Isle of Man (UK), Oct 29: Woman Grandmaster (WGM) R Vaishali crashed through the defences of former world women’s champion Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine to jump to joint lead on 3.5 points after the end of the fourth round of FIDE women’s Grand Swiss, a part of the World Championship cycle, here.
With seven rounds still to come in the strongest Swiss for women, Vaishali shares the lead with Tan Zhongyi of China, Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine and Assaubayeva Bibisara of Kazakhstan.
After making her third and final Grandmaster norm at the just concluded Qatar Masters, it was clear that Vaishali is ready for the bigger challenges. As it turned out in the match-up against one of the world’s best, the Chennai-based player delivered her best with yet another scintillating performance thanks to her brilliant attacking skills.
The Sicilian defense by Vaishali was met with the Rossolimo Sicilian but she had some opening ideas that caught Muzychuk off guard.
The resulting position was quite complicated but when it comes to calculating the deepest secret out of any position, Vaishali has shown that she is the one to be relied upon.
Muzychuk did not stand any chance as she first lost a piece and subsequently walked into a checkmate web. Amazingly, it took just 23 moves for Vaishali to seal her third victory in four games.
In the open section, Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi slipped from what looked like a better position and was held to a draw by Alexandr Predke of Serbia who played white.
Arjun looked in control after Predke went for a piece sacrifice in the middle game but his king had to go out for a long walk.
However, as it happened, Predke found resistance that looked complicated optically and Arjun sacrificed his queen to force a draw through perpetual checks.
Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi, meanwhile, continued his winning ways and recorded his third win in a row at the expense of former world championship challenger Alexei Shirov of Spain.
Vidit displayed his immaculate technique again with white pieces in a Slav defence game and won two Bishops for a rook. Shirov had no chance thereafter and called it a day quickly.
Russian Grandmaster Andrey Esipenko, representing FIDE here, shot into sole lead in this section defeating Marc’Andria Maurizzi of France. As many as 17 players including Vidit and Arjun share the second spot on three points apiece.
Highest-rated Indian D Gukesh continued to hunt for his first victory in the event as he ended with his fourth draw on the trot. Gukesh shared the point with Ivan Saric of Serbia.
P Harikrishna, meanwhile, scored his first victory, accounting for British youngster Shreyas Royal. Among other Indians in the fray, Nihal Sarin also came good defeating Samvel Ter-Sahakyan of Armenia while R Praggnandhaa was held to a draw by Mustafa Yilmaz of Turkey.
In the women’s event, D Harika suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Batkhuyag Munguntuul of Mongolia and Aulia Medina Werda of Indonesia scored over Tania Sachdev.
Divya Deshmukh played out a draw with Oliwia Kiolbasa of Poland and Vantika Agarwal scored her first victory at the expense of Javiera Belen Gomez Barrera of Chile. (PTI)
