New Delhi: There is a saying. In English, it goes like this, “Fortune favors the brave”. Let’s start with the “luck” part. For 24-year-old Vaishali Ramesh Babu, winning his game on Wednesday was not enough to make him a champion. Sharing a similar 7.5/14 points was Babesara Asobaifa, up against Vaishali’s compatriot Divya Deshmukh at the Cape St. George Hotel and Resort in Cyprus. And Divya did not disappoint, bringing the co-leader to a stalemate.The “brave” part is where things get interesting. Playing white pieces in pursuit of a result, players often become greedy and over-adventurous, making aggressive moves across the board, weakening their defenses in the process. Vaishali had white pieces. She was up against Russia’s Kateryna Ligno, a mother of four who excels at keeping a poker face at the table. Vaishali had to be brave to overcome the challenge posed by the veteran, and she did so with clinical precision that raised the stakes.
With this win, Vaishali became the first Indian woman to win the Candidates Tournament. While the legendary Konero Hampi had previously reached the final of the World Championship, she did so mainly through the knockout system during the women’s candidates’ break in the format.For a player who started the tournament with four draws and then lost in the fifth round, his late comeback was nothing short of heroic.She now stands as the second Indian to become a world championship challenger and will take on China’s Jo Wenjin later this year. But did he beat the 36-year-old?Caging the “Dragon” on Vaishali’s Way“Vishali’s last match against Ligno was a very well-played, smooth game in which she was in a strong position throughout,” Thipse told TimesofIndia.com after the game. “It’s always a challenging thing for the lowest rated player to come first in a tournament. Sometimes players don’t take bold decisions, but that’s not the case with Vaishali.”The battle lines were drawn early when Ligno chose the sharp dragon variation of the Sicilian Defence. Vaishali countered with his favorite Yugoslavian Attack, a system widely considered to be Dragon’s most powerful antidote. “He started with the nine-step long rook, recently popularized by Magnus Carlsen, followed by the standard 11. Bc4,” Thipse explained. “Lagno chose a very fast line, and I must appreciate that he didn’t play for a draw. He played an ambitious line with 11… Be6 after 32 minutes of thinking, but it didn’t turn out well.”By move 16, Vaishali had secured a strong position. Although Lagno introduced a novelty with the 16 … Bxb3, Thipsay pointed out, was a strategic mistake. “It’s a common mistake that Bobby Fischer once said forces Black to lose. Vaishali made his only mistake here by capturing 17. axb3 instead of cxb3, which momentarily gave him a slight commanding lead.”However, the Russian veteran failed to grab the lifeline. On move 18, Ligno played e5 to avoid an exchange of bishops, a move Thipse described as a “decisive mistake”.“If he had exchanged the bishop, there might have been a possibility of a pawn down, at the end of a pawn,” he told the website. “Instead, Ligno chose to retain the bishops. While Ligno’s bishop on g7 did nothing throughout the game, Vaishali’s bishop on c3 was active, and the game was won in a powerful fashion.”
When Ligno finally resigned on the 48th move, the material imbalance between the players was jaw-dropping. Vaishali held a queen and two rooks against Ligno’s lone queen and bishop.Since 2016, the Women’s World Championship has been an all-Chinese affair. Vaishali’s qualification ensures that for the first time in a decade a non-Chinese player will survive for the crown.The parallels to the 2024 cycle, however, are hard to ignore. “Let’s see if Vaishali is capable of what Gokesh did,” Theapse commented with a smile. “Gokesh, as a challenger, defeated Chinese world champion Ding Liren in December 2024. In 2026, we can experience the same by defeating Jo Wenjin of Vaishali.”
