CHENNAI: THE first three days of the Candidates was a teaser, a sign of things to come. On Day Four, an important one preceding the first rest day, Javokhir Sindarov put up a performance full of verve, a man at the top of his game. In the process, he beat the pre-tournament favourite, Fabiano Caruana, in breathtaking fashion. Actually, he didn't just beat the US GM. He blitzed his way past Caruana in a middle-game of the actual qualifying tournament to pick the challenger for the next World Championship game.
And on the evidence of the first four days in Cyprus, it's hard to envisage a world where Sindarov won't be in that title match against D Gukesh.
The game lasted all of 36 moves but Caruana, playing with the black pieces and the joint leader with Sindarov coming into the round, was gasping for air for a very long time. He seldom got up from his office chair as Sindarov had put him in a bind very early on.
The US GM couldn't find any interplay and had to be content with defending his pieces. That the Uzbek GM, the reigning world champion, played back-to-back brilliancies just out of the opening tells its own story. Sindarov, who has stormed inside the world's top-10 recently, had all of his attacking pieces in sync and there was a multi-pronged attack outside the World No. 3's door. Caruana, short on time and ideas, threw on the towel. He had fewer than four minutes when he resigned (his opponent's clock showed 51:21).
Results (Rd 4)Open: Javokhir Sindarov bt Fabiano Caruana, R Praggnanadhaa drew with Matthias Bluebaum, Anish Giri bt Andrey Esipenko , Wei Yi Hikaru Nakamura.
Women: Kateryna Lagno bt Anna Muzychuk, Bibisara Assaubayeva drew with Tan Zhongyi, R Vaishali drew with Aleksandra Goryachkina, Zhu Jiner bt Divya Deshmukh.
