The defeat against Fedoseev means Arjun Erigaisi has not won a single game at the prestigious Tata Steel chess event since winning the Challengers section in 2022.

By: Sports Desk Updated: January 21, 2025 23:09 IST

Arjun Erigaisi faces Praggnanandhaa in the third round of Tata Steel Chess tournament at Wijk aan Zee. (PHOTO: Tata Steel Chess via Lennart Ootes)

Arjun Erigaisi’s luck at the Dutch town of Wijk aan Zee just refuses to turn. The top-ranked Indian player slumped to another defeat in Round 4 of the Tata Steel chess tournament, this time after surrendering a hefty advantage on the board in two back-to-back moves against Vladimir Fedoseev.

Meanwhile, veteran Indian grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna defeated Dutchman Max Warmerdam to claim his second win at the event. He had earlier defeated Arjun Erigaisi while losing to R Praggnanandhaa.

The defeat against Fedoseev means Arjun Erigaisi has not won a single game at the prestigious Tata Steel chess event since winning the Challengers section in 2022. At that edition, he had won the event with a round to spare, scoring a jaw-dropping 10.5 out of 13. That win had secured Erigaisi a spot in the Tata Steel Masters section the following year. But he went through the 2023 edition without a single victory and has continued that streak in 2025. He did not play at Wijk aan Zee last year.

In the previous rounds, apart from losing to compatriot Harikrishna in round 1, Arjun Erigaisi was held to a draw in round 2 by home favourite Anish Giri before losing to good friend Praggnanadhaa in the previous round.

The series of results mean that he has now lost 19 rating points over the first four games. For context, his live rating is 2781, which is close to where he was back in July 2024.

For Fedoseev, this is the second-most significant win in recent months after beating Magnus Carlsen at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.

How Arjun Erigaisi lost to Vladimir Fedoseev

Playing with white pieces against Fedoseev in Round 4, Arjun Erigaisi had steadily built an advantage. Then on move 26, he made his first error: capturing Fedoseev’s light-squared bishop on f5 with his own light-squared bishop rather than with his knight. Erigaisi’s 26.Bxf5 (instead of 26.Nxf5) was the first of his two-move error, but there was still a way to rectify the damage.

On his next move, the Indian jumped in to recapture the square with his knight. The engine showed that he should have instead shuffled his rook on the f1 square one square to the left to e1. (Arjun Erigaisi played 27.Nxf5 instead of 27.Re1).

This was because in the next couple of moves, both the queens were traded alongside a rook and a knight. But then, that cleared the decks for Fedoseev to fork both of Erigaisi’s rooks with a treacherous hop of the knight (29… Ne3). While the rooks were on the same file, there was a pawn from Arjun Erigaisi’s army caught between them preventing them from linking up.

As soon as the Russian GM, who now represents Slovenia, played the move, he left the board leaving a shell-shocked Arjun Erigaisi to stare at the board. At the end of the sequence, the Indian was a knight down on the board. He eventually resigned on the 39th move.

Tata Steel Masters 2025 round-4_2025.01.21

You can find the official website of the Tata Steel Masters 2025 here and results here

			Rating	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Total
1		Praggnanandhaa R	2741		½					1						1	1	3.5
2		Abdusattorov, Nodirbek	2768	½							½				1	1		3.0
3		Gukesh D	2777				½	½				½		1				2.5
4		Caruana, Fabiano	2803			½					½		1	½				2.5
5		Fedoseev, Vladimir	2717			½							½	½			1	2.5
6		Keymer, Vincent	2733								½		½		½	1		2.5
7		Harikrishna, Pentala	2695	0											1	½	1	2.5
8		Wei, Yi	2751		½		½		½			½						2.0
9		Sarana, Alexey	2677			½					½		½		½			2.0
10		Van Foreest, Jorden	2680				0	½	½			½						1.5
11		Giri, Anish	2731			0	½	½									½	1.5
12		Warmerdam, Max	2646		0				½	0		½						1.0
13		Mendonca, Leon Luke	2639	0	0				0	½								0.5
14		Erigaisi Arjun	2801	0				0		0				½				0.5