As the Magnus Carlsen vs Arjun Erigaisi game in Round 9 of the FIDE World Blitz Championship reached its heart-stopping crescendo, even the official live stream froze. When it restarted a few seconds later, Carlsen was already walking off while Arjun sat on the seat calmly resetting the board. It later became apparent that Carlsen had lost after running out of time. But in the few seconds of live coverage that were lost in a transmission glitch, there had been plenty of drama in the game between two men who had claimed gold and bronze medals at the World Rapid Championship on Sunday.Carlsen, who had already been forced into doing double take after double take on the board, got so low on the clock eventually that he picked up his queen to move it, but fumbled it instead in such a way that it went clattering to the ground. Just as the World No.1 tried to retrieve it, the clock ran out of time. Arjun had made one of the greatest blitz players blink. Carlsen reacted to the defeat just like he had when he had lost to Gukesh in a classical game at Norway Chess earlier in the year: by smashing a balled up fist on the board in frustration. Magnus Carlsen slams table after losing to Arjun Erigaisi. (PHOTO: Screengrab/X)Just a day ago, Carlsen, basking in the glory of his World Rapid Championship title, was talking about the blitz section, calling it his ‘favourite event’. For eight rounds of blitz on Monday, it looked like he was on track to do the double as well after winning the Rapid Championship: he had not lost a single game. Then the defeat to Arjun happened.While Carlsen had claimed gold at the FIDE World Rapid Championship, Arjun had taken home a famous bronze. In the World Rapid too, he had frustrated Carlsen by holding on for a draw despite being outnumbered in terms of material on the board.Arjun ended the day in a three-way lead of the standings on 10 points along with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Fabiano Caruana with six more players in the chasing pack of 9.5 points. Carlsen ended the day on nine points with 11 players, including five Indians. The top 4 players after six more rounds tomorrow, will play in the semi-finals.Carlsen knows the menace that Arjun brings to the board. He once, in an interview with The Indian Express, fondly described the Indian as a ‘mad man on the chess board’.What Carlsen meant was that Arjun had an appetite for risk-taking on the board that is rare at the top echelons of chess.Story continues below this adAs his early coach Srinath Narayanan pointed out, “He is always looking to win. He’s willing to lose in that pursuit of victory. In general, at the top level, most players enter a safe zone before they try to push for a win when the risk is very low or non-existent. Chess allows you to do that, which is why it has a high propensity of draws. But Arjun is willing to risk losing just to win. That comes from him having a very high ambition.”When The Indian Express had spoken to Arjun during the recent Global Chess League to try and decode his style on the board, Arjun credited Srinath’s push in his early days.“My style was quite the opposite of what it is right now in my childhood. But during the pandemic, my coach Srinath told me that I have to improve in other aspects as well. He told me I have a lot of room for improvement in certain areas and I worked on them. So from being a weakness it became a strength,” Arjun said.What were these areas?“Arjun was already incredibly strong at that time when I met him. But he was playing a little bit within himself. I remember there were two major areas where I identified that he had the potential to improve: opening preparation and the other was to be more ambitious as a player,” Srinath added.Story continues below this adSrinath points out that one of the reasons Arjun thrives is his appetite to do his homework in opening theory and his memory to remember everything he’s learnt very quickly, which is rare even at the top echelons.But what separates him even further from the other top players of his generation might just be the way he looks at chess.“Nobody on the planet really understands how Arjun plays. Even though I have worked with him as a second, I still don’t get how exactly he sees chess. And that’s a high praise, in the sense that when you work with somebody, you really get an idea of how they look at chess. But with this guy, it was very hard,” said Kushager Krishnater, who has been a second to Arjun till 2023 besides helping some of the country’s top grandmasters as a second.“The hardest I have worked for in terms of chess intensity was Arjun. And after we parted ways, I’ve also worked (as a second) for a lot of players who played against him. Still, nobody has exactly understood what to do. Against everyone else, people have specific game plans. But against Arjun, everyone is still kind of hazy about what they really should be doing,” added Krishnater. “The way he plays chess is extremely dynamic. It’s an energy-intensive way of playing. Only he can play that style of chess. If you ask Gukesh or Praggnanandhaa or any Indian player to play that style, even if you give them the files with opening prep, I don’t think they would want to play that.”