GM Pravin Thipsay attributes Women’s Candidates champion’s remarkable growth in last few years to her well-timed aggression and improved judgement calls; insists she can dethrone China’s Ju Wenjun at the World C’ship as her opponent is low on match practice
India’s R Vaishali is a picture of concentration during the Women’s Candidates event in Cyprus. Pic/FIDE’s Instagram
Vaishali Rameshbabu produced a seminal moment for Indian chess by becoming the first woman from the country to clinch the revered Candidates tournament.
She did so by accumulating 8.5 points from her 14 matches at the tournament in Cyprus on Wednesday.
‘Remarkable achievement’
Veteran Indian GM Pravin Thipsay termed it as a remarkable achievement, not only because Vaishali, 24, was the lowest-ranked player [18th] in the seven-player global event, but also because of the incredible strides she has taken to lift her game to the next level, after a few years of stagnancy.
“Very rarely does a player, who is not among the Top 3, win the Candidates. There’s a pattern in chess… the one, who tends to become a champion, generally does so in the first or second [world championship] cycle, but Vaishali has achieved this after being around for a while which is remarkable and it is a big boost for Indian women’s chess,” Mumbai-based Thipsay told mid-day.
Pravin Thipsay. Pic/Getty Images
Thipsay, 66, who was the first Indian to win the Commonwealth Chess Championship in 1985, added that Vaishali has worked on a few things in the last few years leading to this big feat. “For several years Vaishali was stagnant at a rating of 2420-2430, but after the 2022 Olympiad, seeing the performances of D Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and Arjun Erigaisi, her mindset changed. She already had resourcefulness, but her accuracy level improved. She is now demonstrating aggression at the right time. Many of her earlier losses came due to aggression which was uncalled for. So, now that improvement in judgement is there. This shows that she’s a real fighter, who keeps coming back time and again, and someone who can do that has no limits,” explained Thipsay.
World title later this year
Vaishali’s triumph at the Candidates has handed her a ticket to battle five-time world champion Ju Wenjun of China for the World Championship. And Thipsay believes Vaishali has every chance of winning.
“There’s a good chance that the [World Championship] throne is handed to Vaishali because Wenjun suffers from a lack of match practice. She plays very few tournaments, and may find it difficult to digest Vaishali’s style,” said Thipsay.
However, he explained there’s still one element that Vaishali must work on. “Vaishali plays to gain the initiative, and if there’s no initiative, she’s not able to play a balanced positional game well. Vaishali, like Viswanathan Anand, tends to concentrate on the king-side attack. But it’s very important to learn how to play both the strategic as well as the tactical part of the game well,” concluded the Arjuna Awardee.
2470
Vaishali’s ELO rating at the Candidates was lower than most of the other participants yet she won it; compatriot Divya Deshmukh (2497) was the only other player under 2500 besides her
18
Vaishali’s world ranking; the lowest among the eight players at the Candidates event
Two
Vaishali is only the second Indian woman to qualify for a World Championship match after Koneru Humpy (2011)
Three
Vaishali became only the third Indian woman Grandmaster after Koneru Humpy and Harika Dronavalli
Did you know?
In 2013, R Vaishali, then 12, stunned Magnus Carlsen at an exhibition event in Chennai just days before his World C’ship match against Vishy Anand
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