Vaishali loses to Zhu, candidates race wide open
Indian Grandmaster R Vaishali went down to China’s Jiner Zhu on Sunday, throwing the Candidates tournament wide open with just two rounds remaining in the event that will select the challenger to women’s world champion Wenjun Ju.
As luck would have it, Vaishali lost with white pieces when a draw could have put her in the sole lead but her instinct to go for a win in every game got the better of her.
Incidentally, this was the second loss in the tournament for the Indian woman and both these defeats came against Jiner Zhu.
With seven points in her kitty from 12 games, Vaishali was joined by Zhu in lead after Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine made a silly mistake to let Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia off the hook in a well contested game.
Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan put an end to the Russian dreams of fighting it out for the women’s title with a finely crafted victory over Kateryna Lagno.
The Kazakh girl is just half point adrift of the three leaders and the final rest day should come in handy for her and Vaishali to stake their claim.
In the other game of the day, India’s Divya Deshmukh lost to Zhongyi Tan of China and both are out of contention for even a podium finish.
In the open section, Uzbek Javokhir Sindarov was yet again dominant with his white pieces and played out an easy draw with world number two Hikaru Nakamura of the United States.
Taking his tally to a nearly unassailable 9 points from 12 games, Sindarov is now closing in on what would be called the most dominant victory in the Candidates chess tournament.
Grandmaster R Praggnanadhaa did not have to do much to draw with Andrey Esipenko and it seems that the younger sibling of Vaishali has given up hopes.
While a lot remains to be fought for, Praggnanadhaa will have to bounce back and be here in two years’ time in order to make an impression.
Results round 12: Andrey Esipenko (Rus, 4.5 drew with R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 5); Matthias BLuebaum (Ger, 5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 6) ;); Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 5) drew with Javokhir SIndarov (Uzb, 9) Wei Yi (Chn, 5) playing Anish Giri (Ned, 6.5).
Divya Deshmukh lost to China’s Zhongyi Tan in the other game of the day, with both players now out of contention for a podium finish
