Analysis
The game in detail
GM Erigaisi Arjun (IND, 2759) vs GM Javokhir Sindarov (UZB, 2778) · ½-½
Board 1, India vs Uzbekistan · English Opening, Agincourt Defense, Neo-Catalan Declined (A14)
By Professor Zugzwang AI Coach . This analysis was written by a Bogner Chess AI coach.
Board one of round six, India against Uzbekistan, and two players who reached the top of the world in the same decade: Arjun Erigaisi, 2759, with White against Javokhir Sindarov, 2778. Erigaisi opened with and after had a Neo-Catalan in front of him, the kind of opening where White forces nothing and never quite stops pressing either.
Thirty-four moves later the scoresheets carried half a point each. Sindarov did not play a single move in the whole game that deserves to be called a mistake. From move eleven White carried a small advantage around with him, a good two thirds of a pawn once the middlegame settled, and on move thirty-two he traded off the very piece that was carrying it.
The break almost nobody plays: 11...e5
For ten moves everything went to plan. puts the bishop on the diagonal pointing at the c4 pawn, pushes the pawn up behind it, and the position is level. With Erigaisi shuts the queenside: the black bishop on a6 now sits behind its own pawn on b5, and for the moment the queenside has nothing left to offer.
So the position asks about the centre, and the answer is . After the material is level again, the knight on g4 leans on the e5 pawn, and the pieces that were stuck on the queenside a moment ago are in the game. Hardly anyone plays this at this level: the eye goes where the work was being done, and there stands .
Sindarov played . That is not a mistake, it is a preference, and the gap to is a small one, a good tenth of a pawn. What makes it expensive is the game that grows out of it: play now stays where White has the pawn on c5, and from here Black spends twenty moves defending a small disadvantage. When an enemy pawn closes the wing you are playing on, look at the counterblow in the centre first, and look at it concretely: does the pawn come back, and on which move?
GM Erigaisi Arjun (IND, 2759)
GM Javokhir Sindarov (UZB, 2778)
An extra pawn with a return date: 16...bxa3
Five moves later the position asks the same question again. attacks the b4 pawn, and again is at the top of the list, level with the quiet . After the centre has been traded and the black rooks can breathe. White stays a shade better there too, but only a shade.
Sindarov took the pawn: . An extra pawn with a return date on it. White picks it up in every line, in the game with and in the main line with , and by then the knight has travelled from d7 via f6 to d5. The difference to is about a third of a pawn.
Before every capture on a wing, one question is worth asking: how many moves can I hold this pawn? If the answer is "five", you have not won a pawn, you have bought five moves, and the price is the five moves your pieces spend not going forward.
GM Erigaisi Arjun (IND, 2759)
GM Javokhir Sindarov (UZB, 2778)
Only one pawn may recapture: 19...exd5
With Sindarov found the best move in the position, a good half pawn better than the waiting , and it leads into a sequence where every move has to be right: . Five captures, and afterwards the material is level again.
Which pawn recaptures on d5 decides the whole game. looks more natural because it straightens the pawns out, and it loses a whole piece: after the bishop is gone. Its only defender was the c6 pawn, and Black removed that one himself by capturing with it.
leaves the c6 pawn where it stands, and when the knight does take on b5 a move later, that very pawn recaptures: . When you are choosing between two captures, do not look at the pawn structure first, look at what the two pawns are currently doing. A pawn that defends a piece is not free.
GM Erigaisi Arjun (IND, 2759)
GM Javokhir Sindarov (UZB, 2778)
The bishop goes looking for its counterpart: 30...Bd8 and 31...Bc7
For twenty moves Erigaisi carried his good two thirds of a pawn around the board: the more active rooks, the pawn on c5, and the bishop looking in from e3 and later from f4. Sindarov’s own bishop had been staring at the d4 pawn since and was getting nowhere.
So it went hunting: and . The bishop steps onto the diagonal the white bishop has just occupied and hands White the decision. Erigaisi traded with , and with the dark-squared bishops off, the advantage was off too. He could have kept the bishop with or , and either one holds exactly the two thirds of a pawn the trade gave away.
After that there was nothing left to play for: , draw. When you stand a shade worse, the cheapest way out of the pressure is to invite a trade of your opponent’s best piece and hand him the decision. You do not have to force the exchange. You only have to offer it, and after thirty moves of pressing, an opponent usually takes.
GM Erigaisi Arjun (IND, 2759)
GM Javokhir Sindarov (UZB, 2778)
Verdict
Thirty-three black moves, not one mistake, and two moments where the position called for and and got the queenside instead. Together the two decisions cost less than half a pawn, and they are still the reason Erigaisi had twenty moves of pressing and Sindarov twenty moves of holding. Half a point with Black on board one against 2759 is a good result, and what makes the game instructive is not its ending but its eleventh move: what fixes the character of a game is rarely a capture. Almost always it is the quiet decision about which part of the board the game is going to be played on.
Moves
½-½
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