Paphos (Cyprus), April 11 Indian Grandmaster R Vaishali continued her remarkable run and defeated Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia in the 11th round of the Women's Candidates tournament here on Saturday.
With her fourth victory in the event, Vaishali reached an impressive seven points from 11 games. For Russian Goryachkina, the loss virtually ended her chances in the event as she remained on five points, two behind the tournament leader.
Vaishali's victory also ensured that she extended her lead by a full point over nearest rivals Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine and Jiner Zhu of China, who were both held to draws by Kateryna Lagno of Russia and Divya Deshmukh, respectively.
Playing white, Goryachkina surprisingly employed the London system in this key game, and Vaishali played nonchalantly in the opening to get close to an equal position in the early middle game.
Goryachkina wanted to complicate matters after an early exchange of Queens, but Vaishali proved she was far ahead in the calculation on this day as she matched Goryachkina move for move and pounced on a creative idea that entailed trapping of white's rook right in the middle of the board.
Vaishali lost just one pawn and a minor piece in the bargain, and in the resulting position, her technique was immaculate, allowing her to romp home.
It may be recalled that Vaishali started off very slowly in the event, drawing the first four games, followed by a loss against Jiner Zhu of China, but since the sixth round, she has scored as many as four wins and two draws, which also means she is peaking at the right time.
In the open section, Vaishali's younger brother, R Praggnanandhaa, continued to struggle as he missed out on a simple tactic to score a victory over Matthias Bluebaum of Germany.
Hikaru Nakamura of the United States played out a draw with Wei Yi of China, with both conceding that they were out of the race. Dutch player Anish Giri also played out a draw with Andrey Esipenko of Russia.
Tournament leader by almost a mile, Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan fought hard to get a draw with pre-tournament favourite Fabiano Caruana of the United States to take his tally to nearly unassailable 8.5 points.
For chess pundits, the tournament is almost over as Javokhir enjoys a two-point lead over Giri with just three rounds to come.
Results, Round 11: R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 4.5) drew with Matthias Bluebaum (5); Anish Giri Ned (6.5) drew with Andrey Esipenko (Rus, 4); Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 5.5) drew with Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb, 8.5); Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 5) drew with Wei Yi (Chn, 5).
Women: Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus, 5) lost to R Vaishali (Ind, 7); Kateryna Lagno (Rus, 5.5) drew with Anna Muzychuk (Ukr); Zhongyi Tan (Chn, 4) drew with Bibisara Assuabayeva (Kaz, 5.5); Jiner Zhu (Chn, 6) drew with Divya Deshmukh (Ind, 5).