Bengaluru: India’s brightest hope at the Candidates tournament, is now Vaishali Rameshbabu. The 24-year-old Indian has now jumped into sole lead at the Women’s Candidates.
Unlike in the Open section, the women’s standings have witnessed meltdowns and mayhem with no player dominating the field. Vaishali’s remarkable play in recent rounds – winning three of her last five games – now places her at the top of the standings, with just four rounds remaining. With her aggressive play and fiery sacrifices, Vaishali has made a timely bid for first place. In the last Candidates, she won five games in a row in the latter half. This time, she decided to get going just in time.
In Round 10 on Thursday, she played out a 42-move draw against Anna Muzychuk, protecting her lead. Zhi Jiner, her co-leader going into the day’s play will perhaps rue rejecting a draw by repetition only to lose against Bibisara Assaubayeva.
In the Open section, as things stand, the next World Championship could be played between two 20-year-olds.
Over the past fortnight, Javokhir Sindarov has been on an astonishing run, making the rest of the field look inconsequential. In Round 10 on Thursday, the 20-year-old Uzbek defeated India’s R Praggnanandhaa for his record-breaking sixth win in this Candidates tournament. It’s the highest number of wins by a player in a Candidates tournament since the current format was introduced in 2013. Sindarov leads the field by two points, with four rounds remaining. “I’m very happy. Yesterday I didn’t win a winning game but today I played a very good game. When I’m not worried about the result, I’m playing very, very good chess.”
Anish Giri, who is second in the standings, has no delusions, though, about how things look. “Let’s not give me too much credit by calling it a two-horse race…It’s a one-horse race with a couple of losers in the back…OK maybe I’m a bit ahead of the losers,” he said earlier.
With the White pieces against Praggnanandhaa, Sindarov chose the Queen’s Pawn opening and it looked like a sharp tactical duel in the Queen’s Gambit set-up, at the very outset. Perhaps still shaken from drawing his game against Matthias Bluebaum from a winning position on Wednesday,
Sindarov took time to think through his moves early on, falling slightly behind on the clock. It’s been such a rare sight in Sindarov’s case in this tournament that it made commentators wonder aloud if he was already struggling to recall his preparation.
Though the evaluation bar suggested the position was pretty much equal, Black’s position seemed increasingly perilous. Black’s King was exposed, and White’s pawns were on the march. Sindarov doubled his rooks on the d-file and Praggnanandhaa blundered with 22.Bd7.
The Uzbek, not wanting to rush like he did during the Bluebaum game, spotted the move he needed to play, bobbed in his chair, buried his face in his hands before pushing his rook to the f7 square and dispatching his Queen to chase Black’s king. Black eventually ran out of safe squares for its King.
This defeat – his second to Sindarov in this tournament – now leaves Praggnanandhaa on just four points. Pre-tournament favourite Fabiano Caruana finds himself three points behind Sindarov while Bluebaum is fashioning a sweep of his own with nine draws in ten rounds.
Asked about both him and Sindarov taking the most walks around the playing hall, Giri was characteristically witty: “I guess he’s leading even there. But he walks in a very obnoxious way while I’m more peaceful when it comes to walks.”
Reigning world champion Gukesh is currently in one of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, trying to put poor form behind him at the Menorca Open. He is likely to be caught up on the Sindarov storm billowing in Cyprus. It will likely be them fighting for the world title later this year.