3 min readApr 16, 2026 04:22 PM IST
Vaishali Rameshbabu kept a straight, sanguine face even as she watched Russian GM Kateryna Lagno walk right into the treacherous path, for which the Indian champion had paved her defense meticulously. Having to break the tie with Bibisara Assaubayeva, Vaishali had to literally tame the ‘dragon’ played by the Russian in the final round.
The Sicilian Dragon is usually a last throw of the dice in must-win situations, an aggressive opening defense for black, where bishop on g7 exerting pressure on White’s queenside and centre.. Chess.com sequences it as
1. e4 c5
2. N f3 d6
3. d4 cxd4
4. Nxd4 N f6
5. N c3 g6.
It is described by chess.com as, “Black fianchettoes their dark squared bishop to g7, creating intense pressure along the long diagonal and creating a ‘dragon-like’ structure.
Speaking to Lichess, Vaishali agreed that the sequence of moves she watched Lagno play in the opening, walked her straight into Vaishali’s preparation with a half baked bishop e6. The move, Lichess noted from going back to their database gave a 100% win ratio for white.
“I actually didn’t expect her (Lagno) to play dragon today. But I know it’s a situation where if she wins she can play for more of course. But I thought this would be nice to get for me also a fighting game too. I’d prepared this Knight c to bishop c4 against the dragon before the tournament. I just played that,” she said.
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Lagno’s bishop e6 was inherently a poor choice. “I knew it was bad because I can take the pawn. But it can get tricky also because this dragon with two bishops you never know. Something can happen to your king. But I was very happy when I saw bishop b3, because after a b3, I felt like my king is very safe. At least she has to take a lot of most to create anything towards my king. I slowly got rook e1, rook e4 and I was trying to exchange at least one pair of rooks because I was a pawn up so I was trying to exchange my pieces but she was also avoiding the exchange. And then came this g4-g5 and some problem to her king.
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Lagno might’ve been out of her depth or things slipping out of her control at the least, given the dragon demands outstanding accuracy., where a solitary error can crater to a loss. “Yeah if I’m not wrong, I think she never played dragon before,” Vaishali told Lichess. “Maybe I probably missed it but at least in the last few years she didn’t play and I think it was just a completely new position for her. Somewhere she was also feeling some pressure,” she explained.
