Vaishali Rameshbabu: Three players, one crown: How can India's Vaishali win eleventh hour candidates?

Vaishali Rameshbabu from RL India, Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan and Zhu Jiner from China (photo by Michal Walusza) NEW DELHI: The hour of judgment has come. Unless a tie is forced and we have to wait until another day, it will be decided on Wednesday on the Mediterranean coast of Cyprus who will take the crown and challenge China’s Ju Wenjun in a World Chess Championship match later this year.There are three contenders in the fight for the title: India’s Vaishali Rameshbabu, Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan and China’s Zhu Jiner. Vaishali and Bibisara currently lead with 7.5/13 points, followed by Jiner at 7/13. The math is simple, but somewhat disturbing. If Vaishali and Bibisara both win their final matches, they will head into the tie-break on Thursday. If Vaishali wins and the others lose points, she is the champion. However, if the draw and Bibisara wins, the Kazakh prodigy will claim the title, mirroring the performance of her partner Javokhir Sindarov, who clinched the spare-round leg of the Open on Tuesday. If Vaishali and Bibisara draw and Jiner wins, it will once again be an all-China affair in the Women’s World Championship match.

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Harika Dronavalli Exclusive: Inside Grenke’s #chess win, viral no-handshake incident and moreOn 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.

Tactical Stalemate: Round 13 Analysis

In his analysis of the round in an interview with TimesofIndia.com, Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay noted that while Tan was in poor form with three defeats in the tournament, the game lacked the creative sparks needed to break the deadlock.“Vaishali (with the black pieces) played Queen’s Gambit Accepted Deferred, a system that Praggnanandhaa also started using. The game has reached a standard position played 70 or 80 years ago,” Thipsay noted. “On the eighth move, Tan Zhongyi made a strange move (8… Nge2). The knight belongs on F3; the idea was probably to bring it to G3 and E4, which seems like a theoretical novelty without much advantage.” Vaishali comfortably leveled but Thipsay felt she missed opportunities to gain a bigger advantage. “On move 12, I would have preferred Black. However, Vaishali seemed shaken. Instead of taking 12… Nxc4, she developed 12… Bf5 and then retreated the knight from B6 to D7 (with 17… Nd7). It was necessary to capture that bishop earlier.”The momentum shifted towards Tan, who squandered a golden opportunity on move 26 (26 Qe2). “Tan didn’t have the guts to take the A6-pawn with the queen. Qxa6 would have led to a fairly good advantage,” Thipsay added. “Instead, she played checkers and forced a draw. Somewhere it wasn’t a great game; the players didn’t find the best fields for their shooters or the right moments to switch.”

Scenarios before the final round

The rankings took a dramatic turn elsewhere when Zhu Jiner, who was trying to win against Aleksandra Goryachkina, made a mistake and lost. This allowed Bibisara to join Vaishali at the top after her win over Anna Muzychuk.“It’s a very strange turn of events,” Thipsay noted. “Now it all depends on the final game. In the final round, Vaishali with the white pieces will face Russia’s Kateryna Lagno, while Bibisara will be the black against India’s Divya Deshmukh. Both will try to reach 8.5 points.”READ ALSO: No handshake! India’s Harika Dronavalli breaks silence on Uzbek GM ‘Namaste’ | ExclusiveThe permutations for the center are complex. “In the extreme event where both Vaishali and Bibisara lose and Zhu Jiner wins against Anna Muzychuk, even Zhu Jiner could emerge victorious with 8 points,” Thipsay told the site.Vaishali stands on the precipice of history. He has the white pieces and momentum of a leader, but does he have the courage to own the stage in the candidates? Time will tell. Women’s Section: Results of Round 13 – April 14