FIDE WWTC 2023: USA, China and Kazakhstan lead after Day 1
13-year-old Alice Lee defeated former Women’s World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova. Kazakhstan surprises, taking the lead following the defeats of India and Georgia. Round 1 In the Pool A, Georgia scored the best result of the round, a resounding victory by 3½-½ against a direct rival, Ukraine. The Georgian players cemented their win thanks to their dominant performance on the White boards: Meri Arabidze and Lela Javakhishvili showed great drive, and with an accurate play, they got the full point against Nataliya Buksa and Anastasiya Rakhmangulova, respectively. Khotenasvili, with Black on the first board, played a solid Grunfeld line and drew comfortably against Ushenina. The result could have been much closer, though, had Inna Gaponenko managed to convert the winning position she achieved against Nino Batsiashvili. However, the Ukrainian IM, who often falls in time scrambles, let the victory slip at the exact moment when she was going for the kill. Batsiashvili grabbed her chance and, with ingenious play, pulled off the biggest swindle of the day. India defeated France 3-1, but some of the games in the match were quite double-edged, and at times, it seemed as if the match could go either way. Vantika Agrawal is in great shape, and her sound king move 15.Ke2! gave her the upper hand against Deimante Daulyte-Cornette, who shortly after lost a pawn. Vantika’s conversion of her material advantage was flawless. Another Indian player in great shape is Divya Deshmukh, who arrived in Bydgoszcz as the surprising winner of the Tata Steel Rapid India with a splendid performance. With Black, she put Anastasia Savina under some pressure, and the French second board succumbed after making two mistakes in succession, 18.g3 and 20.Kg2. Divya was merciless and punished her opponent with a strong hand. Kazakhstan got a scare very early into the game, as in the second board both players seemed to have mixed up the move order in a Najdorf. Shahenda Wafa played a premature 9.e5, and Kamalidenova got confused and played 9…dxe5 right away (instead of 9…Bb7), giving White a chance to get a decisive advantage with 10.Ndxb5! However, the Egyptian player also missed this intermediate move, but without it, the a8-rook is a Trojan horse. Kamalidenova did not give her opponent a second chance. On the first board, Bibisara Assaubayeva was also ruthless as she outplayed Shrook Wafa, sealing the result at 3-2 for the Kazakhstani players. In Pool B, the home team lost against China by 2½ – 1½ in a match with several twists. Aleksandra Maltsevskaya, making her debut with the Polish national team, played a bit shaky in the opening (with black), and fell into a trap by Kaiyu Ning. Being down material since move 20, Aleksandra kept the game going, hoping for a miracle, and her resilience was rewarded, as Kaiyu failed to deliver a final blow. The very experienced Monika Socko got a clear edge against Yang Shen when the young Chinese misplayed the opening; however, Socko rushed to simplify the position and let the advantage slip, agreeing to a draw after 31 moves. The match was decided on the fourth board, where IM Qi Guo outplayed Michalina Rudzinska. Another thrilling match was the one between Germany and the US. The world is eager to see how 13-year-old Alice Lee will perform in the international arena, and her game today against such an experienced player as Elisabeth Paehtz was an excellent test to start with. With Black, the German GM rejected an early possible draw by threefold repetition against the young prodigy and tried to keep the game going for as long as possible, building some initiative. However, Alice never gave her opponent the slightest chance to get an advantage, and the game was a draw after 75 moves. The match was decided on the second board, where Dinara Wagner lost to Anna Zatonskih. Despite playing one of her pet openings, the Catalan, and being, in general, a very well-prepared player, Dinara seemed to struggle during the whole game to find a safe square to place her Queen, and on move 30, she blundered a knight. The match between the team FIDE Americas and Bulgaria was a very close affair, which came to an unexpected conclusion. The American ladies got ahead on the scoreboard after Lisandra Ordaz, with black, defeated former World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova in great fashion. The position around move 30, where the Cuban IM had a very strong Knight on d4 while Stefanova’s was stuck on a6, is very illustrative. Meantime, Jennifer Perez had Viktoria Radeva against the ropes, so it was all set for a convincing victory for FIDE America. Very short of time, Jennifer started to chase the black king, who ran away across the entire board and managed to hide from the threats for long enough to make her lose on time, despite the time increment of 10 seconds per move. In the end, it was 2-2 and a little setback for the South American players. Round 2 The second round of the day was packed with action: only a few games were decided in the first hour of play, but then, as the end of the afternoon was nearing, quite a few games took an unexpected turn. Kazakhstan took the lead in pool A after Georgia was defeated by France (2½ – 1½), while the USA and China are in command of pool B. Things started on the wrong foot for Georgia, as Salome Melia blundered a pawn early in the opening against Natacha Benmesbah, and could not offer much resistance. The game between Deimane Daulyte-Cornette and Bela Khotenashvili was a beautiful fight to watch. Demaine was by no means better, as Black’s bishop’s pair was restricting her play; however, the French player seized the initiative with her plan 22.g4-g5-g6. The position that emerged, with the White knights creating all kinds of threats, was extremely difficult to assess in a rapid game. Unfortunately, when the tension was reaching its peak, and the game was at its sharpest, Bella blundered a Rook.