After her clinical takedown of compatriot Divya Deshmukh on Wednesday in Round 9 of the Women’s Candidates tournament, Vashali Rameshbabu gave the world a little peek at the ace she has hidden up her sleeve for this event: the 24-year-old has been working with a psychologist to be in a fighting-fit mental state at what is the biggest tournament of her career.
Of course, Vaishali wouldn’t give away too many details of the association—not even whether her brother Praggnanandhaa was also working with the same female psychologist as her. Not many elite grandmasters have opened up about working with a psychologist in the past (Gukesh is a rare example, working with Paddy Upton at the World Championship in 2024).
But whatever Vaishali has been working on with the psychologist behind the scenes seems to be bearing fruit as the Indian grandmaster finds herself in the sole lead of the Women’s Candidates tournament after 10 rounds, thanks to her draw with Anna Muzychuk on Thursday, coupled with a victory for Bibisara Assaubayeva against Zhu Jiner.
Just two rounds ago, Vaishali was leading the tournament with four other players. Coming into the previous round, that herd was trimmed to two leaders. Now, the Indian is alone on the mountaintop, with six points against her name, half a point ahead of Muzychuk and Zhu.
Vaishali and Zhu had been joint leaders coming into Thursday. But they had contrasting results in Round 10, with Vaishali battling her way to a quick draw while the Chinese star fought tooth and nail to salvage something in the endgame against Bibisara, but failing.
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In the game involving the other Indian female player in action, Divya Deshmukh slumped to the seventh spot in the Women’s Candidates, mirroring Praggnanandhaa, who is also seventh in the Open Candidates event with just four rounds left.
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Vaishali’s draw on Thursday means she’s managed to remain unbeaten in her last five games, a streak which props up her chances of winning the Women’s Candidates.
Before the Candidates in Cyprus began, Vaishali spoke about the “emotional roller-coaster” she found herself on two years ago at her first Candidates in Toronto. Vaishali had lost four games in a row at the last edition of the Candidates to find herself dead last in the eight-player standings with just 2.5 points after nine rounds. What happened next is something the sport remembers: she won her final five games in a row, detonating her way through Nurgyul Salimova, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Anna Muzychuk, Tingjie Lei and Kateryna Lagno to end up tied on points for the second spot.
Unsurprisingly, after her win over Divya Deshmukh in Round 9, she was asked about her being a ‘streaky’ player. Repeatedly.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot in the last few months. I have tried to work on it and maybe it’s working. We’ll only get to see at the end of the Candidates,” Vaishali told Lichess in an interview.
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In a case of history repeating itself, Vaishali has gone on a streak again, this time the kind she would have wanted. She was joint-last after five rounds in Cyprus, thanks to four draws and a defeat. But five more rounds in, she had hauled herself up to first, thanks to three wins punctuated by two draws after a much more stable tournament so far.
Before the current Candidates began, Vaishali spoke about how she felt pressure at the start of the Toronto Candidates, which affected her results.
“I was going through so much emotionally every day at the 2024 Candidates,” Vaishali told FIDE in an interview. “Maybe the atmosphere of the event, or the fact that it was my first time at the Candidates for which I had to prepare for many months, led to some pressure I felt within me. I think I could not cope up with it and it affected my result. The way I played, I was losing game after game. It was very tough. But somehow I changed my mindset, then I was just focusing on not the result but just enjoying the game. That helped with the results.”
This time around, she tried a different tactic: of not playing too many events before the Candidates and instead focusing on preparations. “It was a different approach: not playing and just preparing. I was only playing a lot of training games,” she told FIDE.
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That ploy, too, seems to be working. Vaishali finds herself four games away from history.
