{"id":124336,"date":"2026-04-12T16:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T22:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-rising-star-2\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T16:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T22:54:18","slug":"a-rising-star-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-rising-star-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A rising star"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Twenty-year-old sensation Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan has run away with the Candidates Tournament, which determines the challenger to the reigning world chess champion.<\/p>\n

With only a few games remaining, and with Sindarov posting the best performance in Candidates history, he seems a lock to challenge D. Gukesh for the World Chess Championship later this year.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s position is from his game against China\u2019s Yi Wei. Wei is white; Sindarov, black. This week\u2019s position is a lesson in how to promote advanced passed pawns. With this hint in mind, please try to find black\u2019s best move.<\/p>\n

Sindarov\u2019s c3 pawn is ominously close to promotion. He facilitates this by moving his f4 pawn to f3. White\u2019s best reply is a queen trade, as Wei played. Other lines allow black to promote its \u2018c\u2019 pawn even quicker or snatch material. For example, queen to f5 is followed by the black f3 pawn taking the white g2 pawn with check. The white king takes the pawn, and black\u2019s queen then checks from e2 and wins white\u2019s rook.<\/p>\n

After the queen trade, white is lost in all lines. The computer engines recommend that white\u2019s g2 pawn take black\u2019s f3 pawn, which Wei played. In reply, black\u2019s c3 pawn steps onto c2, as played by Sindarov (see Diagram 2).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

Here, white\u2019s best move is rook to c1, albeit other lines lead to the same conclusion. For example, if rook to f1, then black moves its rook to d3, which prepares rook to d1 and the c2 pawn\u2019s promotion. After Wei\u2019s rook to c1, black\u2019s rook moves to e2. This seals the white king to the first rank. White\u2019s king races to help its rook stop black\u2019s c2 pawn and moves to g1. But this is too little, too late, as Sindarov slides his rook to d2, preparing d1, check, which wins white\u2019s rook and garners a new queen (see Diagram 3).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

Returning to the position after pawn to f3 by black and the queen trade on e3, a natural consideration for white is the immediate rook to c1. However, the black f3 pawn advances to f2 (see Diagram 4).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

Black\u2019s threat of rook to e1 also wins white\u2019s rook and garners a new queen.<\/p>\n

Only 18 months ago, Sindarov was not ranked in the top 50. He won the 2025 World Cup to qualify for the Candidates Tournament. By the end of the year, he could be the new world chess champion. A true rising star.<\/p>\n

Reach Eric Morrow at ericmorrowlaw@gmail.com<\/a> or (505) 327-7121.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

black\u2019s best move?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6416,5758],"tags":[1091],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-124336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists-chess-corner","category-columnists","tag-columns"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124336"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=124336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}