Arjun Erigaisi's shocking loss to 2363 Thai IM Prin Laohawirapap | Chess Olympiad 2026

Welcome everyone to the Chess Olympiad 2026. We have India taking on Thailand and we have top board Arjun Erigaisi taking on Laovirapap Prin from Thailand, the only IM from the country, the highest rated player rated 2363. Arjun is board 2 of India but in the first round he is a Playing on the top board because Pragnananda has been rested for this one. The players shake hands, and it's going to be a very exciting game of chess with Arjun having the white pieces. There's always so much to look forward to. It's 90 minutes plus 30 seconds increment and additional 30 minutes after move 40. Arjun zones in, takes his time for the first move. He's about to make his move, and this, dear friends, is the binary recap of the day. Pawn to d4 by Arjun, and Prin Laovirapap thinks here what to do. And basically, Arjun is adjusting all his pieces and presses the clock, and knight comes out to f6. Always very interesting to see what opening Arjun chooses because he tries to make it exciting. He brings his knight out to f3, and Prin now will he play pawn to d5 or will he go for something else? He goes pawn to d5, the symmetrical line opening up the bishop to bring it out. And now pawn to e3 played by Arjun. He blocks the bishop from coming out and opens his own bishop on f1. We have c5 striking in the center, and Arjun can now go for the bishop e2 line, but he decides to play c3. This is actually playing the Semi-Slav. As black with the white pieces. Pranav goes e6. And maybe Arjun will put his knight to d2. So we see this all the time with black having knight here, knight d7, pawn on c6, and white having a pawn on c4. But Arjun is playing it with reversed colors. One of the ideas here is to eventually take the pawn on c5. Push b4, bishop b2, and finish your development. For now, Prin brings his knight to d7, not knight c6. He puts his knight on d7, interesting move, developing a piece. And now bishop to d3 seems logical, getting your bishop on a good square. Often white also tries to build some kind of a Stonewall setup with knight to e5 and pushing pawn to f4. That's also a possibility. Now Arjun castles here and Pranav is thinking. He also castles. And now few options. One is to push pawn to e4, other is b3. But Arjun goes for knight e5, and maybe this plan with f4 is what he's thinking about. Prin can go queen c7, b6, bishop b7. That's a very typical way to play, but he takes on e5. Slightly unusual move, but I think it makes sense because after d, he wants to go back knight d7. So take here, d, and now knight comes back to d7, attacking the pawn on e5. You have to defend it, so pawn to f4 makes a lot of sense, and Arjun does exactly that. He pushes his pawn to f4, just, you know, stabilizing The structure and g6, very unusual move by Prin. I mean, he was looking at some sacrifices that could come with the rook swinging over and the queen coming in, so he stops that. And Arjun goes c4. Maybe there was a possibility to push e4 as well. That was also a possible idea, but c4 played by Arjun. And let's see how Prin reacts because usually In such positions, the higher-rated player often outwits the lower-rated opponent. He goes knight b6, a good decision here. And now Arjun takes cd5, and Prin also takes back knight to d5. The e3 pawn is hanging. Black's problems essentially are with the bishop on c8. Arjun plays queen to e2, defending the pawn, and he would like to play b6, bishop b7 in the position. And he goes a6. The idea of this move is to play b5 and then bishop b7. So, he's not going b6 directly. He wants even more space. And Arjun goes knight f3. So, Arjun did not stop a4— b5 with a4 because then he realized that the b4 square would be weakened. So knight comes out to f3, and now pawn to b5 with the idea of bishop coming on this long diagonal. And e4 played here by Arjun, he kicks the knight away, and the knight has to move to b4. Attacking the bishop. The bishop goes back to b1. You don't really want to lose that bishop. So bishop b1. A very interesting imbalance has arisen with Arjun having this central clump of pawns. Pawn to c4 played by Pranav, opening up for bishop coming to c5. So Arjun quickly blocks it, so there's no bishop c5 or queen b6. And now bishop to b7 makes sense. And he does exactly that. I've been super impressed by Prin's opening play. He has played this very, very well. Arjun can now go rook d1, but he goes f5, a very cool move. And this is where the madman unleashes chaos on the board. An excellent move, trying to soften up the kingside. He plays rook e8. Now this is maybe not the best. The best was to take, take, and play knight d3, and the position remains complex. But the moment he goes rook e8, now f6 is very, very strong, and Arjun of course pushes the pawn. The problem now that Pranav will have after bishop f8 is that the dark squares around his king become perennially weak. And h4, h5 is an idea that Arjun has right up his sleeve. He doesn't play it. He should have gone for it, h4, h5. He plays queen to f2, and maybe he wants to go to b6, but queen c7 played. And one of the plans of this move is to push the pawn to c3 to create more play With this awkward position of the rook and the bishop. You see, the bishop doesn't have too many squares to go to. Arjun plays a3 immediately, pushing the knight away. And if you go knight d3, then I simply take, take, and play rook c1 with an advantage. So, he goes knight c6 back. Arjun goes bishop to b6. Now, this move Does hassle the queen, and it's very important for Pranav to go back, queen b8, because he is attacking the e5 pawn. And he continues doing that, queen b8. Arjun needs to take care of this pawn, so he goes queen to g3. And black can start playing a5, b4, bishop a6, rook a6, all of these ideas. But he goes b4 directly, does Prin. And this move is not great because now there is h4. And the thing is, h4 is a very, very strong move that Arjun has in order to soften up the kingside. But somehow, axb4 also feels very interesting. You know, h4, h5, and now axb4, Nxb4 leads to much bigger chances of attack with Qf4 and g4. But Arjun takes first, and well, the only difference here is that after knight takes b4 and h4, now knight d3, h5, you are a bit too slow as the bishop comes in. And this is all about one tempo. So now Arjun needs to maybe come back with his bishop, bishop e3. This idea shouldn't be underestimated of h4, h5. He comes back, good move, because— and if you push h5, then queen moving and g4 and takes and h5 and opening up this king is going to be toasted if not taken care of. Queen c7. Once again, Arjun has this plan of h4, h5. Let's see, he finds it this time, or he— it's not on his radar perhaps, that move, at all. Well, Arjun goes rook to a3. Well, another move which is very, very interesting choice by Arjun because he's going rook c3. His rook on a1 was not playing. He brings it into the game, wants to attack the c4 pawn, and maybe in some lines the rook can also go and swing over to attack on the kingside. So what can be more logical than that? Well, the only thing is h4, h5 was stronger than that. Rook ad8 played. Again, a very strong logical move. You want to get your knight into the center of the board, and that seems like the right way to play. Rook c3 played by Arjun, and he's keeping an eye on the c4 pawn. And now knight jumps into d3. Notice how the pawn on, uh, e4 is under attack. He takes on d3. It's the natural move. All the positions that were advantageous to white are now no longer advantageous because Arjun never went for this h4 plan. And after rook takes d3, you can now take on d3. He takes cd3. And the e4 pawn is a bit soft, so you need to defend it. Maybe queen f4, maybe queen h4 with the idea of bishop h6. But he goes queen f4. And one can feel that black is getting counterplay. Black is attacking the b2 pawn, black's d pawn can become dangerous. But I think Arjun now finally realizes that he has the goods for him to start attacking. And Prin goes wrong with h5. This is a big mistake. He should have played rook c8, and after h5, go rook c4 and try attacking, counter— creating counterplay there. But the moment he played h5, now Arjun simply brought his knight back to d2, an excellent move. Blocking the pawn, defending e4, and preparing g4. So, you know, this is the way in which Arjun has orchestrated everything in his position, and he's now going for the kill with g4. We are on move 33, so 7 more moves until time control. Bishop c5, excellent move to destabilize this. Good or bad, you need to play it. Arjun takes, bishop takes c5. Queen takes c5 check, and again, it's all a question of timing. Black would have counterplay if you give two more moves to black, but the way it stands, it's opening up king f8, trying to run away. I mean, that seems like the best hope. If you can run away here, your king would be safe. But the problem that black does have here. Is the fact that the h5 pawn is going to get super weak. So gh, gh, and now queen h6 check. Well, he first goes queen g5, very cool move. One of the threats is to simply snatch the pawn. He runs king e8 so that if you give a check Then there is queen f8, and Arjun plays excellent move rook f3. He's playing this very accurately. Prin goes rook to d8, passive move. Queen takes h5 does make sense here, but first a check, move 39. And of course, if you go king d7, I have rook takes d3 finishing the game. So king queen f8 feels like the right plan, and he pushes brings the queen back to f8, and Arjun goes queen at seven. Well, his idea here is just the queen comes to b4. Check, queen f8, and queen takes h5 could be played here. So let's see what he does. Queen h7, he goes queen b4. Now a check to bring the queen back. You know, you don't want to rush it. You don't want to pick the pawn. The knight is hanging. Forty moves done. Prince comes back. His position is bad. Now both players have gotten 30 minutes extra on the clock. This should be losing. Queen h5 taken. And Arjun gets up, he feels confident. Rook d4, trying to get some counterplay with the e4 square. And you know, black's position does have some potential. Rook g3 played. Huh, if you take here, then knight takes, takes, and rook takes d3 is a winning position here for white. So, can't rush into giving up your main asset here. He goes king d8, and now a very powerful move is rook g7. Harjun goes queen g5, which is still winning. He defends the knight. But I'm not so sure what his idea is here. Prin quickly goes with the queen to b4, keeps the pressure here. There is counterplay, you know, this is hanging, this is hanging. If you give a check, I can simply run. He goes b3, which is maybe not the best move, but it's playable. And now a very powerful idea here is rook takes e4, and Prin plays it beautiful. This is the kind of Resistance one would not imagine from a 2300-rated IM. Rook e4, rook takes d3, the best move found by Arjun. If you had taken the rook, queen e4 leads to a lot of pressure. So king c7, and now knight takes e4, but Arjun doesn't take it. You know, knight takes e4, queen takes e4, rook c3 check. And this is just winning. Like, even bishop c6, you simply come back and you are winning this game. But instead, Arjun goes knight f3. In comes a check, king h3, and now Pran takes on f3. All of a sudden, Arjun in big, big trouble because look at his king here on h3 with the black queen coming in. Queen e1, beautiful play by Pran. With 1 minute 23 seconds, he finds this incredible move. Threatening queen h1, and Arjun blunders. His only defense was queen f4 check and king g4, and he could have held this on. But instead, he went queen g7—a huge mistake, a huge mistake. And now, rook e check, king g4, and rook e4 check. Beautiful play by Prin. Rook f4, and I think Arjun has simply missed that his king and rook cannot really handle this. The queen is just too far away from action, and queen d1 check is just killer blow. Yes, queen d1 check. The youngster here, by the way, Prin is born in 2006, so he's just 20 years old. He's playing this like a genius. King g3, and now queen g1 check, and he plays queen g1 check. If king f3, rook e3 mate. And look at Prin, he has a little smile on his face. His coach Alexander Sulipa looking there in the background. Rook e3, it's a checkmate here. There's nowhere the king can go. Arjun Erigaisi is stunned. He resigns. Prin Laovirapap makes perhaps the biggest upset ever made in the history of Thai chess. And Arjun, well, that this defeat is going to hurt him. And the good news for Team India is that all other 3 boards had already won, so this loss doesn't come at such a big stake. But still, for Arjun, who was dominating the game from the opening, had played it quite well, uh, to lose this was surely not, uh, something he would have liked. And meanwhile, there are already some training sessions happening. Prin is like so excited because he's gotten this big win for himself. And this might really push him to become a grandmaster in the days to come. He truly played like a GM with the defense and the resistance he provided. Congratulations to the youngster.