Building a Fortress in Chess: Giri Holds Sindarov, Candidates 2026

Part 1Cyprus 2026: the leader at 5½ out of 6

The 2026 Candidates Tournament, the eight-player double round robin that decides who plays for the world title, was held at Pegeia in Cyprus from 29 March to 15 April. Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan arrived in round 7 with 5½ points from six games and finished the first half on 6 out of 7, the best halfway score in the event's history according to the Chess.com report. ^[3] ✓ Verified

Sindarov went on to win the tournament and the right to challenge for the world title. In this game, though, Giri held: the second player in the event to draw with the leader. The draw came after 85 moves, the longest game of the round, with Giri more than an hour behind on the clock during the technical phase, as ChessBase reported. ^[7][4] ✓ Verified

Part 2What is a fortress in chess?

A fortress is a defensive set-up in which one side is down material but the other side cannot make progress: no pawn can be won, no square entered, no zugzwang forced. The material count says lost; the board says drawn.

Fortresses are built from a few parts that recur. The defender's pawns stand where the attacker cannot win them, usually guarded by one another or by a piece that cannot be driven off. The king stands in front of them, not beside them. The defender's piece, a bishop here, covers the squares the pawns leave weak. And the attacker's own pawns are often fixed targets, so they cannot be advanced to open lines without being lost. ◐ Inferred

A fortress is not the same thing as passive defence. Every fortress has a breaking test, usually a pawn break, and the defender must know in advance which reply keeps the wall standing. The game below shows both halves: building the fortress, and holding it when the attacker strikes.

Part 3How a Ragozin gave Black an isolated pawn to defend

Giri chose the Ragozin Defence, a Queen's Gambit Declined with ...Bb4. Sindarov's 11.Ne4, instead of retaking on d4 at once, steered towards a queenless middlegame. After 17.d5 exd5 18.Qxe7 Nxe7 19.Nxb7 Rdb8 20.Nxa5 Rxb5 the queens and the bishops on a5 and b5 came off, and Black was left with an isolated pawn on d5: a pawn with no friendly pawn on either neighbouring file, which can only be defended by pieces. ◐ Inferred

The Week in Chess marks 24.h3 as the new move; 24.Ne5 had been played before, in Ruck v Dizdar from 2006. The Chess.com report says Sindarov won the opening battle against one of the best-prepared players in chess, and Sindarov said afterwards that the engine might call the position equal but that for a human it was a very unpleasant one to play with Black. ^[2][3] ✓ Verified

The kingside play that followed matters more than it looks. After 26...f6 27.g4 h5 28.Ne1 hxg4 29.hxg4 Ng6 30.f3 Ne5 31.Kf2 g5 the pawns stood f3 and g4 against f6 and g5, and they never moved again until move 77. The fortress was built from pawns placed in the middlegame. ◐ Inferred

Part 4Two plans: win d5, or trade into a wall

By move 33 each side had one target. White's plan was to keep the knight on d4, the square in front of the isolated pawn, and pile up on d5 with the rooks. Black's plan was to keep the pawn alive with active rooks against b3, and to trade pieces, because every trade made the d5 pawn matter less.

Black's counterplay depended on one thing: the b3 pawn. As long as the black rooks could attack it, White could not use all the pieces against d5. That is why the decisive moment of the game, the exchange sacrifice, happened on b3. ◐ Inferred

Part 5The decisions that mattered

Stockfish kept White a little better for most of the game, and the graph shows where the evaluation moved. Two decisions shaped the ending: a slip by Black that let White's edge grow, and White's choice to take the d5 pawn at a moment that allowed Black's exchange sacrifice.

Part 6The turning point: 42...Rxb3+, giving the exchange for a fortress

After 41...Be6 42.Rd8 the moment arrived. White is a pawn up with two rooks and a knight against two rooks and a bishop. A slow defence would leave Black's rooks tied to the b-file and the king exposed to the white rooks on the seventh and eighth ranks. Stockfish would have given up the exchange one move earlier, 41...Rxb3+ at once; after 41...Be6 its number for White climbs to about a pawn for a single move. ✓ Verified

Look again at the top diagram, the position after 46...Kf7. The g4 pawn is fixed: the bishop hits it, f3 must guard it, and g5 blocks it. The f6 pawn covers e5 and g5 covers f4 and h4, so the white king has no square on the kingside. The black king guards e7, f7 and g7. ◐ Inferred

From move 47 to move 76 Sindarov tried every route. The king went to c5, c6, d6 and d7; the rook tried the a-, b-, c- and f-files and gave checks on the seventh rank. Giri's bishop shuttled between a2, b3, c4 and e6 on the long a2-g8 diagonal, keeping the white king out of e6, the doorway to f6 and f7, while the black king moved between e8, f8 and f7. Thirty moves made no progress at all. ◐ Inferred

Part 7Could Sindarov have broken it? The test of 77.f4

In a drawn game the side pressing is the one with something to regret. Sindarov's best chance came earlier, at move 41, when 41.Kd3 or 41.Rc2 would have kept the pieces on. Once the fortress stood, White had one try left: the pawn break 77.f4, which gives up a pawn to open the kingside. With eight pieces on the board and pawns facing each other, the position after 77.f4 can be looked up in the Lichess endgame tablebase, a database of solved endgames that gives the true result with perfect play. ^[6] ✓ Verified

Part 8A different angle: impenetrable, but only one move deep

That changes how to think about fortresses. A fortress is usually pictured as a wall: put the pawns here, the king there, and wait. The quiet part of this game, moves 47 to 76, fits that picture. But the attacker always keeps one last try, a pawn break or a sacrifice, and the fortress then becomes a calculation in which the defender must know the answer to the break. ◐ Inferred

There was also a shorter road to the draw. The Chess.com report notes that Black had a way to force the draw earlier, and The Week in Chess annotation and Stockfish both point to it: 44...Bxg4! 45.fxg4 Rb2+, when the white king cannot escape the rook's checks. Giri chose the slower route and still drew. ^[3][2] ✓ Verified

Part 9How to build a fortress in your own games

• Can the attacker win a pawn by force? If yes, it is not a fortress.
• Can the attacker's king get behind my pawns?
• Are my pawns on the colour my bishop does not cover?
• Which pawn break does the attacker have left, and what is my answer?

Fortresses appear in many endgames, from the wrong bishop and rook pawn to opposite-coloured bishops. The material-down version Giri chose is close to a positional exchange sacrifice, played for safety instead of for attack.

Your turnPractise it

Set each position up, decide your plan before you look, then play it out against Stockfish to see whether it holds.

Part 10What to take away

• A fortress beats material. Giri gave a rook for a knight and a pawn and was never lost.
• Build the pawns early. The f6 and g5 pawns placed at moves 26 and 31 were the fortress's walls at move 46.
• Opposite colours protect. Pawns on dark squares, bishop on light squares: each covers what the other leaves open.
• Fix the attacker's pawns. A pawn that cannot move cannot open lines.
• Know the answer to the break. When 77.f4 came, one move held out of thirteen.