|
Thursday, 01 October 2009 |
Third round and things are heating up. Whilst in the Men's tournament, Magnus narrowly failed to win, in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix GM Nana Dzagnidze was the sole player to remain on 100% with 3/3.
GM Nana Dzagnidze from Georgia
Playing former world champion, Zhu Chen of Qatar, GM Dzagnidze chose a side line in the main line of the Meran : 13.Nd4 and after black failed to respond with the best move here 13...Qb6, a very tactical game ensued with white posing the biggest threats. White eventually broke through starting with 19.Nc6 and technically finishing with the very nice move 26.Qb6+! forcing either mate or massive haemorrage of pieces.
In another key decisive game, GM Xu Yuhua continued to show great form by beating IM Lilit Mkrtchian. Lilit has just had a very good result in Ningbo some weeks earlier during the World Team Championship and had started the tournament very solidly with two draws so far.
Former World Champion GM Xu Yuhua
In a Nimzo Indian Defence, Lilit played 4.Qc2 which she had tried earlier in the tournament and black chose an interesting setup. 9.b3?! was the start of some of the mishaps that white had to face and soon black got a very imposing position. After the position below white continue with 23.Rf2 and black could have wrapped the game up with 23...Qg1+
Instead Xu Yuhua chose Qe5 and allowed white to struggle on to move 38 before resigning.
GM Zhao Xue played a nice game and beat Nanjing player, WGM Shen Yang. The Chinese players show great fighting spirit and all games between them have been highly combative. Again, Nimzo Indian prevailed and black had successfully equalised after the opening. White drifted around move 25 and Zhao Xue took over the initiative and never left it go. Just after the time control white gave up the d4 square and the game.
In the fourth decisive game this round, Ju Wenjun moved closer to the leaders after a win over Turkish player, Betul Cemre Yildiz. The game started out as a Queen's gambit Accepted and hovered around equality for quite some time. The endgame got a bit trick for black after some inaccurate moves and white converted the full point.
In the other two drawn games we had fighting chess all the way, and IM Martha Fierro was unfortunate not to get the win, after GM Sebag lost a pawn shortly out of the opening. The final chance to win evaporated after she gave up her c-pawn whereas 46.Re7 would have kept the fire alive. WGM Mungutuul came very close to a win after WGM Kovanova blundered a piece after some fine opening and middle game play. Fortunately she defended dourly and managed to exchange off white's last pawn to get the draw.
Full analysis of the games can be found here .
|
