Arjun Erigaisi stuns Magnus Carlsen but misses semifinals

GM Arjun Erigaisi faced a group stage exit at the maiden FIDE Fresstyle Chess World Championship at Schloss Weissenhaus in Wangels, Germany, on Friday.

Arjun finished the tournament with 3 points from 7 games in a round-robin format, with 3 wins and 4 defeats, finishing 6th and missing out on the top four by a single point.

The Indian, however, showed some good results at the tournament, defeating the leader, Magnus Carlsen and then a brilliant queen sacrifice to defeat Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov.

He started his day with a good win over Germany’s top grandmaster, Vincent Keymer, in the first game, but then faced two consecutive defeats to Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB) and Hans Niemann (USA).

He then had a topsy-turvy run afterwards with two big wins and two defeats against the top American GMs, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian.

His biggest win of the day was against Magnus in round-6, where he attained a mate-in-10 position, handing the Norwegian legend his first and only defeat in the group stage.

Final round-robin standings at FIDE Freestyle World C’ship:

Magnus Carlsen (NOR) – 4.5

Vincent Keymer (GER) – 4

Fabiano Caruana (USA) – 4

Nodirbek Abdusattarov (UZB) – 4

Hans Niemann (USA) – 3.5

Arjun Erigaisi (IND) – 3

Javakhir Sindarov (UZB) – 3

Levon Aronian (USA) – 2

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