Women’s Day at Candidates: Divya Deshmukh and R Vaishali vault into joint lead as Pragg’s chances slim

Divya’s turnaround was a miracle for the youngster from Nagpur considering she had been under pressure from the start of the game with Muzychek coming up with some excellent opening prep.

As chess legend Judit Polgar pointed out on the Chess24 commentary, “Divya would have wanted to quit the game (by move 25). The position Anna had (out of the opening phase of the game), it’s unbelievable to ruin it! She was absolutely winning. Had a dream position you can imagine! And then a miracle happened. She just started to blunder, lost pawn after pawn.”

Meanwhile, enduring his own heartbreak was India’s Praggnanandhaa. For about five minutes on Tuesday when the inevitable became apparent, the 20-year-old from Chennai sat at the board with a thousand-yard stare. He was still coming to terms with the fact that the game against Giri was unsalvageable. His Dutch opponent was back in the players lounge, leaving his quarry to ruminate about the game by himself.

Eventually, when Giri appeared, the Indian youngster resigned. It is a result that potentially marks the end of the Indian grandmaster’s chances of winning the Candidates this time around as well after his heartbreak at the Toronto edition two years ago.

Defeat in round 8 to Giri leaves Praggnanandhaa on 3.5 points, a full three points behind tournament leader Sindarov, who ended his clash with Andrey Esipenko with a quick draw. Ahead of Pragg are Fabiano Caruana, who lost on Tuesday to compatriot Hikaru Nakamura, and Giri. Both Caruana and Giri have 4.5 points, one more than Pragg. The Indian finds himself level on points with three other players with only Esipenko behind him.

Before the Candidates began in Cyprus, Praggnandhaa was chalked as one of the contenders for the title, since he had already experienced the pressure of the Candidates two years back besides going on a hot streak in 2025. But the Round 8 defeat in 44 moves with black pieces leaves his dream of challenging compatriot D Gukesh at the World Chess Championship later in the year hazier.

Giri and Praggnanandhaa had been tied on 3.5 points each at the halfway mark of the Candidates tournament, trailing tournament leader Javokhir Sindarov by 2.5 points. But Giri’s win, coupled with Sindarov’s draw against Andrey Esipenko on Tuesday sees the Dutchman keep alive his hopes of making it to his first-ever World Chess Championship battle.

Having lost to Pragg in the tournament earlier, Giri came to the board after Monday’s rest day with a heady concoction of opening prep that included an opening novelty on move 11 (pushing his knight to a3, a square where top layers rarely position their knights since it limits the attacking squares available for it).

Pragg’s game started to sour in the span of five or six moves before the time control, as a game ambling towards a draw lurched towards a defeat for the Indian.

Amit Kamath is Assistant Editor at The Indian Express and is based in Mumbai. He primarily writes on chess and Olympic sports, and co-hosts the Game Time podcast, a weekly offering from Express Sports. He also writes a weekly chess column, On The Moves. ... Read More

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