Candidates Chess: Vaishali snatches win from jaws of defeat, Divya draws

NAGPUR: An epic blunder by former Women’s World Champion Tan Zhongyi of China at the Candidates chess tournament enabled Vaishali Rameshbabu snatch victory from a losing position and maintain her joint second position in Cyprus on Sunday.

While Ukraine’s 36-year-old Anna Muzychuk, who had lost her 2017 women’s World Championship final to Zhongyi, played out a quick draw to maintain sole lead collecting 4.5 points, Vaishali’s idea of playing patiently paid dividends as the fourth ranked Indian Grandmaster secured her second successive victory.




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At the halfway mark of the double round-robin tournament, Vaishali is just half a point behind Muzychuk, who played out a 26-move draw with Kazakhstan’s reigning three-time women’s world blitz champion Bibisara Assaubayeva. The seventh round draw pushed Bibisara to joint fourth position.

On Vaishali's King’s Pawn opening, the 24-year-old Zhongyi chose the Pirc Defense. Vaishali’s 11th move mistake gave Zhongyi a slight edge in the game. By the 22nd turn Vaishali was 30 minutes down on time and was like playing a lost battle with a pawn down, when Zhongyi made her first mistake on the 27th turn by advancing her knight.

Vaishali made the correct choice of exchanging her queen and when Zhongyi made the final blunder on the 37th move the game completely swung in favour of the 24-year-old Indian. Vaishali offered her rook for a bishop, and the game was almost over for Zhongyi. On seeing Zhongyi’s blunder that allowed her to win, Vaishali said, “I was just blank. I was, ‘Ok, I am winning this game. What is this?’ I just feel very bad for her.” The game finally ended in 51 moves.

In the Open section, the winning run of World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov came to an halt after Anish Giri defended well with his black pieces to hold the runaway leader to a draw in a marathon contest that lasted five hours and 85 moves. With this draw, Sindarov maintained his sole lead with six points and Caruana followed the leader at 4.5 points.

China’s 26-year-old Wei Yi recorded his first victory in the Candidates. Opting the Petrov’s Defense with his black pieces, Wei outclassed Russia’s Andrey Esipenko in just 30 moves.

The battle between India’s 20-year-old Praggnanandhaa R and American world No.3 Fabiano Caruana too ended in a draw. On Pragg’s Queen’s pawn opening, Caruana chose the Slav defense. With no notable moves from both the players the game ended in a draw by repetition after 38 moves.

The English Opening game between Matthias Bluebaum and Hikaru Nakamura had some chances for the Veteran American against the 28-year-old German. Low on time, the world No.2 Nakamura played it safe and signed the peace treaty on the 40th move.

Nagpur’s Divya Deshmukh and Kateryna Lagno fought the longest battle in the Candidates chess tournament history. They played a marathon 135-move draw that lasted for 6.35 hours.
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