Candidates Chess: Vaishali downs Divya Deshmukh to share lead

NAGPUR: Vaishali Rameshbabu exposed Divya Deshmukh’s inaccuracy to take the lead with a dominant 31-move win over the women’s World Cup winner in Cyprus on Wednesday. In the return leg of the all-India clash, the 2470 Elo Vaishali didn’t allow Divya to play a marathon game as the 24-year-old Chennai Grandmaster turned her positional advantage into an impressive victory.

With her white pieces, the lowest-ranked Candidate Vaishali chose the English Opening and offered her rooks on the 23rd and 31st moves to earn a decisive result against 20-year-old Divya.

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Judit Polgar, the only woman player to cross a 2700 Elo rating, said in her commentary: “Vaishali came up with three rook sacrifices in one game.”




With her third victory in nine rounds, Vaishali took her tally to 5.5 and now shares the lead with China’s 23-year-old and 2578 Elo Zhu Jiner. In a lopsided result, Zhu opted for the Reti Opening with her white pieces to prevail over 36-year-old Ukrainian-born Russian GM Kateryna Lagno. The 46-move contest saw Zhu make the most of her extra knight to post her third victory.

Ukraine’s 2017 world championship finalist Anna Muzychuk missed a golden opportunity to inflict a third consecutive loss on Tan Zhongyi.

Anna settled for a draw in 56 moves to follow the leaders in second position with five points. Divya and Lagno share third position with 4.5 points.

Aleksandra Goryachkina and Bibisara Assaubayeva played out a 37-move draw by repetition to remain level on four points each. In the open field, lowest-ranked German Candidate Matthias Bluebaum held leader Javokhir Sindarov to a draw. Sindarov made a wrong move on the 24th turn and allowed Bluebaum to bring parity. The game ended in a draw after 60 moves.

Dutch super GM Anish Giri, with black pieces, upset Fabiano Caruana for his second win. Giri brings the gap down with Sindarov to 1.5 points. Praggnanandhaa R failed to utilise his mid-game advantage against Wei Yi to settle for a 56-move draw. At four points Pragg’s title hopes are now all but over.
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