Three players, one crown: How can India’s Vaishali win Women’s Candidates at the eleventh hour? | Chess News

R-L India’s Vaishali Rameshbabu, Kazakhstan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva, and China’s Zhu Jiner (Photos by Michal Walusza)

NEW DELHI: The hour of judgement has arrived. Unless a tie-breaker is forced and we have to wait for another day, it will be decided on Wednesday on the Mediterranean shores of Cyprus who will take the Women’s Candidates crown and challenge China’s Ju Wenjun in the Women’s World Chess Championship match later this year.In the running for the title, there are three contenders: India’s Vaishali Rameshbabu, Kazakhstan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva, and China’s Zhu Jiner. Vaishali and Bibisara currently lead with 7.5/13 points, followed by Jiner on 7/13. The math is simple yet somewhat disquieting. If Vaishali and Bibisara both win their final games, they head into a tie-break on Thursday. If Vaishali wins and others drop points, she is the champion. However, if she draws and Bibisara wins, the Kazakh prodigy will take the title, mirroring the feat of her partner Javokhir Sindarov, who secured the Open section with a round to spare on Tuesday. If Vaishali and Bibisara draw and Jiner wins, it will again be an all-China affair in the Women’s World Championship match.

On Tuesday, all eyes were on Vaishali’s high-stakes clash against former World Champion Tan Zhongyi. While a win would have put the Indian in the driver’s seat, the game ended in a hard-fought draw.

A tactical deadlock: Analysis of Round 13

In his analysis of the round, Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, speaking to TimesofIndia.com, noted that while Tan has been in poor form with three defeats in the tournament, the game lacked the creative sparks needed to break the stalemate.“Vaishali (with black pieces) played the Queen’s Gambit Accepted Deferred, a system Praggnanandhaa has also started employing. The game reached a standard position played 70 or 80 years ago,” Thipsay observed. “On the eighth move, Tan Zhongyi played a strange move (8… Nge2). The knight belongs on F3; the idea was probably to bring it to G3 and E4, which looks like a theoretical novelty without much merit.” Vaishali equalised comfortably, but Thipsay felt she missed opportunities to seize a greater advantage. “By move 12, I would have preferred Black. But Vaishali seemed to get rattled. Instead of taking 12… Nxc4, she developed 12… Bf5 and subsequently retreated the knight from B6 to D7 (with 17… Nd7). It was necessary to capture that bishop earlier.”The momentum shifted toward Tan, who missed a golden opportunity on the 26th move (26. Qe2). “Tan didn’t show the courage to take the A6 pawn with the queen. Qxa6 would have led to a reasonably good advantage,” Thipsay added. “Instead, she played safeguarding chess and forced a draw. Somewhere, it was not a great game; players did not find the best squares for their bishops or the right moments for exchanges.”

The scenarios ahead of final round

The leaderboard took a dramatic turn elsewhere as Zhu Jiner, pushing for a win against Aleksandra Goryachkina, blundered and lost. This allowed Bibisara to join Vaishali at the top following her win over Anna Muzychuk.“It is a very strange turn of events,” Thipsay remarked. “Now, everything depends on the last game. In the final round, Vaishali with the white pieces takes on Russia’s Kateryna Lagno, while Bibisara will be Black against India’s Divya Deshmukh. Both will try to reach 8.5 points.”ALSO READ: No handshake! India’s Harika Dronavalli breaks silence on Uzbek GM’s ‘Namaste’ | ExclusiveThe permutations for Wednesday are complex. “In an extraordinary event where both Vaishali and Bibisara lose, and Zhu Jiner wins against Anna Muzychuk, then even Zhu Jiner could emerge the winner with 8 points,” Thipsay told this website.Vaishali stands on the precipice of history. She has the white pieces and the momentum of a leader, but in the Candidates, does she have the nerve to own the stage? Time will tell. Women’s Section: Round 13 Results – April 14

Women’s Section: Round 14 Pairings – April 15