Candidates 2024: Gritty Humpy staves off Lagno; Tan beats Vaishali to regain sole lead

There seems no respite for R. Vaishali. The young Indian Grandmaster finds herself as the target of the higher seeds in the FIDE Women’s Candidates 2024 and leader Tan Zhongyi proved no different on Sunday.

In the only decisive game in the ninth round in Toronto, Vaishali surrendered to the Chinese front-runner in what proved the shortest encounter so far. This let Tan regain her sole lead after sharing it with two others the previous day.

K. Humpy was off to a good opening phase and later saw off some pressure from Russian Kateryna Lagno to draw. Lei Tingjie, too, enjoyed the early exchanges but found lowest-seed Nurgyual Salimova a tough nut to crack. Top seed Aleksandra Goryachkina and off-form Anna Muzychuk tested each other without finding the winning route.

For Vaishali, things happened too quickly and her position fell apart in a flash. In the last 10 moves of this 21-move miniature, the Indian made a series of poor choices, and resigned when Tan was not only threatening to capture one of the white rooks with a knight but also leave Vaishali’s castled king exposed with a trade of knight for bishop.

Humpy and Lagno were involved in an intense battle. After Humpy could not find the desired way to improve her position, Lagno found some serious counterplay on the queen’s side. In spite of being under time-pressure, Lagno had Humpy running for cover. Once Lagno allowed the exchange of queens, Humpy could breathe easy. The game entered an equal endgame where the players had a rook and pawns. Though Lagno had two pawns to Humpy’s one, the position did not offer any hope for her.

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All credit to Salimova’s spirited play after being outplayed in the opening phase by Lei Tingjie, one of the three overnight leaders. Salimova wriggled out of a challenging position by finding

counter-play on the kingside. She then capitalized on Lei’s ill-timed bishop retreat on the 16th move to provoke the exchange of queens. This ploy fully neutralized Lei’s early advantage. A series of exchanges followed and soon the game ended with a three-fold repetition of the position.

The game between Aleksandra Gorychkina and Anna Muzychuk ended in a draw but not before the Russian top seed missed an opportunity to hold a commanding position. Playing white, Anna erred in judgement on the 33rd move but Goryachkina’s response was far from sound and the position once again hung in balance.

Thereafter, Anna sacrificed a bishop for three pawns. Though Goryachkina collected a pawn, the exchange of rooks left the Russian with a knight and a pawn against Anna’s three pawns. Once the last pawn-trade ensured Goryachkina did not have a winning material on the board, Anna too realized she could not make progress and a draw was agreed.