When Arjun Erigasi qualified for the quarter-finals of Paris Leg of Freestyle Grand Slam Tour on Tuesday by finishing the top eight in the leaderboard after the 11 round-robin rapid games, it was soon certain that the player would not like to face any person after finishing fourth. The top half of the finishing comes with its own benefits in this tournament. The top half get to choose their opponents, which they like to face in the quarters, with another additional benefit they want to start. But the fourth place meant that Arjun had to wait for the first three to make his choice first.
After Ian Napomonachty, the Visenhus leg -winning Vinner went with a daring liking, Magnus Carlsen chose Nodirbek Abdoustorov and Maxim Wachier Lagrave chose Fabiano Karuana, Arjun had no choice, but to play Nakamura.
Arjun chose to play white against the world’s number 2, besides Carlson, the only player is a live rating above 2800 in classical chess.
Drawing lot gave position number 841, where bishops lie in the center and the king is on B file with a natural barrier.
Next to the round, it was Napomonachchi, who batted for a pawn sacrifice, named “Napo Gambit” in a hurdle of players with dark pieces, including Caruana, Vidit Gujrathi, Abdusattorov and Nakamura. According to Russian, the line was almost winning for black and after much deliberations, it was Caruana and Nakamura, who went with the same line to try their luck, while Napomonachchi also did not play its line.
Arjun, who pushed his central pawn E4 to gain control over the centers, was immediately offered a pawn sacrifice from Nakamura. And immediately after the ninth move, where Hikaru develops a minor piece and misunderstood his Night D6 – handing over a big advantage to Arjuna at the opening – his accuracy was immersed on a large scale and 89.7 accuracy was at least of all 12 players at that given point.
His heart rate also became close to 100, while one composed Arjuna kept his heart rate under control.
Arjuna’s observation of the basic principle of chess, in search of center control, even says a lot about this format in freestyle variation. Even though the reshuffle does not make any place to open the backgank theory, the original essence of the game is the same.
“I have recently discovered: Initially, I thought that in freestyle you often need to open a diagonal quickly for bishops or queens. But I have paid attention to the center control – such as playing E4 or D4 – still matters a lot, even if these tricks do not have open lines immediately. Not too often, not strong center control.
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Even with a clear weakness in the situation following the advice of Napomaniachi at the opening, Nakamura continued to exclude Arjuna in Midlgam to get the benefit of time. This step proved to be important for the American who forced Arjun to think for a long time for his trick. As a result of time gains, a position benefited for Nakamura, which then had an additional pawn in the endgeam. But converting a root endgeam even with an additional pawn against a player of Arjun’s caliber will never be an easy task for him.
From a Rook Andge to King Pon vs. King Endem, Nakamura was forced to share the loot.
A clearly disappointed Nakamura blamed Napomomonachchi for the pawn sacrifice line and excavated it, saying “Never trust a dandruff”.
“Apparently I did a good job of acting there if you think I was looking happy, because for the first 1.5 hours I really wanted to get up from my board and strangled Napo (Napomonachchi), I was very sad that I was very sad, later it was fine but,” He said after the match.
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His past struggle in the Visenhus Tour now ends as Nakamura feels in playing peace in control at this time. “In general, you try to play together and the good thing about the classical is that unlike rapid and blitz, it is actually going to come in a situation where some crazy blunders are usually that comes with a better plan, will win the game and so I feel so much more peacefully while playing the control time,” he said.
