BENGALURU: R Vaishali's hopes of winning the Candidates tournament took a beating as she went down to Zhu Jiner in Cyprus on Sunday. The Indian, sole leader with seven points coming into the 12th round, lost to the Chinese in 39 moves. It now means that there are three people separated by half a point as Bibisara Assaubayeva won again to lie 0.5 points off the top two.
This is now set to be one of the closest finishes to a women's Candidates in its current form. A reminder; if more than one player finishes level at the top, tie-breaks with faster time-controls will be employed to decide the challenger for the world title. Of course, Anna Muzychuk could yet join the top of the leaderboard and make it a three-way tie at the top.
The 24-year-old, who had won four of her last six games coming into this round, had all the momentum in the world after beginning the competition a tad slowly. With the white pieces at her disposal, she also had the chance to take the initiative. But some inconsistencies throughout the middlegame meant Jiner built a head of steam as she launched a multi-pronged attack with her major pieces targetting the white king. To Jiner's credit, she had several situations when she had to find only moves to retain her advantage but she found the best moves and Vaishali, who was also down on the clock, resigned in a hopeless position.
Sindarov edges closer
After more than two weeks of enthralling chess by Javokhir Sindarov, he arrived at the board with just one intention. Do not lose, have a quick draw and hang around to see if he would become one of the youngest Candidates winners of all time.
Anish Giri lived to fight another day but the Uzbek phenom knows he has almost guaranteed himself a shot at the world title later this year.
Going into Round 13 on Tuesday — Monday is a rest day — he leads the field by two points. The only way the Open section will be live going into the final day will be if Giri wins in a game with, of course, the leader, Sindarov. The Dutchman, though, will have a small advantage as he will be playing with the white pieces.
If the 20-year-old can avoid defeat, he will be the challenger to D Gukesh's throne.
Results: Open (Rd 12): Javokhir Sindarov drew with Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giru drew with Wei Yi, Matthias Bluebaum drew with Fabiano Caruana, Andrey Esipenko drew with R Praggnanandhaa.
Women: Zhu Jiner bt R Vaishali, Bibisara Assaubayeva bt Kateryna Lagno, Anna Muzychuk drew with Aleksandra Goryachkina, Tan Zhongyi bt Divya Deshmukh
