Killer Instinct || Arjun Erigaisi vs Maksim Chigaev | 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad 2026

Hello everyone and welcome to round four of the FIDE Chess Olympiad 2026. I'm watching the game live as they unfold and I'm waiting for the first beautiful game to cover and this is the one. There are a lot of beautiful games still being played but this is the one that finished and it's India versus Spain on board two. It's Arjun Elgarisi versus Maxim Chigaev. David Anton is battling it out with Pragnananda on board one and we had a very very interesting clash between Uzbekistan and Turkey. They're still playing the match but board one and two were very very interesting matchups. Nodirbek Abdusaturov was held to a draw by Yavuz Khan Erdomus and the World Chess Championship challenger Dzauhir Sindaro was held to a draw by Ediz Gurel. So really impressive by the young Turkish players. We'll see what happens on the other boards but that is you know quite an achievement. I mean Yavuz Khan of course he can play against anyone but still Nodirbek is so I'm gonna call that a success for Yavuz Khan with black regardless of you know him being the greatest probably chess player that ever lived. But okay this is the game we're focusing on Arjun Elgarisi versus Maxim Chigaev. It's almost played at an engine level accuracy. There's maybe one move that defies the engine but then again we don't know how strong these players are. Maybe they're stronger than an engine. So yeah let's check it out. We have a little bit of everything here. Knight f3, knight f6, pawn to c4. We have pawn to b6, g3 going for the double fianchetto, bishop to b7, bishop to g2, e6. And it's something like like I said and everything could be some sort of an English. We have knight to c3, bishop to e7 and now pawn to d4 transposing into what appears to be a Queen's Indian defense with the knight coming to e4. So the immediate knight e4, bishop to d2 and bishop to f6. This is now a very well-known line. We have queen to c2, knight captures, queen captures and pawn to d6. And everyone exclusively castles here. That's pretty much what people do. Sometimes the e4 can be played h4 in some newer games. But rook to d1, the move that Arjun plays this is fairly new. And you can see by the situation on the clocks they've played pretty much everything instantly here. Maybe Maxim lost some three minutes. Maybe he grabbed a bottle of water and now he has returned. But after knight to d7 he spends another four minutes. So rook to d1 could come as a surprise. Queen back to c2 as this is the natural square for the Queen. We have g6, h4 and now there are some games where bishop to g7 and pawn to h4 were played. But here we have pawn to h6 and it is now as of move 12 that we have a completely new game. So pawn to h5, Arjun strikes on the king side, g5 and now castles would be expected here. Or maybe even pawn to b4. You know black is not stopping it so maybe you should play it. But b5 and this is the move I was referring to sort of the only non-engine move in the game. But then again it very well could be if we allow it to crunch the numbers up until maybe depth 70. So okay bishop captures on c3. Giving up the dark square bishop like this you know does appear to be a little bit odd. But then again if you allow knight b5, knight b4 then this could also put some problems your way. So he decides to capture it and after queen captures just play pawn to e5. And he cuts off this diagonal. There's no knight b4 and everything seems to be perfectly fine. Queen back to c2, another queen. So this is a third queen to c2 by Arjun. He really likes his queen there. And now you don't particularly need to stop a queen to f5 or anything. Or if black castles you can you know maybe go knight h2, pawn to f4 then you bring the queen. So it's a pretty wild position. But instead pawn to a5. He fights against pawn to b4. As you always should. We have knight to h2, bishop to c8 and now bishop to h3. We have knight to f6 and now bishop captures on c8. Queen captures. Could also capture with the rook but he wants to have full control over the f5 square. Which means that if the knight is on e7 you castle kingside and the queen is on c8. Three pieces will be controlling that f5 pawn push. And this is what Maxim is going for. We have knight to f1, remaneuvering the knight to e3. Knight g8 with pawn to e4 and the knight to e7. We have knight to e3 and castles kingside. Now everything is prepared for that pawn to f5 push. Arjun strikes with pawn to f4 and now we have it. Pawn to f5. Also maybe you could play pawn to f6 or if you really wanted to you could maybe capture and then allow rook g1 check. King to h8 and knight g4. But it doesn't look all that impressive here. You could go knight g8 to defend the pawn but then still king d2, king c1. Arjun can hide the king over to the kingside and then it's just a one-way attack. So after f4 we have pawn to f5. Maxim also wants the counter and now comes f captures on e5. And this is one of the more complicated structures you will ever encounter in chess, especially when this pawn comes to g4. This is incredibly tricky to calculate. Probably, you know, going towards the king is your preferred reaction. Something like captures, knight captures, and then castles. Sort of a temporary peace sacrifice because you will recapture it very quickly. Something like captures, queen g6, king to h8. You can go queen h6, check, you capture the pawn on g5 and then you will either capture on f8 or you don't have to and then you capture on e3. So you can play something like this. But queen f5, rook to g8 and it's pretty equal. So the way Arjun does it is much better. He plays f captures on e5 and now we have d captures on e5. One last idea we could maybe cover is f4 because it certainly comes to mind because you also want to, you know, try out something that holds off the white pieces. But after g captures, g captures, and rook g1, check, it's still pretty much the same thing. Knight to g4, d captures on e5 or whatever because you really don't have a good move here. Queen g2 and black's pieces are just stuck. You cannot move the knight. Otherwise, this knight moves and queen g6 will be deadly. e5 is hanging. You cannot move the rook. Otherwise, knight f6, check. So there's really nothing you can do here. It's just a horrible position. And if queen d7, for example, knight f6 with the fork, rook captures and then queen g7, checkmate. So everything wins for white here. So after f captures on e5, we have d captures on e5 and now e captures on f5. Knight captures and now I could ask you to pause the video here, but I'm pretty sure you guys already know the winning idea here. You can still do it. I cannot stop you. There's no way I can stop you. So, of course, it is castle's king side, as we've already discussed it. And now knight captures on e3, runs into... only this time it's a little bit different. This time, it would be winning for white because after captures captures, king g8, queen g5, check. King to h7, queen captures on e3. You don't trade on f8. And if queen to g4, you can capture on e5 and then on c7. So it looks maybe double-edged, but it's not. White is just completely winning here. So after castle's knight g7 by Maxim, now comes king to g2. We have queen to d7 and queen to e4. Centralizing the queen beautifully, the knight is coming to g4. And then there will be nothing more for Maxim to do. He tries to rook captures on f1. We have rook captures, rook to f8, and now rook captures on f8. King captures, and now comes queen to h7, infiltrating, threatening to capture on h6. And also, you cannot capture on h5 because the queen is hanging. So queen d6, defending the pawn, but now queen h8, check. King to f7, you have to defend that knight at all costs. And now knight g4. It's impossible to defend the pawn here. So Maxim tries knight captures on h5, and now knight captures on e5, with check. King e7, queen h7, check. We have king to e8, and now comes queen to f7, check. And it was in this position. Unmoved 36 that Maxim Chugaev, Spain's board 2, resigned the game, as there is nothing more to be done here. Once the king moves, let's say king to d8. Yes, both knights are hanging, but a quick check, and that's pretty much it. King to c8. And I hope none of you are considering capturing this knight. That would be, you know, quite an uncle move. Queen to e8, check, of course. This loses the queen, so you go here, another check, and now, sorry, not that, another check here, that will be checkmate. The pawn covers the b5 square, and that is it. So very important to win for team Spain on board 2. I think, as I'm recording, Pragnananda is still brawling it out with David Anton on board 1, so we'll see what happens there. And once I show one more, or maybe two more games from round 4 of the Olympiad, I will also go through all of the games that were played, just the results, so you guys have an idea of what happened, and maybe we even show the standings. Before going into round 3, there were 23 teams on perfect scores, so I thought it didn't really make sense to show you the standings, but now after round 4, I think we can slowly start showing the standings. So yeah, that's the game. Really hope you guys enjoyed. A big congratulations to Arjun for such a wonderful victory. I would like to thank John Anderson, Robert Palandek, Kerry Jennings, Jonathan Burke, and RaiderChess.com for your contribution to my channel. Thank you a lot, I really appreciate it. As usual, you can check two of my previous videos here. Thank you all for watching, and I will see you soon, continuing to check up on your wonderful suggestions, and whatever else happens in the chess world. Thank you all, I will see you soon, and have an excellent rest of your day. And if you still haven't, first link in the description below. Try out Lotus Chess, it's the most amazing app to learn chess, you will love it, and you will start playing like a grandmaster. Maybe not right away, but fairly soon. See you soon.