FIDE Candidates: Praggnanandhaa Draws With Wei Yi, Stays in Joint Lead

Paphos: Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa played out an easy draw as black against Wei Yi of China and stayed in joint lead on 1.5 points after the second round of the FIDE Candidates tournament here on Monday.

After a brilliant first round win over Anish Giri, Praggnanadhaa appeared to be in fine fettle for the second day running, putting a bit of pressure on his Chinese counterpart out of a French defense game with black pieces.

Wei Yi decided against going for a complicated struggle and the pieces changed hands at regular intervals leading to a drawn opposite coloured Bishops endgame.

Praggnanadhaa had an extra pawn to boast but white's position was simply impregnable. The peace was signed in 46 moves.

While the opening round provided a lot of fireworks with as many as three decisive games out of a possible four, things calmed down in the second game. Anish Giri played solidly with his white pieces to draw with Fabiano Caruana of United States and Uzbek star Javokhir SIndarov was held to a draw by Matthias Bluebaum of Germany.

The other game of the eight-player double round-robin tournament was also poised for a draw as Hikaru Nakamura of the United States was trying to hold a theoretically drawn rook and pawns endgame against Andrey Esipenko of Russia.

In the women's section being played simultaneously, Divya Deshmukh missed out on a massive opportunity to go in to sole lead as she blundered in a winning position against compatriot R Vaishali.

Divya got a tactical finesse when both players ran low on time and she spotted it just in time. However, the Nagpur based women's World Cup winner misplayed very quickly and allowed Vaishali to get off the hook with a fine counter blow involving a queen sacrifice.

Jiner Zhu of China was the other one to miss out on a nearly winning position that she squandered against Russian Kateryna Lagno. The game was drawn after Lagno found a rook sacrifice with little time left on her clock to force the split of the point.

Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan played her second draw in the event signing peace with Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia while Zhongyi Tan got the same result against last minute replacement Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine.

In the women's section the first win is yet to be scored by any of the eight players.

The Candidates is a biennial event held to decide the challenger for the reigning world champions. The winner for the open section will play a match later this year against D Gukesh while the women's champion will face Wenjun Ju of China.

Results round 1 men : Wei Yi (Chn, 1) drew with R Praggnanandhaa (Ind, 1..5); Anish Giri (Ned, 0.5) drew with Fabiano Caruana (Usa, 1.5); Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb, 1.5) drew with Matthias Bluebaum (Ger, 0.5); Andrey Esipenko (Rus) playing Hikaru Nakamura (Usa).

Results round 2 women: Kateryna Lagno (Rus, 1) drew with Jiner Zhu (Chn, 1); Divya Deshmukh (Ind, 1) drew with R Vaishali (Ind); Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kaz, 1) drew with Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus, 1); Anna Muzychuk (Ukr, 1) drew with Zhongyi Tan (Chn, 1).