Even a 2750+ Can Fall For This! || Zhamsaran Tsydypov vs Arjun Erigaisi || Titled Tuesday (2026)

Hello everyone and welcome to an amazing game that just happened on Chess.com's title Tuesday. It's a game from round six and it features Grandmaster Jamsalan Sidipov and Arjun Eregeisi, of course also Grandmaster, one of the highest rated in the world, and now has dropped to world number 10. But, you know, maybe a month ago he was world number four, world number five, constantly switching spots with Vincent Keimer. So, you know, aside from the big three, there's Arjun Eregeisi, basically, and it's amazing that even someone as skilled as Arjun can fall for something like this. It's almost unheard of. Now, for those of you who've never heard of the classic bishop sacrifice, or they also call it the Greek gift, which never really made all that much sense, but I will show it to you. It can come out of any opening. For example, in the French, I've had this many, many times, as sometimes players with the black pieces confuse the move order, and you can easily achieve it. You get the knight into the game and they say, let's say, bishop to b4, bishop to d3, and now they just castle kingside. And all of a sudden, you play bishop captures on h7 and they resign. So this is one example of a classic bishop sacrifice, like I said, sometimes referred to as the Greek gift, and it never really made all that much sense to me, because in the Odyssey and the Aeneid, the gift was actually a horse. But here, it's not a horse that's being gifted, or a knight, it's rather the bishop. So probably, I've actually tried to figure out why this is so, but it was also referred to as the Greco attack, because Joachim Greco used to play it quite a lot, and he would crush literally everyone with it. And then maybe it got lost in the translation, where it was actually Greco's gift, not the Greek gift, and then everyone just started calling it the Greek gift, which, like I said, doesn't really make all that much sense. But okay, I still refer to it as the classic bishop sacrifice, or even Greco's gift is preferred to the Greek gift, but it is as it is. But the point is, once you capture, there's knight g5, and that's it. If you go up the board, then you can do pretty much anything. Queen d3, you threaten mate, and let's say g6, queen h3, and there's nothing you can do. Black has to give up the queen, and you just win the game. On the other hand, after knight g5 check, black can also choose to step into the abyss, so to say. But this never goes well for black. Sometimes it's playable, but here you can get the queen into the game, queen d3, check, queen f3, you can start with the h4. And again, the problem is, black king has nowhere to go. It's completely stuck here, and you can just win on the spot. h5 check, only move king h6, and now knight captures on e6, for example, delivers the check, wins the black queen, and you can resign here. So this is the most basic form of Greco's gift, and well, I could have shown you how it happens in an Italian game, maybe more fitting. But okay, here let's see how it happened after pawn to d4, pawn to e6, and now knight to f3, and pawn to c5. So this is the Horowitz defense, and certainly an opening where you don't expect such a thing to even be a thing. But okay, pawn to c3, we have pawn to d5, and bishop to f4, we have bishop to d6, and now bishop to g3. Okay, knight to c6, and now pawn to e3, followed by knight g to e7. Okay, still everything is perfectly fine. Knight b to d2, and knight to f5 by Arjun. Bishop captures on d6, we have queen captures, and now bishop to d3, putting pressure on that knight. But okay, it's not a problem. Black will happily give up that knight to get rid of this strong bishop. But of course, Nizam Saran is not interested in that. He goes back, bishop to c2, we have castle king side, and now pawn to e4. And here, I'm pretty sure you already see the theme forming. Knight to h6, one possibility here. Arjun played knight f back to e7, and here it comes, pawn to e5. The bishop is freed, and interestingly, it's still not possible to accomplish this. But you have to play queen to c7, or queen to b8. And the difference is, if let's say queen to c7, and now you try to go for the classic bishop sacrifice, let's say king captures, knight to g5, check. Now of course, we're not going to go back, that would be winning for white, but you can go king to g6. And now queen g4, it seems like it's the exact same thing, but with the queen on c7, you can counter with knight captures on e5. This comes with an attack on the white queen, and you're just not in time to create any threats. D captures, queen captures with, check. And now, if you don't want to lose the knight as well, you have to block with the knight. Then, okay, to check, the king goes back to h7, queen to h4, check, king to g8, and that's pretty much it. Queen captures on e7, d captures on e4, knight captures on c4, attacks the queen. Queen d5 attacks the knight, and now after knight d6, it still could be dangerous, but after pawn to e3, pretty much only black can win this game. White has to be incredibly precise to survive this. So that's the way to remain in the game. But Arjun played queen to d8, and yes, it is possible. Okay, here Arjun is 32-60, because this is his online blitz rating, but officially in classical chess, he's a 2750 player. He was even beyond that, and even a 2750 player can succumb to the classic bishop sacrifice, or you know, Greco's gift. And here it happens. Bishop captures on h7, king captures, and knight to g5, check. But as we've discussed, it always has a little bit of something. You know, it's never the same. And here, if you go back to g8, then it's the exact same thing. Of course, queen to h5, you're threatening mate, and after rook to d8, you're going to capture on f7, and now there's really no move that black can make. Maybe, you know, you might still have problems finding a way out, and maybe you would even accept a perpetual here, but you should never do that. Black's position is so bad here, that you even have time for g4. You even have time for g4, you stop knight f5, and you're going to play rook g1, rook g3, rook h3, and you're just going to deliver checkmate. There's nothing black can do to stop this. So that's one way to do it. But in the game, of course, Arjun went king to g6, he's not going down without a fight. Queen g4 and pawn to f5, as we've discussed in the previous line. But here, Jamstran played queen to g3, and this is not the best way to play. The best way is actually queen to f4, point being that now there's nothing you can do. For example, rook h8, you're going to bring the other knight into the game, and now let's say queen b6, you're going to castle queen's and that's it. Knight h4 will win the game, or h4 h5, that's also enough to win the game. But here we have queen to g3, and now Arjun can come back with pawn to f4. He's still going to be worse, but you know, maybe with some engine sorcery, he can survive with something like queen e8, and then after pawn to h4, king to h6, because now there's no dark square bishop, and now after pawn to h5, rook to f5, and now it's a knight b to f3, bishop b7. I mean, it's complete madness, but objectively, it would be possible. But here, after queen g3, he played queen to b6, and now it's actually a forced checkmate. I mean, I'm pretty sure you guys see it, and it's almost impossible that Jamstran did not play it. I'm not even going to ask you to pause the video, because you're literally staring at it. It is queen to h4, and Jamstran misses it, and there's no defense. Queen h7 is just checkmate, and it doesn't help. Whatever you do, you could go something like knight captures, and then rook h8 to maybe play king g5, but then queen g7, and you just start a very nice king, hunt h4 with this threat, maybe knight g6, queen h7, check, king to g4, queen captures on g6, and now after king to f4, queen to g3, checkmate. But this is with the best possible defense. When you see queen h4 here, you're going to resign the game. But OK, he played knight d to f3, we have queen captures on b2, castles king side, and now rook to h8, stopping queen h4, and now we have knight to h4. I think Jamstran, as his opponent is none other than Arjun Neregesi, was more than happy with just, you know, winning the rook here. Or rather, the exchange. So captures, captures, again threatening mate, and now pawn to f4. Now Arjun clears the f5 square for his king, and the problem is he's still getting checkmated. The quickest way to do it is pawn to g4. There's just no way to defend. I'm going to show it to you. There's no reason to look for checkmate when you already spot a different pawn, but for your viewing pleasure, we can show it. f4 check, king g4, and now pawn to h3 will be a beautiful checkmate. It's a very nice checkmate with black also waiting to deliver checkmate. But after pawn to f4, we have queen to h7 check, king captures on g5, h4 with check, king to g4, and now pawn to f3 check, king to g3, and now queen captures on g7, king captures on h4, and here Jamstran delivered a nice queen g4 checkmate. So yeah, 25 moves taking down Arjun Eregesi with the classic bishop sacrifice. This is almost unheard of. But yeah, definitely a theme you should know. Probably Arjun knows that the Greek gift or Greco's gift is not a thing in this opening. But yeah, it's not if you keep the queen on this diagonal. With the queen on d8, it is just completely winning. But still, Jamstran didn't play it out correctly, and that's why if you play such positions, you should know how to find these tricky moves when the Greco's gift is possible, so you also don't allow your opponent back into the game. But yeah, absolutely sensational. 25 moves taking down Arjun with bishop captures on h7. I mean, I have no idea where to go from here. Probably to look at maybe some other beautiful bishop sacrifices, like Immanuel Lasker's double bishop sacrifice, basically the first one that everyone references. If you haven't seen it, it's also available on my channel. Do check it out. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed it. I would like to thank Bogdan Kalmak, Darren Seng-Skarsgård, Kristi Rehn, Carlton Mary, and Torko Stenquist for their contribution to my channel. Thank you a lot, I really appreciate it. As usual, you can check two 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.