Erigaisi Has Match Point


Photo: Peter Doggers

Short summary ahead of the last round on Thursday:

    If Arjun Erigaisi beats Andy Woodward in the last round of the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament, he will win the tournament.
    If Erigaisi’s game ends in a draw, he will be forced to play a tie-break with the winner in the game Magnus Carlsen-Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus.
    In case there is a draw between Carlsen and Erdogmus and Erigaisi draws, then Erigaisi is still the winner.
    If Erigaisi loses, the tournament winner is the winner of the game Carlsen-Erdogmus.

Also, there are other possibilities if Erigaisi loses – even Nodirbek Abdusattorov has a small chance – but the above scenarios are the main ones.

Please note that the last round starts three hours earlier then the previous rounds. The first move of the last round of the tournament will be made at 12.00 CET.

Magnus Carlsen had a good day at the board on Wednesday, where he launched real fireworks against Andy Woodward. After the game, Carlsen was all smiles, he felt that he was once again on top of his game. With this win, Carlsen joined Erdogmus on 4 points, going into the last round on Thursday at 12.00.

However, one player is half a point ahead of them – Arjun Erigaisi. The Indian grandmaster, who has climbed to place number seven on the world chess federation rating list during the tournament, won a long game against Jiner Zhu. This was a game where the advantage shifted back and forth. Finally, Erigaisi clearly had the upper hand, but Zhu once again showed her fighting spirit. She came very close to saving half a point. In the interview after the game, Erigaisi said that he thought she kept finding good resources and played incredibly well.

The game was not decided until move 50, where Zhu played Kc3, instead of Ke3. This gave Erigaisi the upper hand, and he took good care of his chances and secured the entire point. This win means that Erigaisi has the lead with 4½ points. Of course, all Indian chess fans will follow his game on Thursday. Winning a tournament where Magnus Carlsen is one of the opponents would be huge!

Swedish chess fans got to see Nils Grandelius scoring yet another half point. At move 41, Grandelius played 41…c5, which gave van Foreest a change to trade his two rooks for the Swede’s queen with 42.Rf7 Qxf7 43.Rxf7 Kxf7.
However, van Foreest chose not to call, and instead played 42.g5. After Grandelius answer 42….Qxg5 43.Qxg5 hxg5, the computer analysis evaluated the position as totally even. 15 moves later, the draw was a fact.

Standings before the last round

1) Erigaisi 4½p
2-3) Carlsen, Erdogmus 4p
4) Abdusattorov 3½p
5) van Foreest 3p
6) Woodward 2½p
7) Zhu 1½p
8) Grandelius 1p

More Than 500,000 Viewers per Day – TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament Sets New Records


Photo: Peter Doggers

After three days, the 3 million limit had been passed. After five rounds, YouTube statistics show that the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament has had 2.8 million viewers from all over the world. This equals an average of more than half a million viewers a day, more exactly, 558,000.

These are numbers never before seen when it comes to chess events in Sweden. Before this year’s TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament, the record was 26,200, during the live coverage of the Swedish Chess League in 2022. TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament can now show numbers that are 20 times higher.

The TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament producer Jimmy Mardell forwards the television images from the tournament venue at the Elite Plaza Hotel to a number of countries; among those India, Spain, Sweden, Turkiye and Uzbekistan.

The chess fever that Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus has created in his home country Turkiye is obvious.
The Chess24 coverage of the yesterday’s round had more than 150,000 viewers. It will e interesting to see how many Turkish viewers will be watching when the 14-year-old prodigy plays Magnus Carlsen in the last round on Thursday.

The interest in the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament in Sweden is also very noticeable.
The official live streams via the Swedish Chess Federation has, during the first five rounds, had 143,000 views, that is, an average of 28,000 a day. Add to this videos and interviews from this year’s tournament that have had almost 69,000 views. The federation’s YouTube channel has a total of plus 200,000 views this week. As a bonus, the Swedish Chess Federation channel has also increased the number of subscribers by 30 percent.

Deniz Arman, who is the program leader for the Swedish Chess Federation’s live transmissions via Twitch, is impressed by the numbers.

– An average of more than 500,000 views per round really shows what an impact the tournament has had at the international level, he says.

He also mentions a growing interest in SSF’s own coverage in Swedish. So far, there have been about 5,000 unique viewers, an increase by 74 percent, compared to the coverage of the European Team Championship in Batumi last fall.

The sixth round is on Wednesday, and the channel hosts from, among others, India, Spain, Sweden and Turkiye are preparing to present more exciting chess entertainment from Malmo, right now in the focus of the world chess community.

Top 20 Number of Views

• 150 259: Chess24 Turkiye, round 5
• 101 981: Chesscom India, round 5
• 95 052: Chess24 Turkiye, round 4
• 94 094: Chess24 Turkiye, round 2
• 94 224: Chesscom India, round 4
• 86 948: Chess24 Turkiye, round 3
• 84 489: Chesscom India (mobile), round 4
• 77 915: Chessbase India, round 1
• 76 139: Chessbase India, round 5
• 70 679: Chess24 India, round 2
• 70 469: Chess 24 India, round 4
• 67 983: Chessbase India, round 2
• 66 684: Chess24 India, round 5
• 64 748: Chesscom India, round 1
• 64 869: Chessbase India, round 4
• 62 283: Chesscom India, round 3
• 62 215: UzChess, round 4
• 61 535: UzChess, round 3
• 60 375: Chess24 Turkiye, round 1
• 55 750: Chesscom India (mobile), round 2