Bengaluru: Vaishali Rameshbabu’s eyes widened as they darted across the board, running triple checks, taking deep breaths, and perhaps feeling her heart pounding in her ears. With under a minute on her clock, she had to find a sequence of killer blows to win the Women’s Candidates tournament, make the Women’s World Championship and find a place in history.
In close to 100 years, only one Indian female player – Koneru Humpy – had qualified for the title match. The 24-year-old Indian made no mistake, playing the winning idea 39.Rd8! 39. Kh7 40. c4! with precision, against Kateryna Lagno in the final round game, to carve her name as the second female Indian player to fight for chess’ biggest prize.
“I’m very happy and speechless…This is a dream moment for me,” Vaishali said, soon after.
Back in 2011, Humpy faced Hou Yifan for the world title in Tirana, Albania, with the Chinese Grandmaster winning 5.5–2.5 without dropping a game. She had qualified through the Grand Prix route. Vaishali is the first Indian player to win the Women’s Candidates.
It has taken fifteen years for a second Indian player to reach the Women’s World Championship match. Later this year, two Indians – Gukesh and Vaishali—will be battling for world titles. Gukesh will take on Javokhir Sindarov – fresh from his historic 10/14 show at the Candidates — while Vaishali will play five-time world champion Ju Wenjun.
Vaishali wasn’t exactly the flashiest name in the line-up of eight players who arrived in Cyprus for the Women’s Candidates earlier this month. The 24-year-old was the lowest seed, coming off a quiet year, barring her Grand Swiss win in September.
In the Women’s Candidates, she went winless in the first five rounds before finding her stride and a touch of luck.
The tournament hung in the balance heading into Round 14, with Vaishali in the co-lead alongside Bibisara Assaubayeva, while Zhu Jiner trailed by half a point. Scenarios involving tiebreaks and outside chances for the others were being floated. Vaishali did what she could do best: win her game and other results went in her favour.
Playing with the black pieces, Lagno unleashed the Dragon Variation in the Sicilian Defence. Vaishali had her antidote ready: 11.Bc4, a move that appeared to throw Lagno off and condemn her to a long think. The primary idea behind the move for White being to provoke e6, play Bb3, Na4, lock in the c5 square which would smother any Queenside attack. She seemed comfortable out of the opening, getting pretty much what she wanted, while Lagno, down a pawn, had the unenviable job of making tough choices in an inferior position.
As Vaishali navigated her sharp game, the other encounter that could have decided her fate and perhaps taken matters to a tie-break – Divya Deshmukh vs Bibisara—ended in a draw by three-fold repetition.
Had Bibisara won, the title would have been decided in Rapid playoffs. It was Divya, though, who was calling the shots and had a winning advantage before she fumbled in time pressure and squandered her edge. With five minutes on her clock, 27. Nd6 was the only move for Divya, instead she took Black’s bishop with her rook on b7, allowing Bibisara back into the game, and eventually agreed to a draw.
Vaishali walked out of the playing hall, to find her mother Nagalakshmi and brother Praggnanandhaa, waiting to congratulate her. “Pragg just told me that he knew after 40.c4 I was fine,” Vaishali laughed. The siblings have had contrasting fortunes in their second Candidates tournament together.
As Praggnanandhaa faded away in the tournament with a solitary win, Vaishali began to come into her own. “In the first half my games were shaky…I just managed to score some points by luck,” Vaishali said.
In Round 7, she was gifted a miraculous win after Tan Zhongyi lost due to a one-move blunder. She went on to outplay Divya in Round 9. After those two games, the tournament changed for Vaishali. She probably started believing that luck is on her side. She moved into sole lead, before Zhu Jiner outplayed her in Round 12.
“Before my game against Zhu Jiner I felt pressure because I was in the lead which I wasn’t expecting in this tournament. I have had this approach of trying to just focus on my game but when you’re in the lead you end up thinking about results. So, when I lost to her, I thought ‘OK things are back to normal now.”
Vaishali took her learnings from her Candidates debut two years ago—handling excitement and pressure and reminding herself that a draw is also a result – added dollops of preparation and resourcefulness and the key lay in her mentality. She found the resilience to face setbacks, even after the one that came really close to the finish line in Round 12. “It’s been a pattern with me…When I hit a low, is when I peak.”
