If there is one word to describe Arjun Erigaisi's play in the Olympiad thus far, it is panache. Even in the first round, against a master rated over 400 Elo less he was not content to just play solid chess and wait for the mistakes or imprecisions he might exploit. He took his fate into his own hands and sacrificed material, precipitating the course of the game. His opponent wanted nothing to do with it, returning it as soon as he could, but this ended up backfiring.
To be fair, Erigaisi was not the only super GM to attempt this, and Mamedyarov faced an ignoble defeat, only to have his opponent accept a draw, but you cannot paint all such with a single brush. Dvoretsky was once asked about Tal's sacrifices, many of which were known to be wrong or dubious, and he replied that Tal won, and that is a damn powerful argument no matter what you say. This is not to compare the Indian to Tal, so don't read too deeply into that quote, but he is a very complete player who is not of the generation of pure super technical players, striving for computer perfection at every turn.
In round three he faced the Hungarian grandmaster Peter Prohaszka who was so admiring of Arjun's play that when the final wrap up came, he allowed the mate to play out, not wishing to prevent such a beautiful finish from appearing on the board. A warm kudos to his spirit of fair play!
Quick guide: The game notation below is dynamic. That means that you can click or tap (if on mobile device) on any move and a board will pop-up showing you the position.
A fantastic game through and through. Truly not milkmaid chess! (this reference is unashamedly taken from the irrepressible Mig)
In game four, his opponent from Serbia, GM Aleksander Indjic also chose to try to 'take him out of theory' by playing an extremely oddball opening that is best described by the ECO as 1.d4 d5 Other. Other indeed. It was a fascinating tussle which also ended in a lovely tactical finish punctuated by precision play, this time not giving his queen but winning his opponent's.
