The Classical Variation

This variation against Peter's essayed Nimzo-Indian is not without risk, but it's perhaps safer than other mainline alternatives. The point is that Arjun wants to avoid bishop takes knight with a doubling of his pawns.

Arjun steps his bishop 'out of the pawn chain', meaning that when he pushes his king's pawn forward, the bishop won't be stuck behind friendly pawns.

Keeping the pin active.

Peter goes for an aggressive line, breaking the pin immediately and preparing to jump his knight into the center.

Now the knight has pressure against the bishop, as well as the pinned knight on the queenside.

Arjun wastes little time challenging Peter's strongest piece, while also accelerating his development.

leko goes 'all-in'!

This move is objectively bad, and no doubt that Leko knows that the risk is more than the reward. But he's happy to throw caution to the wind, as his goal is to get an attack going and to keep things as messy as possible. A draw for him is as good as a loss, after all.

Arjun evicts the invader knight, but it does come at the cost of weakening his dark squared pawn in the center. A little bit of hope for Leko?!

This pawn, along the semi-open file, is an enduring target for Leko to latch on to.

First of all, Leko has to defend his pawn.

Having kicked out one of the invading pieces, Arjun sets his sights on the other one!

Leko with a real chance

Arjun's position is the better of the two, but not by much. And there's still a lot of life in the position. More than anything, it's quite unbalanced. That's a win for Leko, as it guarantees chances for both sides.

The opposite side castling is not so much about generating attacking chances for Arjun. Rather, it's about finding the safest home for his king.

Leko drops his knight back, reinforcing his central pawns.

Brave play!

But correct play too, as Arjun recognizes that opening up the position should be in his favor. The reason is that he is the side with the safer king for now.

Peter is happy to oblige, since at least now he'll gain an open file for his rook.

Leko has to be really careful here that Arjun doesn't get a chance to add his queen to the attack. He's only a couple of moves away from setting up decisive threats.

Peter Leko seems to be struggling to find constructive moves in the last few turns, and that's being reflected in his body language at the board. He appears to be quite tense and even a bit jittery, something that is being compounded by the fact he's slipped heavily behind on the clock.

Arjun adds to the pressure

Really convincing play from the Indian no.1, as he now brings his queen to a much stronger diagonal. In the future he might even have some sacrificial ideas based around rook takes pawn!

huge moment

The only path to a big edge for Arjun is to play pawn takes pawn in the center! If he does so, he's almost winning; anything else and Leko is right back in it.

!!GREAT MOVE!!

Arjun recognizes the importance of opening up the central file, with his rook now getting ready to play an active part in the struggle.

One powerful idea for Arjun is to bring his rook up to the fifth rank, not only pressuring Leko's central pawn but also setting up sacrificial ideas on the kingside.

!!GREAT MOVE!!

Arjun is now extremely close to getting the win here. Leko just has no good way of meeting the combined pressure against both center and kingside.

Desperation, as Leko brings his knight to an active square at the cost of his central pawn.

Unfortunately for Leko, he's in massive trouble if he grabs his pawn back by playing queen takes pawn now. The reason is that Arjun would then give a near-fatal check on the seventh rank.

Leko will intuitively know that taking the pawn should lead to a losing position, but he's out of ideas and needs to bank on Arjun somehow going astray.

Offering a rook trade, since the king had no safe square to turn to.

Objectively, this move may not be the strongest. But in practice, it's more than good enough. Leko must now offer a queen trade, but doing so will kill any chance of somehow turning this game into a win.

leko gives up

He plays this move, and offers a draw with it. So if Arjun wants, he can end the match on the spot.

arjun plays on!

Such is the risk-free advantage he considers himself to have, that he even decides against giving the draw, aiming to go 2-0 in the rapid instead!

It's just a clean pawn for Arjun, as well as having the better minor piece (the bishop tends to be a little stronger than the knight in cases with pawns scattered across the board).

Somewhat surprised by this choice. Now the rook and pawn endgame is pretty much impossible to win, which is why I expected Leko would instead have kept the minor pieces on the board.

Objectively speaking, this should be a draw. But Leko still has to work to get there as he remains a pawn down.

Nothing much has changed in the past few moves. Leko continues to defend stubbornly, and is objectively still close to equal. But no winning chances on the horizon, so Arjun looks to be about to secure a spot in round 5!

Arjun can finally start to make some progress here, bringing his rook and king up.

??MISTAKE??

Leko finally cracks, allowing Arjun to return to a winning position by letting him bring his king up to a much more aggressive position.

Peter can hold the balance by pushing the pawn forward, but that's a tricky move to see.

Arjun has now transitioned to a winning rook and pawn ending, and still while running no risk.

An easy path to victory now for Arjun, as he can win Peter's queenside pawn by giving a check with his central one.

Peter cannot take with the king as then there's a skewer. And if he takes with the rook, then Arjun will give a check from the side and collect the left-hand pawn.

Arjun goes through!

Peter Leko is eliminated in convincing fashion, as Arjun Erigaisi proves to be too strong for him in the first set of rapid games in their match.

Disaster struck early for Leko, as he found himself gambiting a pawn in dubious fashion in the first game. That allowed Arjun to snatch material and then consolidate his position, and left Leko trying in vain to hold together an endgame where he had less material and a worse position to boot.

Once that game finished with a victory for Arjun, the task ahead for Leko felt nearly impossible. He would need to win from the Black side against a player in the 'top 5' of the global rankings.

To his credit, he tried to fight from the start. And he did obtain a messy and unbalanced position. Unfortunately for him, it was always a little better for Arjun, and soon that snowballed into a crushing attack for the Indian grandmaster.

The attack didn't come good in the end, but it did whittle down into a far superior rook and pawn endgame. Leko even offered a draw at one point, but Arjun felt that by that stage there was no risk for him to press for the full point.

And, indeed, that's what he got in the end! A big confidence boost for Arjun Erigaisi, as he can enjoy a relatively short day at the office and begin preparations for tomorrow's fifth round.

Commiserations to Peter Leko, who had an excellent performance at this year's World Cup, and whose many fans will see him in action once again next year, as he has confirmed his participation in the 2026 Chess Olympiad.