How Magnus Carlsen took down Arjun Erigaisi in 40 moves at Tata Steel India chess tournament

The tournament’s unrecorded broadcast caught a show of Magnus Carlsen sitting backmost successful his seat yawning distant portion his hostile was hunched implicit the committee trying to diffuse the ticking explosive successful beforehand of him. A fewer moves later, arsenic Arjun contemplated different fork successful the road, Carlsen leaned implicit connected 1 broadside of his seat looking somewhat bored.

Both players were successful an assertive mood, with each 4 knights getting slain connected the committee wrong the archetypal 13 moves.

By the 21st move, Magnus Carlsen’s queen was staring down astatine Arjun’s king, which had taken to hiding down a sparse screen of conscionable 2 pawns. The World No 1 had managed to make important hostility connected the queen-side of the committee and was up by doubly arsenic overmuch clip connected the timepiece — implicit 14 minutes to Arjun’s 7 — arsenic his Indian opponent.

On determination 25, Magnus Carlsen’s queen, backed connected the record by the rook, moved wrong 1 quadrate of Arjun’s king giving it a monolithic fright.

Magnus Carlsen thinks astir his adjacent determination against Arjun Erigaisi astatine the Tata Steel India Rapid and Blitz chess tourney connected Thursday astatine the Dhono Dhanyo Auditorium successful Kolkata. (Express photograph by Partha Paul)

Two moves later, helium went up a pawn connected the king broadside adjacent arsenic his hostile worked his pieces to stabilise the volatility connected the queen-side.

Move 31 saw Arjun blunder, by shifting his rook connected the 3rd fertile successful beforehand of his king, whose beingness was nether threat. But successful doing truthful helium had allowed Magnus Carlsen’s pawn connected the h record an unfettered tally to the extremity portion to promote. It was that pawn’s tally that would yet unit Arjun into a monolithic imbalance successful presumption of material.

By this stage, Arjun’s clip was down to seconds. And Magnus Carlsen’s pieces were inactive piling connected unit connected Arjun’s king.

Eventually, Arjun’s defence crumbled and helium waved the achromatic emblem of surrender connected determination 40.

INTERACTIVE: How Magnus Carlsen bushed Arjun Erigaisi

For Arjun Erigaisi, this was a forgettable day. He mislaid to Wesley So successful circular 4, which was the archetypal clash of Thursday. He past managed to salvage a gully from a teethering presumption against Vincent Keymer earlier the nonaccomplishment to Magnus Carlsen.

The 21-year-old from Warangal has different had a standout season, wherever helium had been ranked No 3 successful the satellite successful the authoritative FIDE rankings and has touched the elusive 2800-rating people successful the unrecorded ratings. He besides won an idiosyncratic golden connected the 3rd committee astatine the Chess Olympiad successful Budapest for India.

At the extremity of Thursday’s games, the Indian trio of Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin and Vidit Gujrathi are astatine the bottommost of the 10-player standings with 2 points each. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen goes into Friday arsenic the sole person successful the unfastened conception with 5 points.

Vantika successful pursuit for women’s title

In the women’s section, the young Vantika Agrawal is giving a measurement of her calibre by ending circular 6 arsenic the apical ranked Indian subordinate successful the women’s section, which is nary mean feat considering the different women successful enactment are Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli and Vaishali R — the lone 3 women’s players from India to person a grandmaster rubric — too Divya Deshmukh, who was 1 of the stars of the Chess Olympiad golden medal winning Indian women’s team.

Vantika played connected the 4th committee herself for India astatine the Olympiad wherever she, similar Divya, Arjun and Gukesh, had an idiosyncratic golden medal arsenic well.

Leading the women’s conception up of Vantika are Aleksandra Goryachkina (five points) and Georgian Grandmaster Nana Dzagnidze (four points).