Great day for the Rameshbabu brothers (the Indian surnames come before the name), 24 hours after both defeats. He, Praggnanandhaa, 18, risked everything with the black pieces against his compatriot Gujrathi Vidit, whom he brilliantly surpassed in a very tough fight. She, Vaishali, 22, defeated the Bulgarian Nurgyul Salímova with white. The three Indians in the Toronto Candidates Tournament (Canada) are among the top five after the 3rd round of the fourteen scheduled. And Vaishali continues in the Candidates fight, which is dominated by the Chinese Zhongyi Tan alone.
The first news of the Canadian afternoon (night in Spain) was the draw without a fight by Hikaru Nakamura against the weaker rival, the Azerbaijani Nijat Abásov. And he agreed with the five-time world champion and live commentator Viswanathan Anand, who had said shortly before: “Hikaru has two problems today, the technical and the psychological, to recover from yesterday’s defeat against Vidit. And that is very difficult”.
In theory, Praggnanandhaa faced the same double problem, but his attitude was the antithesis of the Japanese-born American: despite facing black against a plethoric Vidit, he chose the very risky delayed Schliemann variant of the Spanish Opening, and exhibited fresh ideas, very deep and ambitious from the opening, probably with the very important contribution of their coach, Péter Svídler, eight-time Russian champion. If something was missing to guarantee a fight to the death and without shields, Vidit did not give up, and the game became very complicated. In situations like this, the most talented player usually makes the penultimate mistake. So it happened and Praggnanandhaa won big.
Meanwhile, his executioner on Friday, Dommaraju Gukesh, 17, squeezed Ian Niepómniashi, winner of the two previous Candidates Tournaments. He did it for three hours, but the Russian is very tough in that type of positions, and he scratched half a point. The same result occurred between the Frenchman Alireza Firouzja and the American Fabiano Caruana, the main favorite, after a long fight, more technical than spectacular.
In the women’s tournament, Zhongyi Tan scored a comfortable draw with black against India’s Humpy Koneru after two brilliant victories in the previous rounds. In addition to the defeated Salímova, the saddest participant in Toronto is the Ukrainian Anna Muzychuk: on the 2nd day she lost to the Russian Alexandra Goryáchkina, and on the 3rd she tied against the other Russian (born in Ukraine), Kateryna Lagno, after omitting a winning blow, although it is true that it was not easy to see.
Anand bid farewell to the spectators with a very appropriate comment: “It is a great pleasure to watch these games and comment on them when the fighting spirit is as high as it was yesterday and today.”
Results (3rd round).-
Candidates: Firouzja – Caruana, boards; Abásov -Nakamura, tables; Vidit – Praggnanandhaa, 0-1; Gukesh – Niepómniashi, tables.
Candidates: Read – Goryachkina, tables; A. Muzychuk – Lagno, boards; Koneru – Tan, tables; Vaishali – Salímova, 1-0.
Classifications.-
Candidates: 1st-3rd Caruana, Niepómniashi and Gukesh, 2 points; 4th-5th Praggnanandhaa and Vidit, 1.5; 6th-8th Firouzja, Nakamura and Abásov, 1.
Candidates: 1st Tan, 2.5 points; 2nd Goryachkina, 2; 3rd-5th Koneru, Lagno and Vaishali, 1.5; 6th-8th Salímova, Lei and A. Muzychuk, 1.
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