The 2025 Norway Chess Open is underway in the picturesque and idyllic city of Stavanger, where some of the best Chess players in the world are currently competing. As the tournament moves into its mid-way point, there have been some big clashes that have caught the Chess world’s attention.
Gukesh Dommaraju faced and defeated Fabiano Caruana in an Armageddon, Arjun Erigaisi beat Hikaru Nakamura, and Magnus Carlsen beat Fabiano Caruana too. Amidst these intense games, one more battle that excited Chess enthusiasts was the Magnus Carlsen vs Arjun Erigaisi match. The match took place on 29th May 2025.
Arjun Erigaisi, the current fourth-ranked player in the world, took on Magnus Carlsen, who is still the No. 1 player in the world. The game began with Erigaisi playing the black pieces and Carlsen the white ones.
After allowing a young kid to make the opening move for Carlsen, a kind gesture that further consolidates Carlsen’s popularity and image among young Chess enthusiasts, the game had officially begun. Since it was a move of gesture, Carlsen took it back and then played what he originally would – C4.
Magnus Carlsen plays the classic English Opening, to which Erigaisi responds with an English Opening too. It was a symmetrical English Open between the two players. The game was being televised and broadcast by everyone, including ChessBase India, where Sagar Shah commented on the game.
After their first moves, Arjun Erigaisi continued the symmetry with Magnus with Knights and Bishops for a while. The game continued on even keel for quite some time, before Erigaisi became the first player to castle. Carlsen castled a few moves later, after passing on a castling opportunity a few moves earlier.
Both players started going for the piece exchange of Pawns, Knights, and Bishops. However, Carlsen, being the master of the game, had a plan up his sleeve. He was offering the exchanges to Erigaisi, who took them until then. Carlsen knows how good he is at Endgame, and he was giving himself a better chance at winning by taking the game there.
Arjun Erigaisin, on the other hand, is no fool either. He knows his opponents well, he studies them, and is aware of Carlsen’s endgame prowess. However, he is a very direct player and often goes for the kill. In here, his strategy revolved around taking as many of Carlsen’s white pieces as possible. The game was still nicely poised.
At the mid-way mark, Arjun Erigaisi and Magnus Carlsen had almost the same number of pieces, with Erigaisi only one pawn down. While this would go on to prove costly for Erigaisi later, he was still holding his ground firmly at the mid-way point of the game. Erigaisi had advanced two of his black pawns at the centre of the board and was aggressively attacking Carlsen’s chess pieces. However, Magnus was strengthening his position all the while.
Erigaisi kept pushing Carlsen and kept playing a game that forced Carlsen to either take Erigaisi’s pieces or be in a situation where they had to exchange. Erigaisi kept playing direct moves, without any delay. Around this time of their gameplay, Carlsen and Erigaisi both had similar time left on the clock, i.e., 50-51 minutes. But owing to Magnus’ brilliance in pushing Erigaisi into the corner, and leaving Erigaisi with tougher to tougher choices, the Indian Grandmaster used up a lot of his time.
From both having nearly 51 minutes on the clock, Erigaisi then had 7 minutes left, while Carlsen still had 34 minutes left on the clock later on. Magnus Carlsen had all the time in the world to make informed decisions and brilliant moves, which he did. Magnus Carlsen is such a genius in this sport, and he is often so far ahead of his opponents that he can change his winning position from one to another.
Magnus then checks Erigaisi’s King with his Rook, forcing Erigaisi to take his Rook with his Queen. But this again gives Magnus the chance to take Erigaisi’s Rook. In short, Magnus just forced Erigaisi to exchange their Rooks. One of the things to note here is, when Magnus forces the Rook exchange, both players are only left with a few Pawns, their respective Kings and Queens. Now, it is very difficult to play Endgame with just Queen and Pawns, for anybody forcing the Rook exchange. However, Magnus Carlsen isn’t just any normal player.
Carlsen faces an onslaught of ‘checks’ from Erigaisi, with the latter’s Queen. But Magnus evades all of them and brings his King to the centre of the court, where his Queen lies. This way, he strengthens his position. This is why Magnus Carlsen is quite simply the best Queen Endgame player in the world. He is beyond comparison.
Despite facing too many ‘checks’ by Erigaisi’s Queen, Magnus was able to successfully evade all of them. None of them were threatening enough. What this did was take up a lot of time. In that regard, too, Magnus was ahead. Soon, Arjun had only 1 minute left on the clock, and Magnus still had 28 minutes left. Arjun, thus, had to rush his moves.
With less than a minute left on his clock, Arjun kept rushing his moves, but all of them were Queen checks to Magnus. Eventually, Arjun realizes that he couldn’t checkmate Magnus in that fashion, and he was running out of time. With only 11 seconds left, Arjun Erigaisi offers to shake hands with Magnus Carlsen. He resigns, and Carlsen decisively wins the match.
Throughout the game, many brilliant moments stood out, but what was most impressive was Magnus Carlsen’s Endgame brilliance. Arjun’s best move could’ve been exchanging, or offering to exchange, their Queens instead of the Rooks during the Endgame.
Exchanging the Queens is always the better option during an Endgame for a player who is lagging behind. In this case, it was Arjun Erigaisi. Exchanging the Queens would’ve given lesser advantage to Magnus, and could’ve kept Erigaisi in the mix for a win for a longer time. Even Magnus Carlsen pointed that out after the match was over.
Since the Queen exchange never happened, it was a small error on Erigaisi’s part. Carlsen was too good not to capitalize on it. Carlsen played the Endgame so perfectly that even Chess Engine ‘Stockfish’ and Chess Goddess ‘Caissa’ would’ve been amazed. The game lasted a total of 48 moves.
This was the second time in a row when Magnus Carlsen defeated Arjun Erigaisi. The last time they played in a classical game of Chess, Carlsen won with black pieces.
