FIDE Candidates 2026 Round 3
Everybody sacrifices everything.
Tactical snack time:
How does Black crown her attack against the White King? Solution given at the end of the article.
Caruana - Wei
Wei Yi uncorked a theoretical novelty on move 8 in a symmetrical English. At 8.Ng5, Fabi had about 90 minutes on his clock; Wei had 116; Wei was drawing his opponent into his preparation.
The only move Lichess lists that masters play here is 8…e6, simply defending the knight. But Wei had a more ambitious idea in mind with 8…Nb6!?, a sacrificial sequence involving the giving up of two pawns for a lead in development and control over White’s light squares. Fabi accepted: 9.Bxc6+ bxc6 10.Qxc6+ Bd7 11.Qxc5 h6 12.Nf3 Rc8 13.Qa5 Bh3.
Finally the position has a reached a bit of quiescence, and here Fabi had to sit and think about how to proceed. To my eyes, this is an extremely uncomfortable position for White: castling is entirely off the table due to Bh3; any attempt to develop the queenside leads to further weakening, and even if White could castle, Rc8 and Bg7 are applying immense pressure to the c3 knight. In other words, White is trapped in the center. Black has very active piece play on the queenside, and is about to castle and try to exploit the centralized White king. Over 15 minutes of thought later, Fabi replied with 14.Qb5+ Nd7 15.Rg1!
Probably Fabi foresaw that he would have to play this way, with his king in the center, and was checking how he could use a tempo on the enemy king to reposition the queen somewhere better. The position is dynamically equal; Black’s light-square domination is offset by the missing pawns on the queenside.
Wei continued with 15…O-O and Fabi replied with 16.g4.
This move comes with some obvious poison: Black’s bishop is trapped and White is threatening Rg3. This was also a move that Wei evidently hadn’t expected; he spent 30 minutes on his next move and ended up playing 16…Rc5?! (16…Nf6 preparing …Bxg4 keeps things equal). After 17.Qb3, the trend shift continued with the 20-minute blunder 17…Ne5 (still Nf6 was best); After 18.Nxe5! Rxe5 19.Nd1 Yi resigned.
Pragg - Sindarov
Wei Yi sacrificed a couple pawns in his game against Caruana; Sindarov gave up a piece against Pragg:
Some opening complications in the Queen’s Gambit Declined led to this position where White has some threats, most obviously to remove Black’s bishop pair with Nxc5; however, Javokhir played 12…Qf5 to prevent this (up to now, in the Lichess masters database Black would play Qg6 with a similar idea to pin the knight against the queen). Prag struck out with the move 13.b4!?
I think the idea is to remove pressure from the e3 pawn. For instance, White could have played 13.Bd3, but then Black responds with 13…dxe3, and in any case White’s kingside would feel weak against Black’s kingside majority: 14.O-O exf2+ 15.Kh1! (15.Nxf2? Qh5 and Black is simply up a clean pawn). Evidently displeased with this future, Pragg tried to kick the bishop instead.
After 15 minutes of thought, Sindarov decided it was time to sacrifice a piece for some pawns with 13.Nxb4!? 14.axb4 Bxb4+ 15.Kd1 dxe3:
Full compensation for the piece is found in Black’s preponderance of pawns and White’s missing cover around his king. And people say the QGD is boring! Sindarov would go on to win the game with a nice attack, helped by time pressure as Pragg tried to wade through the complications. The final position is quite the picture of success for Black, where Sindarov was able to win back the piece and an additional pawn with a guaranteed endgame win:
Goryachkina - Divya
This was an equal game where Black defended well up until the time control, when Divya made a game-losing blunder by taking a knight on d2 due to a miscalculated tactic. Aleksandra recaptured 42.Qxd2 e4 43.Qa5, where it became clear that White had a winning rook endgame. Things continued in her favor for a long time as she pressed her advantage and was ready to take the full point. However, a strange sequence of events occurred, to which we may once again attribute time trouble:
With less than a minute on her clock, Goryachkina played 64.Ra6, jeopardizing the win. Divya played 64…Kh7, missing 64…Rxf3 65.Rxg6 Kh7! when Black holds. But Goryachkina returned the favor again with 65.Kf7??, missing the winning 65.Ra7+!. The idea is to trap Black’s king with the move f4 and march the a-pawn up the board while threatening Kf7 followed by Ra8+. After Rxf3, the aforementioned mating attack is gone, and Black has sufficient counter to hold the draw; the game ended on move 81.
Zhu - Assaubayeva
A Rossolimo with a lot of fireworks:
Zhu played a theoretical pawn sacrifice on move 9.b4 cxb4 10.a3 b3 and deviated with 11.Nbd2!? (11.c4 is the normal move in the Lichess master’s database).
As an amateur, I don’t really know what’s going on in this position, but White has a huge development advantage, and that Black’s king being stuck in the center is a long-term liability. Because of this, White’s best plan is to active all her pieces. Rb1 is coming soon; the Knight can move from d2-c4-e3. And if Black wants to keep her pawn plus permanently, she does so at the cost of time, and helping White develop further. Play continued: 11…g5 12.d4 g4 13.hxg3 Bxg4 14.Bb2 d5
Black is clearly trying to pressure White’s center, but now White can return the favor. Zhu played 15.c4!
The e4 pawn will die, but White maintains massive control over d5. After 15…dxe4 16.Nxe4 Nxe4 17.Rxe4 Bf5 18.Re3 Bc2
Black is holding on to her trump in the passed pawn on b3 but White is for choice due to the strong hanging pawns on c4 and d4 and far more active position. Zhu made her first inaccuracy after 19.Qc1?! (Qd2 evading the pin) Rc8 20.d5?! (Qd2 stepping out of the pin). From here the trend continued to change, as Bibisara did everything to keep this pawn alive on the queenside, and was able to force a lot of piece trades.
With a seven minute think, Zhu played 29.Bh2?? I think her idea was to prevent f6 coming with tempo followed by the move e5 at which point the d6 pawn is lost, but this allows Black to begin a devastating attack. 29…Qg5! suddenly comes with a lot of venom, because Rc4 also coordinates against c1; …Be4 would threaten Qxg2# and White can’t take it via Rxe4 due to Rc1+, and Black could always threaten a mate via d1 with the move Qd5. After 30.Be5 Be4 31.f4 Rc1+!, Bibisara traded off all the major pieces due to a cacophony of mate threats, and solidified her position with two passed pawns on both wings to end the game.
Tan - Lagno
A crazy back-and-forth in the Italian:
Things are in a slightly atypical Italian where White lost castling rights, but has active pieces posted almost everywhere. Seeking to relieve her development issues, Kateryna went for a trade with 15…Ba6? but after 16.Bxa6 Nxa6, Black’s knight is further removed from the game and needs time to be brought back in allowing White a freer hand in the center and kingside. Tan set up a strong position against the kingside by pressing her g-pawn forward with the help of Rg1, but then made a critical miscalculation by allowing some tempi which would activate Black’s queen and give it time to coordinate against the weak White king position.
20.Rg4?? Qd7! 21.h3 Qf5! 22.Qd3 Ne3+! 23.fxe3 Qxf3+ 24.Bf2 Qxh3+ 25.Rg2 hxg5
Black’s fortunes have reversed; Kateryna is in the driver’s seat. The most impressive element of this combination is that Lagno’s clock held at 6 minutes thanks to the increment; Tan’s dropped by 20 minutes due to the pressure of defending.
The continuation after this point got really messy though, due to time pressure, though it was clear that Black had the advantage and the easier game regardless. Nevertheless, fortune’s favor turned around again on move 35, when White had done an excellent job of defending and consolidating the position to protect the king.
Low on time, Lagno missed with 35…Qe4??, allowing the combination 36.Rxc7! Rxc7 37.Qb8+ Kh7 38.Qxc7 with a decisive material advantage.
The game wasn’t over. After 38…Rb6 39.b3 Qb1+ 40.Kh2 f5!? (opening the third rank so Black has access to the move Rh6) 41.Qf7? Rf6! Tan made the final blunder with 42.Qxd5??
Kateryna found an extremely pretty sequence: 42…Nf4!! 43.exf4 Rh6+ 44.Kg3 Qd3+ 45.Qf3
Solution: 45…g4!! wins the queen. (Qxd3 is impossible due to Rh3#).
Tan finally gave up her resistance on move 54. 0-1
At the end of Round 3, the standings for the candidates are as follows:
Candidates:
1-2: Caruana, Sindarov with 2.5
3-4 Pragg, Bluebaum with 1.5
5-8, Giri, Wei, Esipenko, Nakamura with 1
Women’s Candidates:
1-2: Assaubayeva, Lagno with 2.
3-6: Goryachkina, Vaishali, Divya, Muzychuk with 1.5
7-8: Zhu, Tan with 1.
Personally, I’m rooting for Caruana, but Sindarov seems like the most dangerous opponent and is performing just as well. On the Women’s candidates, I have been very impressed with Assaubayeva, Divya, and Zhu’s games, despite some disappointing results, the games have been rather enjoyable to watch. I didn’t have a favorite going in, but I felt that the Chinese players would be the ones to beat. We’re only three rounds in; time will tell, but it’s already been a very exciting series. Tomorrow is the last round before a rest day; I’m curious if we’ll see another set of draws or more fireworks over the board (or perhaps even both).