Candidates Chess: Divya Deshmukh upsets Anna Muzychuk to share lead, Pragg loses

NAGPUR: Two days after he had halted the four-game winning streak of runaway leader Javokhir Sindarov, Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri avenged his opening round defeat to Praggnanandhaa R in the return leg of the Candidates tournament in Cyprus on Tuesday. The eighth round in the second half of the Candidates was a game of revenge for some and a day of playing spoilsport for others.

After Giri took Pragg by surprise, Hikaru Nakamura spoiled the party of Fabiano Caruana in the battle of top two seeds, Russia’s lowest-seeded participant Andrey Esipenko handed Sindarov his second successive draw.




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In the women’s section, Vaishali Rameshbabu failed to utilise her extra pawn to take sole lead. Women’s World Cup Divya Deshmukh earned an exciting victory against leader Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine. Divya, 20, fought for more than five and a half hours to take the 36-year-old Anna down in a marathon 83-move contest.

While Anna had an upper hand, Divya kept playing patiently to turn the tables. Divya is sharing the lead with Anna, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Vaishali and Zhu Jiner. Earlier, in an all-Chinese contest, Zhu outplayed former women’s world champion Tan Zhongyi while Aleksandra Goryachkina defeated Kateryna Lagno.

Vaishali not only defended well with black but had her winning moment when she was a pawn up against Kazakhstan’s reigning three-time women’s world blitz champion Bibisara Assaubayeva.

The 74-move contest, however, ended in a draw. Had Vaishali won, she would have secured sole lead.

In the Open section, Sindarov maintained his lead, collecting 6.5 points. Giri joined Caruana in second position with 4.5 points.


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