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Vaishali, Lagno Escape With Sacrifices On Day Of Draws
Viswanathan Anand makes the ceremonial first move for Divya Deshmukh. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Vaishali, Lagno Escape With Sacrifices On Day Of Draws

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NM AnthonyLevin
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All eight games were drawn in round two of the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament and 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates. In the Open tournament, the standings remain unchanged with GMs Fabiano Caruana,  Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, and Javokhir Sindarov in the lead, followed by GMs Wei Yi and Matthias Bluebaum, and finally followed by the three players who lost in round one, GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, and Andrey Esipenko. 

In the Women's event, GM Zhu Jiner was a healthy two pawns up against GM Kateryna Lagno but overlooked a saving rook sacrifice in time trouble. There was then an even more dramatic time scramble as GM Vaishali Rameshbabu escaped by sacrificing a queen for a pawn on move 40 after GM Divya Deshmukh had missed the key move to punish a blunder by her opponent. 

Round three is on Tuesday, March 31, starting at 8:45 a.m. ET / 14:45 CEST / 6:15 p.m. IST.

FIDE Candidates: No Blood Spilled After Violent 1st Round

Following a day of nearly all decisive results, we saw a calmer second round. No blood was spilled, even if Praggnanandhaa, Sindarov, Giri, and Esipenko achieved some advantage in their games.

Candidates Round 2 Results

The standings remain unchanged.

Candidates Standings After Round 2

Esipenko ½-½ Nakamura

The game between two players who lost in round one was the last to end, in a rook endgame that Nakamura drew with a pawn less. The American, who played the longest game in both of the first two rounds, told FM Mike Klein the result was "obviously good considering the opening, for sure."

The game had the slowest start, with the players completing just seven moves around the one-hour mark of the broadcast.

Esipenko got some advantage out of the opening, after Nakamura opted to take on an isolated c6-pawn, but active piece play was the compensation. Nakamura told Klein, however, "I think that I was much worse for probably 30 moves," and at one or two moments he thought he was losing—though the computer disagrees.

"I feel like Andrey was trying to be a little bit too precise, he didn't go for the kill, he kind of just kept making moves and then we both started getting a little bit low on time," added Nakamura. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below.

Nakamura talked about the difficulty of playing at this time control, without an increment, and said that it played a role in his round-one game against Caruana. He explained, "I thought Fabi simplified when he probably shouldn't have because he felt the looming time pressure, and I didn't actually force the draw when I should have because he was low on time."

As always, Nakamura recapped his game on his channel.

Wei ½-½ Praggnanandhaa

On the black side of the French Defense, it was Praggnanandhaa who briefly got an advantage in this game. This came after Wei, unable to tolerate the pressure on his d4-pawn, and not finding the computer's concrete solution, erroneously traded off his best minor piece, the knight on e5.

Despite a slight missed chance, Praggnanandhaa is still in great standing on the leaderboard. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

For one move, Praggnanandhaa had a clear advantage with 16...c4, with the equally clear plan of pushing his b-pawn and gaining space on the queenside. When he missed that, Wei countered with the accurate 18.f5!, breaking up the black center, and we saw liquidation from there.

Sindarov ½-½ Bluebaum

Despite the quiet start in a Petroff Opening, White achieved an advantage—and, for one move, a large one. It wasn't winning or anything, but Sindarov's biggest chance was the pawn sacrifice 16.d5!, disrupting Black's coordination and ruining the pawn structure, and likely winning the pawn back soon.

A solid game, but not without chances for Sindarov. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Even without finding that resource, Sindarov pressed with a small advantage, but it never materialized to something serious. Bluebaum is still en route to making the 14-draw-sweep he joked to Klein about on the previous day.

Giri ½-½ Caruana

This was the first game to end, and perhaps the most interesting part about it was Caruana's early 3...Nd7. Giri continued to play at a quick pace—quicker than Caruana by some point—suggesting that this may not have been the biggest surprise. GM Vidit Gujrathi also chimed in on X: "I had tried this rare 3..Nd7 line in catalan back in 2024, to try to take the game into fresh waters. Fabi trying to be ambitious from the Black side too!"

Fabi trying to be ambitious from the Black side too!

—Vidit Gujrathi

Caruana had sprung the first potential surprise on move three, but Giri wasn't surprised. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Caruana told Klein that by the time he played 14...c5, he was trying to bail out. "I thought I was slightly worse... c5 was an attempt to simplify the position... trying to trade all the pieces and steer the game towards the draw." White had potential for an advantage with 16.d5 or 16.Nc2, but instead the game quickly fizzled out.

Klein also asked Caruana if he'd watched Nakamura's recap video yesterday, after beating him. Caruana didn't, though he'd gotten "a recap of the recap" from one of his seconds—mostly he was curious if Nakamura had seen and rejected the saving move 80...Kc7 or had just missed it, and the latter was the case.

Told that Nakamura said his endgame technique wasn't that great, Caruana responded, "Neither was his!"

With nothing lost nor gained on the standings, we march on to round three. The marquee matchup will be the clash of two leaders, Praggnanandhaa vs. Sindarov, and the third leader Caruana will have the white pieces as well.

FIDE Candidates Round 3 Pairings

FIDE Women's Candidates: Queen And Rook Sacs Save The Day

For a second day in a row all four games were drawn in the Women's Candidates, but once again that concealed some dramatic clashes.

Women's Candidates Round 2 Results

For now there's absolutely nothing to separate the players! 

Women's Candidates Standings After Round 2

Only two of the Women's games passed relatively uneventfully in round two. GM Tan Zhongyi safely navigated getting Black for a second game in a row, playing a rock-solid Petroff Defense to hold GM Anna Muzychuk to a draw.  

Anna interacted with fans after the draw. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

GMs Bibisara Assaubayeva and Aleksandra Goryachkina also made a solid draw, with Goryachkina improving on a line that had seen GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov go down in flames against GM Arjun Erigaisi in round three of the 2025 FIDE World Cup.

Bibisara Assaubayeva and Aleksandra Goryachkina made a solid draw. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

The remaining two games were vastly more dramatic.

Zhu Jiner could easily be on 2/2 by now. Photo: Yoav Nis/FIDE.

Top seed Zhu spoiled a big edge against Tan in round one, and by round two she could be leading the field by a full point, since she was even more clearly winning against Lagno. Fine play had given her two extra pawns and she only needed to consolidate, but she got down to seven seconds on her clock before blundering with 27...Rc8?. That wasn't punished, but 28...Qb4?, played with only three seconds to spare, allowed the same trick. This time Lagno pounced!

That was a second tough miss for Zhu, and a second escape from a dead-lost position in two rounds for Lagno.

The consolation for Zhu is that no one has yet won a game in the Women's section but, as Divya would note, that's not much consolation! 

Divya moved her b1-knight nine times, as it went to c5, then all the way to f4, and then back to c5 again. It was unconventional, but the maneuvering worked, and she justifiably described her play as follows: "I think I played a good game and I was also trying to put a lot of pressure on her, and at some point I’m pretty sure it worked."

34...Ne4?, played with under a minute on the clock, was a mistake by Vaishali. 

That knight had been defending b7, and Divya correctly captured the pawn with her rook. She was also down to her last minute, however, and in what followed she missed a crucial queen move and allowed Vaishali a beautiful finish to time trouble.

40...Qxh3!! was strictly the only move to deal with the threat of checkmate on h8, but it also worked to perfection. Divya had to grab the queen with her pawn, allowing a knight fork on f3.

Divya had good reason to feel frustrated on her Candidates debut. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Both players, it turned out, had seen the queen sac in advance, with Divya explaining, "I actually saw it before she played 37...Nxc5, I knew that this was coming. I just completely missed 37.Qg4! and I could just win easily there." That was the critical moment.

Vaishali looked surprised and relieved when 37.Qg3? appeared on the board.

"I'm hoping that my luck comes back to me!" was Divya's verdict on the day.

I'm hoping that my luck comes back to me!

—Divya Deshmukh

Divya has a tough challenge with Black vs. Goryachkina in round three, while Vaishali takes on Anna Muzychuk. 

FIDE Women's Candidates: Round 3 Pairings 

Will we get the first win of the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates?

Caruana and Sindarov won the two decisive games in round three.

Candidates Round 3 Results

The leaders are now a full point ahead of their closest rivals.

Candidates Standings After Round 3

All the players with the white pieces, going into the round, had a lifetime plus score against their opponents. Still, we saw one win for White and one win for Black.

Caruana 1-0 Wei

One can hardly ask for more than 2.5 points in the first three rounds of the Candidates. Caruana now boasts four wins and no losses against Wei in their lifetime record. 

As Mike Klein said, Caruana seems to have Wei Yi's number. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Caruana won a 19-move miniature, even if the opening didn't go his way—"I got a bit tricked with the move order, so I got into something I didn't want," he said in the press conference. Nothing objectively went wrong, but Wei had prepared this opening until 14.Qb5+, though he added, "not for this game."

By move 14, Caruana already had 50 minutes less than his opponent. He told FM Mike Klein, "I knew it was [his] prep and I felt a bit stupid that I wasn't really ready for this, or at least not appropriately ready. So I was kicking myself in the opening."

 I was kicking myself in the opening.

—Fabiano Caruana

Wei sacrificed two pawns, but had full compensation with the white king stuck in the center.

Caruana didn't think his position was bad, though, and said, "I felt like if I don't misplay it massively... probably I can keep an OK position." His goal was to "steer the game towards safety."

But Wei's 16...Rc5? was a step in the wrong direction, and 17...Ne5?? was a blunder that abruptly ended the game. Caruana said, "...Ne5?? was one of the obvious moves that he could have played, but I never expected to see it happen. I mean, normally he's not making mistakes of this gravity."

GM Niclas Huschenbeth summed it up as the "most confusing game so far" in the tournament, in his post on X.

Caruana's played 1.Nf3 two times and won both those games. He quipped, "It worked in terms of score, but maybe it didn't work in terms of the position I got." Regardless, he is back in the 2800 club on the live rating list. February 2025 was the last time his published rating was over 2800.

The world top-10 by live rating. Image: 2700chess.com.

On the same list, Sindarov—the other player to win this round—jumped up two spots to world number-eight. Even before playing his first move, his day was off to a good start as GM Gukesh Dommaraju announced a partial withdrawal from the 2026 Grand Chess Tour to "find my best form." Gukesh will still participate in two rapid and blitz events, but he'll be replaced by Sindarov in two classical tournaments that take place before the world championship.

 

Praggnanandhaa 0-1 Sindarov

This was the most exciting game of the round in the Open tournament, and this was clear quite early on. In a sharp Harrwitz Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined, Sindarov made the bold choice of sacrificing a piece for two pawns—not necessary, but certainly a decision that catapulted the game into three-results territory.

Bravery was rewarded in the game Praggnanandhaa-Sindarov. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

He explained 13...Nxb4 to Klein: "If I don't take this pawn on b4 he will just outplay me, and when I take I will have something [to play for]."

The game was chaotic, with Praggnanandhaa's king stuck in the center and later on the queenside. Sindarov told Klein, "I was thinking, like OK, I will do something in time trouble, and it worked."

After 33.c5? Sindarov thought he was practically winning, and the computer confirms that he was objectively winning as well—plus Praggnanandhaa had to play seven more moves in three minutes. The Uzbek GM said on the FIDE broadcast, "This game we played very tricky and I was happy to have such an easy position in time trouble."

"He missed this ...Rc2, but anyway I think his position was impossible to save," said Sindarov, and GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below.

Bluebaum vs. Esipenko and Nakamura vs. Giri both ended in, comparatively, solid draws. Bluebaum had maybe a slight edge in a Queen's Gambit Declined, but Esipenko traded off his isolated pawn and the position liquidated. 

A solid draw in Bluebaum-Esipenko. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

The game between Nakamura and Giri, which started as an English Opening, resembled the Najdorf Sicilian with colors reversed in the middlegame. With 97.5 accuracy by both sides, there also wasn't any missed chance in that game. You can check out Nakamura's video recap, where he dives further into the encounter between "streamerguy" and "twitterguy."

Nakamura told Klein, "I think when you play Anish you either try to play something and hope he doesn't know it, or you go crazy like Praggnanandhaa. I mean, obviously it worked for Pragg very well, but Anish is super solid, so it wasn't very exciting."

Nakamura said he isn't so frustrated by the positions he's getting, but the results on other boards can be. He referenced "Wei Yi just losing literally in the course of two moves out of nowhere." Commenting again on Caruana's good fortune, Nakamura added, "I have to be solid and not lose any more games. If I lose any more games, then I think this is just a vacation, based on how Fabi's playing, at least so far."

If I lose any more games, then I think this is just a vacation.

—Hikaru Nakamura

The tournament will either end as a victory or a vacation. Photo: Yoav Nisenbaum/FIDE.

The next round pairs today's two winners, with Sindarov having White against Caruana. The other pairings follow a sort of Swiss pattern: the two players on 1.5 points are also paired, Bluebaum vs. Praggnanandhaa, and all four players on 1 point play each other as well. 

FIDE Candidates Round 4 Pairings

FIDE Women's Candidates: Assaubayeva, Lagno Take The Lead

After eight draws, blood was finally spilled in round three of the Women's Candidates.

Women's Candidates Round 3 Results

That means Assaubayeva and Lagno lead, while the Chinese duo of Zhu and Tan are playing catchup.

Women's Candidates Standings After Round 3

After two rounds of near misses, the Women's Candidates exploded into life in round three. The only exception was in the game between Vaishali and Anna Muzychuk, of which the Indian star commented, "Today nothing much really happened compared to the last two days."

Vaishali vs. Muzychuk was the one relatively quiet draw. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Muzychuk's start has been rock solid after only learning a week before the event that she would play, though it's noteworthy that she's now gone 21 Candidates games, including all 14 in Toronto 2024, without a win.

Elsewhere it seemed the players were competing to set the board on fire.

Zhu 0-1 Assaubayeva

Zhu Jiner got an excellent position for a third day in a row, but she's now scored 1/3. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Assaubayeva followed GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov's bold plan of playing ...Rg8 and pushing his g-pawn in the Sicilian against GM Aryan Tari from Norway Chess 2023 (Abdusattorov won, but only after a hiccup along the way!). She also followed his example in seemingly jettisoning a pawn on b3 on move 10 though, in a remarkable twist of fate, that pawn would still be there when the game ended 33 moves later! Nevertheless, Assaubayeva wasn't thrilled with her position after 14.Bb2.

She took a 23-minute think, later commenting, "I don’t like my position at all because I don’t know how to play!" 14...d5?! (14...bxc2 was probably best, after all) was asking for trouble, which followed with 15.c4!.

Zhu had spoiled excellent positions in the first two games, however, and the same scenario followed again. She positioned her pieces awkwardly, came under fire from tactics all across the board, and finally was left defenseless after missing the last chance and allowing 29...Qg5!. 

The rest was easy for the three-time women's world blitz champion.

Assaubayeva scores her first ever win in a Candidates Tournament. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

That was the first win of the 2026 Women's Candidates, but there wasn't long to wait for a second, and it was also scored by a three-time women's world blitz champion against a Chinese superstar. 

Tan 0-1 Lagno

Both players had reason for despair during the game, but it was Lagno who emerged on top. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

"I feel very lucky!" admitted Lagno after one of the craziest games you'll see at the top level. Tan sprung an opening surprise in the Italian and, after an inaccuracy Lagno struggled to explain, the Chinese former world champion achieved a close-to-winning advantage. Then she blundered, however, allowing a sequence that culminated in the position-splitting 22...Ne3+!.

If Lagno had had more time, that might be that, but instead she blundered a piece in the run-up to the time control and admitted, "Honestly, I wanted to resign!"

She didn't, and was rewarded by Tan needlessly rushing her 41st move, after which dark clouds were looming over her position. One more mistake and Lagno pounced with a brilliant knight sacrifice that was based on an even more brilliant queen sacrifice.

45...g4!! was move of the day, especially because you had to have seen it in advance.

Lagno took time out to narrate all the twists and turns herself.

It looked like we would have three leaders, but Divya's hopes the day before that her luck would come back to her came true, even if by saving a lost position instead of winning a won one! 

Goryachkina ½-½ Divya 

The final game of the day to finish had seen Goryachkina take over by stages, with each questionable decision by Divya (to go for a forced exchange of minor pieces early on, not to trade queens when given a chance, to trade down into a heavy-piece endgame) slightly worsening her position. Ultimately Goryachkina achieved a winning rook endgame a pawn up, but as has often been bitterly remarked, all rook endgames are drawn!

Divya's furious will not to lose eventually prevailed. Photo: Yoav NisenbaumFIDE.

The win was never easy, and at the very end Goryachkina even suffered the indignity of being nominally on the worse side before the game ended with bare kings.

It's one for the endgame experts to pinpoint exactly where White went wrong.

Divya and Goryachkina therefore both remain on 50 percent, while we finally have leaders in the tournament. Lagno has Black vs. Muzychuk while Assaubayeva is White against Tan, with both Chinese players getting the black pieces as they attempt to bounce back.

We still have 11 rounds to go! Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

FIDE Women's Candidates: Round 4 Pairings 

Round four will be the last before the first rest day.

Colin McGourty contributed to this report.

How to watch?
You can watch the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament on Chess24's YouTube and Twitch channels. The games can also be followed from our Events Page.

The live broadcast was hosted by GM Arturs Neiksans, IM Anna Rudolf, and John Sargent.

The FIDE Candidates Tournament is the most important FIDE tournament of the year. In the Open and Women's events, eight players play each other twice for the right to challenge the FIDE World Champions Gukesh Dommaraju and Ju Wenjun to a match for the title.

Previous coverage:

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