 "Arjun crushes Carlsen with near-perfect game, fast emerging as world No 1’s ‘boogeyman’: ‘…don’t want to suffer longer’")
Arjun crushes Carlsen with near-perfect game, fast emerging as world No 1’s ‘boogeyman’: ‘…don’t want to suffer longer’
India’s Arjun Erigaisi was the only player to beat Magnus Carlsen in the first round of the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, doing so in style to emerge as world No 1’s new ‘boogeyman’.
Arjun Erigaisi failed to reach the semi-finals of the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus on Friday, but still had a memorable classification round with a victory over world No 1 Magnus Carlsen. The Indian chess prodigy also defeated Vincent Keymer and FIDE World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov.
The 22-year-old from Warangal, Erigaisi, lost the remaining four games to finish in sixth place in the classification as Carlsen, Keymer, Fabiano Caruana and Nodirbek Abdusattorov progressed to the semi-finals.
Erigaisi, fast becoming Carlsen’s ‘boogeyman’
Amazingly, Carlsen’s only defeat in the classification round came against the Indian Erigaisi before he won the round robin with 4.5 points out of 7.
The match was played in the No 277 position, where the two bishops are in the extreme corner on the king’s side. Making the most of the white pieces’ advantage, Erigaisi pushed Carlsen into a corner early on
“This is a position that you don’t even want to get in your nightmares,” legendary Judit Polgar said in commentary as Erigiasi took an advantage over Carlsen. “These are the positions that you want to make a good move and then resign because you don’t want to suffer longer.”
Chess great Peter Leko added, “You won’t even wish it upon your biggest enemy. This is a horror.”
Erigaisi’s advantage in the early opening can be explained by the fact that he did not play a piece from the back rank till the 10th move,
“I find it interesting that Arjun has not moved any other piece other than his pawns. It’s like a pawn war,” Polgar underlined.
As per the Lichess engine, Carlsen also made four inaccurate moves during the game, and a major mistake on the 27th move before resigning next.
How Arjun crushed Carlsen
It must have been a difficult defeat for Carlsen to digest, having recently lost to Erigiasi at the FIDE World Blitz Championship 2025 towards the end of last year. Carlsen had infamously
slammed the table in frustration after losing to Arjun, and while at Weissenhaus, he repeated any such antics; it’s clear that Erigiasi is soon becoming Carlsen’s boogeyman.
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