Sindarov, Wei Yi make Chess World Cup final, seal Candidates spots

Panaji, Nov 23 (PTI) Uzbekistan’s GM Javokhir Sindarov and Chinese GM Wei Yi set up the FIDE World Cup final against each other after winning their respective semifinals here Sunday and in the process confirmed their spots in the Candidates.

Both the classical games in the two semifinals had ended in draws and this meant that the rapid skills of all the players were to be tested in the tie-break.

Grandmaster Wei Yi would thank his stars as he pulled off an unlikely victory over in-form Andrey Esipenko of Russia while young gun Sindarov put it across compatriot Nodirbek Yakubboev to find his place in finals.

Wei Yi got lucky in the second game of the tiebreaker as Esipenko could not control his nerves for the first time in the World Cup.

The Russian had things going almost in his favour out of an Italian opening game with black pieces in the second game when he just forgot to capture the crucial moment as Wei Yi’s knight attacked his rook.

With a laboured effort the Chinese Grandmaster could have drawn the game from that moment but as it happened Esipenko simply failed to notice that his rook was hanging and resigned on the 57th move as white captured it.

It was a better journey for young Sindarov who won the first game as black against Yakubboev before settling for a draw in the return game. Winning with black is always a great advantage and the Uzbek proved it by holding the second game quite easily in the return game too.

While Wei Yi and Sindarov also confirmed their berths for the Candidates tournament from here, Yakubboev and Esipenko will fight it out for the third place in the finale that starts from Monday.

It may be recalled that the Indian challenge had ended after Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi exited from the competition, losing to Wei Yi in the quarterfinals of this USD two million prize money event.

Fabiano Caruana of United States, Anish Giri of Holland, Matthias Bluebaum of Germany, Wei Yi and Sindarov are now five confirmed participants out of eight for the next Candidates tournament that will decide who plays the next world championship match against India’s D Gukesh.

R Praggnanandhaa and Hikaru Nakamura are poised to seal their berths through FIDE circuit and rating respectively while the final participant will come out of the match between Esipenko and Yakubboev.

Results: GM Javokhir Sindarov (UZB) bt GM Nodirbek Yakubboev (UZB) (2.5:1.5 aggregate) GM Wei Yi (China) bt GM Andrey Esipenko (FIDE) (2.5:1.5 aggregate). PTI Corr AT AT AT