Sindarov on the brink of winning the Candidates after Round 12, Zhu beats Vaishali to catch her in the Women's event - 12

Javokhir Sindarov was happy to take a quick draw against Hikaru Nakamura in Round 12 of the Candidates, in fact his entire preparation was directed towards it. Anish Giri was left trying to beat Wei Yi and he did in fact get a winning position in an endgame but it remained tricky. Giri accidentally repeated the position three times and Wei Yi was immediately alert to this. Matthias Bluebaum was slightly better against Fabiano Caruana but no more than that. Praggnanandhaa was pushing against Andrey Esipenko but had to settle with a draw. Following the rest day Giri will have to win against Sindarov in order to keep his chances alive.

The women's event was blown wide open when Zhu Jiner beat the leader Vaishali Rameshbabu in a tense game, these players share the lead. Half a point behind are Bibisara Assaubayeva who won a game that could have gone either way, and Anna Muzychuk who blew a winning position against Aleksandra Goryachkina at the very end of a long game. The top four are still in it, I really wouldn't like to guess who is going to win as there are so many wild swings in form even during games by all the leaders.

Round 12 (of 14) Standings: 1st Javokhir Sindarov, 9/12. 2nd Anish Giri, 7. 3rd Fabiano Caruana, 6. 4th-6th Matthias Bluebaum, Hikaru Nakamura and Yi Wei, 5½. 7th R Praggnanandhaa, 5. 8th Andrey Esipenko, 4½. 8 players.

Round 12 (of 14) Standings: 1st-2nd Jiner Zhu and Rameshbabu Vaishali, 7/12. 3rd-4th Bibisara Assaubayeva and Anna Muzychuk, 6½. 5th-6th Aleksandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno, 5½. 7th-8th Deshmukh Divya and Zhongyi Tan, 5. 8 players.

Rest day Monday 13th April 2026.

Round 13 Tuesday 14th April 13:30 BST: Wei Yi vs Andrey Esipenko Anish Giri vs Javokhir Sindarov Hikaru Nakamura vs Matthias Bluebaum Fabiano Caruana vs Praggnanandhaa R

FIDE Women’s Candidates

Bibisara Assaubayeva vs Anna Muzychuk Kateryna Lagno vs Divya Deshmukh Tan Zhongyi vs Vaishali Rameshbabu Zhu Jiner vs Aleksandra Goryachkina