Carlsen says it was 'more relief than anything else' to beat Arjun in tie-breaks to win 2026 TePe Sigeman & Co Chess

Magnus Carlsen revealed that he was relieved more than anything else after defeating Arjun Erigaisi in the tie-breaks to win the 2026 TePe Sigeman & Co Chess tournament in Malmo, Sweden on Thursday. World No 1 Carlsen defeated Indian No 1 Arjun two games to one in the blitz tie-breaks – each game being won by the player with black pieces – after the two finished level on 5 points after seven rounds of the Classical tournament.

Arjun was in the sole lead heading into the final round of the Classical event, finding himself ahead of Carlsen by half-a-point. However, while the Indian Grandmaster played out a draw against American GM, five-time world champion Carlsen defeated Turkish GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus to finish level with Arjun, registering the only decisive result of the final round.

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Things, however, could have ended very differently had Woodward capitalised on his strong position against Arjun and defeated the Indian No 1, which then would have allowed Carlsen to finish top of the table and win the tournament outright.

"By the time I was winning, he had already drawn. There certainly was a point where I thought if I win this, I’m going to win the tournament outright. It was fun to see that even in the tournament situation, he kind of does his thing. And you’ve got to admire that. But sometimes it doesn’t work. I guess in the end, he was quite fortunate to survive," Carlsen told the tournament organisers after being crowned champion, in a video posted on the official YouTube channel of the Swedish Chess Federation.

'I couldn’t find the speed at all'

Carlsen, who is semi-retired in the Classical format and has barely made any appearances outside Norway Chess, further revealed how difficult it was for him to switch to Blitz mode from Classical for the tie-breaks.

"It was very tough. I couldn’t find the speed at all. Won the first game, that was a little bit random, and the second game I got pretty soundly beaten. After that, I was reasonably happy to get black since that meant an extra half-minute, but I soon wasted that anyway," the Norwegian GM continued.

"I’m pretty happy actually with the way that I played in the third game. I played very slowly initially, but eventually I managed to stabilise, and then it felt like practically I had the upper hand. But of course, I think could all see that my feeling in the end winning as queen was more relief than anything else," he added.

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