Women's Candidates R8: Five players tied for first place, as Deshmukh beats Muzychuk

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
4/8/2026 – Three decisive games in round eight left five players tied for the lead in the Women's Candidates Tournament. Divya Deshmukh defeated former sole leader Anna Muzychuk, who had held a clearly superior position before letting the game slip. Kateryna Lagno and Zhu Jiner also scored wins and joined the leading group. With the standings tightly grouped, the next round will feature two direct clashes between co-leaders. | Photo: FIDE / Yoav Nis
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Muzychuk loses after failing to make the most of clearly superior position

Round eight of the Women's Candidates Tournament produced a major shift in the standings, with three of the four games ending decisively and leaving five players tied for first place on 4½/8 points (plus one). The most significant result of the day was Divya Deshmukh's victory over Anna Muzychuk, who entered the round as sole leader.

Muzychuk's defeat was particularly notable given the course of the game. She obtained a clearly superior position and appeared on track to consolidate her lead in the standings. However, her advantage slipped as the game progressed, and the position transitioned into a queen endgame that was objectively balanced. A subsequent mistake proved decisive, allowing Deshmukh to take over and convert the opportunity. Had Muzychuk secured the win, she would have moved a full point clear of the field - instead, she now finds herself among a large group of co-leaders.

Deshmukh's victory brought her to 4½/8, level with Muzychuk, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Kateryna Lagno and Zhu Jiner. Lagno and Zhu also scored full points in round eight, contributing to the reshuffling at the top of the standings. Vaishali, for her part, was involved in the only drawn game of the day, a 74-move encounter against Bibisara Assaubayeva.

Vaishali Rameshbabu

One of five co-leaders - Vaishali Rameshbabu | Photo: FIDE / Yoav Nis

Behind the five leaders, Assaubayeva and Aleksandra Goryachkina trail by a full point, while Tan Zhongyi stands another point further back. Notably, despite being two points behind the leaders, Tan remains within reach in a tightly contested field, where the margins between players are small compared to the situation in the open section - Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri, tied for second place, stand two points behind runaway leader Javokhir Sindarov.

The next round, not surprisingly, features direct encounters between players currently sharing the lead: i.e. Vaishali v. Deshmukh and Zhu v. Lagno. Muzychuk, meanwhile, will look to recover with the black pieces against Tan.

Round 8 results

Muzychuk 0-1 Deshmukh

White obtained a dream position arising from a Maroczy Bind. Once the minor pieces left the board, all positional trumps favoured White in the major-piece struggle.

But Muzychuk lacked precision in conversion, eventually allowing Deshmukh to simplify into a pure queen endgame that was objectively drawn. Moreover, Muzychuk then blundered the game away with 59.a7??

Anna Muzychuk, Divya Deshmukh

Things did not go Anna Muzychuk's way on Tuesday | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

Lagno 1-0 Goryachkina

After Lagno blitzed out her preparation out of a Scotch Game, Goryachkina faltered with 15...f5?, demonstrating the value - both psychological and practical - of strong theoretical preparation.

The game lasted 66 moves, but Lagno kept the initiative throughout, patiently converting her positional advantage until securing the win. By move 43, her pair of bishops were visibly stronger than Goryachkina's passive minor pieces.

Kateryna Lagno

Kateryna Lagno | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

Tan 0-1 Zhu

After getting the upper hand in the opening, Tan captured the wrong way on move 17, allowing Zhu to fight for the initiative.

Eventually, Black emerged with an extra pawn in a position with a bishop pair facing a knight pair. Further inaccuracies by Tan allowed Zhu to make the most of her material edge.

Tan Zhongyi, Zhu Jiner

The all-Chinese battle between Tan Zhongyi and Zhu Jiner | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

Standings after round 8

All games

In this video course, experts (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) examine the games of Judit Polgar. Let them show you which openings Polgar chose to play, where her strength in middlegames were, or how she outplayed her opponents in the endgame.

<< Candidates R8: Nakamura takes down Caruana, Giri beats Pragg
Candidates R9: Head-to-head stats >>
Topics: Candidates 2026, Divya Deshmukh, Kateryna Lagno, Zhu Jiner
Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
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60m English New ideas in the Najdorf_E

‘New ideas in the Najdorf – a Power Play 18 Update’ aims to complement Daniel King’s popular DVD from last year ‘The Sicilian Najdorf - a repertoire for Black’. Such a dynamic and popular opening as the Najdorf is developing the whole time. On this download, Daniel King updates lines that were included on his DVD but also responds to viewers’ requests, considering lines that he omitted from his original repertoire. The lines examined on this update are: • 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 h3 e5 7 Nde2 • 5….a6 6 Bc4 in combination with the English Attack (Be3, f3 etc) • 5…a6 6 Be3 and the …a5 variation • 5…a6 6 Be2 and 9 Re1 • 5 f3 (instead of 5 Nc3) It isn’t necessary to have seen the original Najdorf DVD to understand the lines examined here – but it would help as they form part of a complete repertoire.