2026 FIDE Candidates Round 4
Some crazy Sicilians in here!
Puzzle time!
In this English position, White is feeling a lot of discomfort. A missing pawn, a fianchetto knight and some poor piece coordination, and Black is threatening to play …a4. However, Black has just gifted her an opportunity to wrest back some dynamic equality. White to play and find a way out. Answer at the bottom of the article.
Esipenko - Giri
Giri got his first win in the Najdorf. I guess he knows a thing or two about that opening, so it makes sense. To be honest, this game’s course is very hard to follow, and probably ranks among the more bewildering in this tournament thus far, but shows the theoretical danger of the Sicilian for White.
Apparently Giri worked out that this position is OK for Black. To me it is slightly frightening to think of placing my king on the d7-square in a position like this, and on first glance I would rather attack with White than defend with Black; but then again Giri is a GM and I am not. By move 19, with a little help from Esipenko, Giri was able to transform the above position into this:
Open files for both rooks, the bishop pair, an extra pawn, and an unassailable center. One could not ask for more from a Sicilian Defense. Giri enjoyed a nice positional advantage for the rest of the game, and the conversion to a win was shockingly smooth from here due to some further inaccuracies by his opponent. The GIF tells the story nicely:
Wei Yi - Hikaru Nakamura
Naka also played an interesting Sicilian in the form of a Dragondorf; Wei was up to the challenge, and after a slight opening inaccuracy by White, both players kept up with one another until Wei blundered heavily in a drawn 2-rook endgame:
Almost any normal move holds here; the h4-pawn is dropping but White shouldn’t panic. Low on time, Wei played 40.Kh2?? which allows 40…Rxh4+ with a crucial tempo that allows Black to get on the back rank after 41.Kg1 Rb1+ 42.Kf2 Rhh1
Black is able to push the h-pawn and dream of advancing the others patiently, and White’s king is a liability being flushed out of its cover on the back rank. Unfortunately, a few moves later Naka missed a winning continuation and the game petered out to a draw. This feels unfortunate for Nakamura — one of his best chances by far to gain a point in this tournament. It was a nice save for Wei though.
Sindarov - Caruana
In a QGA, Caruana played highly provocatively, got a pretty active position, but with a loose king stuck in the center and a busted pawn structure. 16 moves in, he had burned more than half his time against Sindarov’s preparation (Sindarov used barely 7 minutes up to this moment)
After a long thought, Sindarov went for the most fighting move 17.g3! Other options here included Be4 (virtually a draw offer) and f3, blunting Black’s bishop. Fabi’s reply after a 15-minute tank was 17…f5?! From here it went downhill, due to a combination of (you guessed it) time trouble and a difficult position to play as Sindarov did what he’s done all tournament and played a devastating attack. Another GIF is due:
Muzychuk - Lagno
Hard blunder
Anna Muzychuk has played ice-cold perfect chess this entire tournament and finally got a win with it against Kateryna Lagno. Kateryna’s troubles started on move 28:
Black just blundered with 28…exd4. After 29.Qxd4, White threatens c5 with a fork against the minors and it turns out Black just has no good way to respond to this move. If 29…Nd7, White wins a piece or mates; if the bishop moves, White either gains the move 30.Ne7+ with c5 to follow; or mates on the back rank. After 29…Kb7 Lagno simply gave up the piece, and shortly thereafter the rest of the game: 30.c5 Ra8 31.cxd6 Qxd6 32.Rxa8! 1-0
Divya - Zhu
Divya missed an interesting tactic here:
Solution: Instead of Divya’s 22.a4? simply allowing Black a passed pawn after 22…Bxd4 (Zhu later won with a crushing attack), she had the exchange sacrifice 22.Rxe6!
After 22…a4, White has the desperado 23.Rxh6+! gxh6 and 24.Qd3 would keep the game going. While I think that Black’s position is still slightly more comfortable overall, White no longer has light square problems, and Black’s breezy king position means that White has dynamic counterplay to balance the game.