Isle of Man (UK), Nov 5 (PTI) R Vaishali on Sunday clinched the FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss title along with a spot in the next year’s Candidate event after playing out a draw against Batkhuyag Mungutuul of Mongolia in the 11th and final round, here.
With 8.5 points to her credit Vaishali clinched the gold as well as a prize purse of USD 25000 USD (over Rs. 20 Lakh) for her triumph.
The next Women’s candidate event will be held in Canada next year.
On the second board, Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine played out a draw with veteran Grandmaster Pia Cramling of Sweden that gave Vaishali an outright victory.
A double treat awaits India if Vidit Gujrathi could convert a winning endgame against Alexandr Predke of Serbia.
If Vidit wins it will be a rare double of India as Vidit will also qualify for the Candidates as well as annex the title in the open section.
Vaishali had her eyes trained for the title and the Grandmaster title can wait for which she is shy of a few points.
The Chennai-based sister of Praggnanandhaa went for complexities yet again but met with stiff resistance from Mungutuul who is known to be a fierce opponent.
For the records, it was a Ruy Lopez opening wherein Vaishali yet again went for complexities and stood better according to the computer analysis. Optically it looked like the Indian was dominating the proceedings but the advantage fizzled out very soon as Munguttul opened up a file on the queen side. The game was drawn in just 34 moves.
Vaishali becomes the first Indian to win the Grand Swiss and will have her task cut out in the Canddiates alongside India’s first lady to get to Grandmaster title – Koneru Humpy.
Humpy is likely to qualify by virtue of her high rating but the decision will be known only in January 2024.
For now it’s Vaishali all the way. A new star for India Chess is born after a gap of 12 long years. It was in 2011 that D Harika became the second Grandmaster from India.
In her 10th round, up against Zhongyi Tan, the Sicilian defense by the Chinese came as a surprise to Vaishali as the former world champion went for the Classical system.
Vaishali decided to sidestep from long theoretical battles and her instinct proved right even though Zhongyi got a fighting position in the middle game.
Known to create chances, Vaishali geared up to launch a king side attack against a centralised black king and it paid great dividends. Vaishali picked up pawns at will and black’s desired counter play never saw the light of the day.
In the open section, Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi also continued with his dazzling run and put it across Deac Bogdan-Daniel of Romania in a one-sided affair in the penultimate round.
Gujrathi employed the Sicilian defense to show his intentions for a complex battle. Bogdan-Daniel fell prey to a tactical shot and lost a pawn and thereon the Indian was a perfect picture of composure as he improved slowly and wrapped up the full point.
Praggnanandhaa (6 points) meanwhile played out a draw with Anton Korobov of Ukraine and remained in the hunt for a place in the prize list along with P Harikrishna, Aravindh Chithambaram and S L Narayanan who all inched up to 5.5 points following draws in the tenth round.
Amongst the ladies, Tania Sachdev and D Harika posted victories to reach 5.5 points while Vantika Agrawal and Divya Deshmukh also had winning outings to reach five points respectively.
Source: PTI News
