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Amin Tabatabaei and Arjun Erigaisi have played four classical games so far. The Indian won the only decisive game just over two years ago. They also met once this year, in a game played in Armenia that ended in a draw. Arjun is playing at a different level in this tournament, however, and he made that clear early in the game when he went on the attack.
He made a very nice bishop sacrifice that was difficult to refute. The sacrifice did not win him the point immediately, but his opponent eventually collapsed under the pressure in the endgame and lost the game. Arjun became the sole leader after this win against the former co-leader, and increased his live rating to 2809.3.
If you check the move 18...g3 with an engine, it is very difficult to understand why a player of Arjun's calibre would go for this move. However, for attacking players this is quite natural, they simply sacrifice the pawn to open up lines: 19.fxg3 hxg3 20.h3 Nbd7 21.c5 Nf8 22.cxd6 cxd6 23.Qc1
The position called for it and Arjun did it: he sacrificed his bishop on h3 with 23...Bxh3!
White had to accept the sacrifice with 24.gxh3 and Black played 24...Ng6 since ...Qxh3 does not lead to an immediate win. Arjun then decided to bring more pieces into play via 25.Rxg3 Nf4 26.Qe3 Nxh3+ 27.Rxh3 Qxh3 28.Qxh3 Rxh3
White gave up his rook but ended up with two minor pieces for a rook.
Tabatabaei collapsed under the pressure: 46.Bf1?? fxe4-+ and Arjun continued to find all the right moves: 47.Bc4 Rc2 48.Td7 Th3 49.Ke3 exf3 and White soon resigned the game.
Arjun's lead grew as the other three games all ended in draws: Aravindh Chithambaram achieved a quick draw against Levon Aronian in 17 moves. Vidit Gujrathi, on his part, achieved a hard-fought draw against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. And Parham Maghsoodloo shared the point with Alexey Sarana.
Pranav Venkatesh defeated Vaishali Rameshbabu to maintain his perfect record of 4 out of 4 with a full-point lead over his closest contenders in the standings. Leon Luke Mendonca stands in sole second place and has a half-point lead over Raunak Sadwhani.
How to Avoid Mistakes and Boost Your Winning Rate
Doesn’t every chess game get decided by mistakes? Absolutely. But most players never truly comprehend that they are making the same kind of mistakes over and over again.
Pranav Venkatesh
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