Candidates: R Vaishali makes most of second life offered by time-muddled Tan, to score second successive win; Moves to second spot

Tan had thirty-seven minutes and forty-two seconds to respond. The position was +3, a clean winning advantage, the kind of edge that usually converts itself. This wasn’t a sharp tactical mess but a slow and positional death for Vaishali, and Tan had all the time in the world to administer it. A move later, Tan waited and took nearly twenty minutes to come up with a response. And when she made it, it was inaccurate. Not a blunder but just inaccurate enough to let the position exhale. Neutralised. Suddenly, impossibly, Vaishali had a second life. A few more moves later,…