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Playing the Other Man's Clock

Wei Yi vs Javokhir Sindarov, Candidates Tournament, Paphos, round 6 2026 · Vienna Game · 0-1

Coach

Sindarov arrived at this game on four wins from five and left it a point and a half clear of the field. What he does here is not the sort of thing a leader is supposed to do: he lets his kingside pawns be doubled, leaves his king in the centre for thirty moves, and gives a pawn away. Every one of those decisions buys an open line, and by move nineteen all three annotators have stopped talking about the pawn count. The other half of the game is the clock. Wei Yi spent thirty-four minutes on one move and forty-six on another, and Sindarov, who could see it, started answering instantly.

Before move one

Step through the game; it stops where a move is worth finding.

···

Arrow keys step through the game. Explore tries your own moves; Stockfish answers.

  • Count the open lines rather than the pawns. Black is structurally worse from move eleven and better placed from move seventeen, and nothing about the pawns changed in between.
  • Read the alternatives in the notes at moves 21 and 22. Bachmann wanted the same exchange sacrifice twice, and the reason it never came was the clock rather than the position.
  • Watch where the black king ends up. It sits in the centre while the centre is Black's, and walks to the corner the moment White threatens to open the position.
  • Follow the clock times in the notes. Every annotator keeps mentioning them, and the collapse arrives four moves after White's second long think.
  • When the pawns start rolling on move twenty-five, work out which of them actually queens and which one is there to be given away.
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