsen as the Mad Man of the Chess Board in an interview with The Indian Express — had no trouble converting into a win

Arjun Erigaisi thus gave the Indian team a 1-0 lead in the second round against Iceland, which was then converted to a 4-0 victory. Gukesh took down grandmaster Vignir Vatnar Stefansson (rated 2531) and Vidit Gujrathi defeated international master Hilmir Freyr Heimisson (2391). Harikrishna also ground out a win later to give India a 4-0 win, which secured the two games points. India chose to rest Praggnanandhaa in round 2.

“Arjun is just a complete mad man at the board. He wants to kill you in every single game. Has crazy preparation and plays extremely ambitiously and that’s what makes him very dangerous,” Carlsen had told The Indian Express in May this year.

Festive offer

Some of Arjun Erigaisi’s tactics in the first round against Jacques Elbilia, who is rated 2343 at present and is a FIDE Master, proved Carlsen’s point.

In the opening round match, there was one move that made even the engine evaluation bar’s jaw drop! With his 12th move, Arjun threw his bishop at Elbilia’s pawn, which had harmlessly parked itself on the b file. As Arjun Erigaisi made the move, the camera caught players from the adjoining board, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Ouakhir Mehdi Pierre, completely forgetting about their own battle and gawking at Arjun Erigaisi’s bishop, possibly wondering if the piece had been seized by a temporary bout of lunacy. Elbilia was largely impassive and hunched over the board studying his response, but Vidit and Pierre looked stunned. Arjun Erigaisi has chosen to sacrifice a bishop just to take a pawn. In the mathematics of the chess board, that simply did not add up: a pawn is worth just one point while the bishop is worth three.