Wesley So played 'Brillian Rook Sac' against Arjun Erigaisi | Tata Steel Chess 2026 - R15

Trying to show something on the board. Handshakes the hedge. First moves it's E4. Will we see another? E4 Sicilian. This is Cicel for the kill. This is Arjun Bhai saying fight on. Game on. Absolutely. We have the open Sicilian on the board. Is he going to go Bishop E4? His favourite. He does it. Wow. You know I've seen a lot of games of Arjun playing this variation over and over and over again. It is a huge risk. And let's see if Wesley either punishes him here or whether Arjun can do Arjun things. High risk, high reward has always been an Arjun approach there. He's destroyed that bond structure. The Bishop now comes back and that's the drawback of this opening. It's very offbeat. Ignore the evaluation part. This is Arjun in preparation. He knows what he's doing. Objectively not the best but huge practical chances. For sure. And you have those double bonds that's an imbalance on E5. It is slightly exposed. He brings the Knight out to C5. A good outpost there. Arjun has delayed castling for now which I think is on purpose but right now he's going to focus his attention on the Queen side as he goes B6 to try and develop this Bishop on this beautiful diagonal. I think just looking at how this game is progressing Tanya, I think Arjun has good chances to win this. Queen comes to G3 making sure that the top square Bishop that Arjun has doesn't develop easily. You know what you're saying about how the game is progressing. I think the clock also tells a bit of that story. Already a 30 second lead with the Black pieces there. Arjun now looking at perhaps even pushing the B pawn to B5 at the right moment to clamp down on the Queen side but Wesley says, you know Arjun I know how to attack as well. I can get aggressive as well. Let's go H4, H5, H6 and if Arjun has to put a stop to this at some point by going H6 but the question is does he do it now or does he do it one move later. Right now a move like Qc7, a move like B5 looks pretty logical. He goes H5, puts a stop to this H pawn immediately. Not the best move in the position but keeping things complicated as usual. And NB3 trying to trade on White's terms here to improve the pawn structure on the Queen side. Arjun takes the Bishop, gets the imbalance going early on as he usually does the Bishop pair. Now that NB3 will be unchallenged for the rest of the game on a nice diagonal expecting Wesley at some point to blunt it with a move like F3. The key factor here is that Arjun is struggling with development, right? As long as the Bishop stays on F8, the Rook on H8 is out of the game. Yes, I was hoping for some Rook H6, Rook G6 business but this Bishop on D2 is making sure that it will never get active here. And yeah, looking tricky now for Arjun as the pawns are... He might give up that pawn. He might say, you know what? Take it. I want the open G-Line but I'm expecting more of a G6 Bishop development approach here with Black. If you play Bishop E7, I'm just not even going to take this pawn. Why? I mean, the position is bad for Black in this sense anyways. Why give you a tap for no reason? Instead, Arjun decides to go D6. He doesn't want to give up those pawns. You can take the pawn on D6 or you can play C4. Wow! He plays C4 and it's one of the best moves in the position to try and open up the Bishop. Maybe you can put the Bishop on C3 at the right moment. Takes on E5. Rook E5. Wait, wait, wait. Bishop D6 is possible now. It's a blunder! Bishop E6, Queen takes Bishop E5, defends everything and wins the Rook. He wants to go Bishop C3. I think he's about to sacrifice the exchange to plant that Bishop or from F4 to plant that Bishop on E5. And I think Wesley believes that he has enough compensation here, Sahaj. Now, Rook E1 is a huge threat. That's the problem, right? As a defender, the extra Rook has no open files. Do you see how useless that extra exchange has been? Rook takes E6. That is beautiful. That would just be game over on this spot with D5 coming in and Wesley does it. Wesley finds it. What a beast! He takes the Rook. Too many pawns. Sahaj on the 6th rank. And now, just E7 when it reaches. F4, F5 attack G7. Again, it's not an only move win. The position is winning. Although he's trying to push his own pawn down goes Bishop C7 and Bishop D8 and then push. Just promotion there. He deflects the King and then push B7. And now finally, the Rook is trapped on E8 and it's almost like playing a King's Pawn ending. The White King will do the rest of the job. Oh yes, the King is completely paralysed. The Rook is completely paralysed. He'll first pick up the A5 pawn and slowly go all the way up. Start pushing the B pawn. Wait! That's a blunder! Oof! Oh my God! Prachin finds a way back into the game because he comes in with a check and now the Black Rook finally has an active square. Ajju Bhai is back in the game. This is unbelievable. And you know what the problem is? There's no way to improve. The King can't go to E6 because it was getting checkmated. You're forced to trade pawns. How? How is this possible? Miracles! Sahej, miracles happen. You make your own miracle on the chessboard. It's because Arjun is such a fighter not giving up. And Wesley there, he knows it's all gone. He'll pick up the H4 pawn. But there's nothing to be done in this position. He allowed Arjun's Rook to get active with a check. One trap and Wesley fell for it. One last trick that worked for Arjun here. I think this is huge. And this could be, I think big for Wesley's confidence as well because now the momentum has shifted and there it is. What a game! What a finish! And I think we have to at some point, as we look at the players we're analysing there must have been so many ways to win this endgame Sahej, but the one way to not. The one way to give the draw is what happened. Wesley just rushed