Arjun Erigaisi defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in 41 moves with black pieces in the playoff for the 5th place at the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour on Sunday. Both players will be back on Monday to play the second game with colours reversed.
At the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess event, Arjun is already assured to be the best finishing Indian out of the four players who competed. While reigning world champion Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi finished joint 11th, Praggnanandhaa finished ninth in the standings after defeating Richard Rapport. If Arjun finishes in 5th place at the Paris event, he will take home a cool $50,000 (approximately Rs 43 lakh).
How Arjun Erigaisi defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
The game started with position number 103 being drawn and Arjun finding himself in a huddle with other players who were also playing with black pieces on Sunday — Ian Nepomniachtchi, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. The three veterans did all the talking in the huddle over the chessboard, while Arjun sat at a distance, absorbing all the ideas but barely contributing. Nakamura was to play in the final against Magnus Carlsen while Caruana took on Vincent Keymer for the third position. Nepomniachtchi, who was defeated by Arjun on Saturday, was facing Nodirbek Abdusattorov for the 7th spot.
The Indian’s game also started with a slight difference: the first moves in the rest of the three games were 1.c4 c5, with only Arjun and his opponent going for 1.d4 d5.
The World No 4 from India had an advantage against his quarry from the 15th move itself when Vachier-Lagrave played 15. Qd2? (the engine showed the move to be a mistake with Qe1 being the engine’s preferred option.) Arjun was a rook up from the 22nd move, an overwhelming edge for a player of his calibre. When the queens were traded by move 29, Vachier-Lagrave had little chance of even pulling off a draw. Arjun finally forced the Frenchman to resign on the 41st move.
