Carlsen won against Erigaisi with “Anti-young-player chess”
After posting a record score in the Julius Baer Generation Cup Prelims, Magnus Carlsen won the final against 19-year-old Arjun Erigaisi in the minimum possible number of games!
The Julius Baer Generation Cup 2022 started unorthodoxically for the World Champion, who chose to resign on move 2 against Hans Niemann. Despite gifting Hans 3 whole points, Carlsen still posted a record score of 34/45 points total for the 2022 Tour, and entered the final with massive 9 points ahead of 2nd placed Erigaisi.
Carlsen continued his exceptional performance against the “amazingly strong” as he called him, Erigaisi, scoring 2½-½ in the first set, and 2-0 in the second to win the Cup with the minimum possible number of games according to the rules. Arjun did not leave the tournament empty-handed, though, as besides the prize money ($15,000), he qualified to the Champions Chess Tour season, set to take place in November in San Francisco, USA.
“I tried to play a little bit older, less-theoretical lines that have some serious strategic complexity, and it worked out pretty well. [...] I’m happy with the opening choices that I made — the strategy I had from a psychological point of view. Now that I’m playing younger and younger players, it makes sense to employ some different tricks.” Carlsen said on his strategy against Erigaisi.
On Hans Niemann and his promised statement after the end of the tournament, Carlsen said: “I will say a little bit more. Whether it will be tomorrow or one of the days after is not completely clear. I generally want cheating in chess to be dealt with seriously, but we’ll see what happens. I’ll certainly put out a statement very soon, and that will also not be all you hear from me on the topic.”
