It was just about the fourth hour into the opening round of the 2026 Candidates Tournament in Cyprus. R Praggnanandhaa was hunched over the board, his focus laser-sharp, accompanied by the familiar, rhythmic but anxious foot-tapping. Then, suddenly, he flinched.He had smelled something. It was the turning point in his first-round clash against Dutchman Anish Giri, where the Indian had spotted a critical mistake by the latter on the 36th move.Pragg extended his arm to make a move, but pulled back. He took a moment to adjust his pen on the side and looked Giri dead in the eye before giving the position one final thought. He took exactly three minutes and nine seconds to calculate the consequences before playing Rook to e6.The point is that when Giri decided to move his knight from d5 to f6, he overlooked that Praggnanandhaa could attack his knight pair with white’s Rook. With a precise deflection, the Indian Grandmaster was able to force a winning passed pawn on the right flank.Also Read | Chess Candidates: Eight players, one crown and a wide-open battle to challenge world champion GukeshFresh off a two-month break following a tedious 18-month stretch, it would turn out to be futile to try to stop a Praggnanandhaa when he smelled blood. Even as Giri laboured through the next 15 moves, the result was inevitable. Pragg walked away with a full point, marking an extraordinary start to his second Candidates.Vaishali digs deepIn the women’s event, Pragg’s elder sister R Vaishali had a contrasting start, surviving a massive scare to escape with a draw against Kazakh sensation Bibisara Assaubayeva. For much of the afternoon on Sunday, the Indian was staring into the abyss as Assaubayeva tightened a vice-like grip on the position.Then came the slice of luck that often defines a tournament of this magnitude.Story continues below this adTime control in chess is the invisible hand that dictates the flow of a game. It defines how much you can contemplate each move, but more importantly, it shapes the very style of play. A long-format game offers the luxury of the deep, calculative grind, whereas rapid or blitz forces a player to lean heavily on intuition. Vaishali and Bibisara Assaubayeva during the first Round of the Candidates. (FIDE/Michal_Walusza)Yet, it is the time increment that remains the true game-changer. That small, ticking addition with every move provides a psychological cushion that can save a game from the brink of collapse and Vaishali can certainly attest to that after her game with Assaubayeva.Vaishali opened with e4 with the white pieces, but the Sicilian Defence from the Kazakh turned into a slow-burner with no exchanges until the 18th move. By then, Vaishali had already burned nearly an hour of her allotted 90 minutes.With 10 moves still left to reach the time control, she was down to 15 minutes. In her desperation to keep pace, Vaishali, who has an evident weakness under time pressure, saw her accuracy dip, and the engine began favouring Assaubayeva. By the 26th move, the Indian had just 71 seconds left against the Kazakh’s 22 minutes.Story continues below this adAlso Read | FIDE Candidates: Russia’s Aleksandra Goryachkina poses the biggest challenge to India’s Divya Deshmukh and R VaishaliJust as the game was slipping away, Assaubayeva committed a critical error, allowing Vaishali to exchange pieces and take Black’s active queen off the board. This simplified the position, allowing Vaishali to trade off a knight and the rook pair. With only opposite-colored bishops and three pawns left, the game was deadlocked, and a draw was mutually decided.Divya draws tooThere is a certain flair to Divya Deshmukh. India’s latest female Grandmaster beams with confidence and, unlike many chess players, she never shies away from speaking her mind, a trait well reflected in her play on the board.For weeks, Divya and her team prepared to face the stalwart of Indian chess, Koneru Humpy, in the opening round of the 2026 Women’s Candidates Tournament. However, the plan shifted just days before the start when Humpy withdrew, citing safety concerns regarding the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Divya Deshmukh during the round 1 of Candidates. (FIDE/Michal_Walusza)While Divya is capable of facing any opponent, the Candidates’ stature makes it imperative to allocate the right amount of preparation time to all seven players. Anna Muzychuk, for instance, is a formidable opponent well-equipped to spoil anyone’s start in an event as prestigious as this one in Cyprus.Story continues below this adNevertheless, an ever-solid Divya proved fully prepared for the challenge against the former World Championship challenger. Playing the Scotch Game with white pieces, Divya displayed tremendous opening preparation and dictated the terms from the start. She gained nearly five minutes on her clock through the first sixteen moves, during which the queens were exchanged early. Her decision to move quickly out of the opening and settle into a long grind worked in her favour.In contrast, Muzychuk’s clock was leaking rapidly. At one point, Divya held a 40-minute time advantage, forcing the Ukrainian to drop her guard. The following moves saw a flurry of exchanges in the middlegame, leaving both sides with equal pawns, a rook, and a light-squared bishop.Moments later, Divya allowed a threefold repetition, securing the first result of the women’s section.In the other games, Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov defeated Russia’s Andrey Esipenko to start his campaign with a win, while all first-round games in the women’s section ended in draws.