It couldn’t get more exciting! With this afternoon’s victory over Elisabeth Paehtz, Anna Muzychuk bounced back from her seventh-round loss to tie with Zhu Jiner at 5.5/8, setting up a thrilling final round at the Cyprus Women’s Grand Prix.
Muzychuk will play Black against Harika Dronavalli, while Zhu Jiner will enjoy the white pieces against Nana Dzagnidze.
Another happy contender was Divya Deshmukh, who scored her first win of the tournament by defeating Olga Badelka. Interestingly, this was the game chosen for the ceremonial first move, performed by five-time World Champion and FIDE Deputy President Vishy Anand.
Anand played 1.Nf3, and as fate would have it, this very piece delivered the final blow with the maneuver 63.Ne5-d7!
Let’s take a closer look at the five games.
Aleksandra Goryachkina – Harika Dronavalli 0.5-0.5
Goryachkina’s quick draw against Paehtz yesterday gave her plenty of time to prepare for today’s game against Harika. Also, their head-to-head record favoured Goryachkina heavily – three wins and six draws, with no victories for Harika.
However, Aleksandra’s Grand Prix situation is very special. Having won an event and tied for first in another, a decent result here more or less guarantees her a Candidates. With this in mind, it makes sense for her to avoid major risks.
Her preparation for the game was top-notch. First, she sacrificed a pawn for piece compensation in a well-known position of the French Tarrasch. Then she followed it up with the “engine” novelty 15.Ng5, a very dangerous attacking idea.
But Harika was on her game today and quickly found the way to neutralize her opponent’s initiative. After the exchange of queens, Harika still retained her extra pawn, but a draw was quickly agreed upon due to the opposite-coloured bishops.
Anna Muzychuk – Elisabeth Paehtz 1-0
Anna and Elisabeth are good friends and colleagues. But when it comes to chess, it’s no-holds-barred. “It’s not so easy because Elisabeth is my best friend in the chess community, and we have spent a lot of time together,” said Anna after the game.
In twenty official classical games, Anna has pulled ahead with four wins and only one loss, while the rest of the games were draws.
“Anna is playing with White and after yesterday’s loss she will try very hard to score the full point today,” dared GM Gershon on the live stream. “Exactly, as you can imagine she didn’t look happy this morning, as she was struggling to get herself together for today’s game,” confirmed WGM co-commentator Karlovich.
However, Karlovich also mentioned that she had lunched with Paehtz, “I spoke to Elisabeth during lunch and I think she is ready for a fight today and try to surprise her opponent in the opening.”
And indeed, she did! Elisabeth opted for the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, a defence that she has used very sparingly in her career (although one of the games was against Anna’s younger sister!). “In fact, I played 1.d4 as the first move, which I do very rarely. I thought I was going to surprise her!” said Anna, reflecting on her opening choice.
Anna did her best to find a way to make progress to no avail. To make things even worse, she quickly fell behind on the clock: at one point she was down to six minutes for seventeen moves.
However, fortune favours the brave and, with Anna under severe time pressure, Elisabeth blundered 24…Qc5? instead of 24…Rxd4 with equal play, and then more importantly, 28…Qd8? instead of the superior 28…Qd7, which seems to be holding.
After that, Anna had no trouble picking up a couple of pawns and bringing the point home, ensuring an exciting finale to the tournament.
In her postgame interview, she instructively explained how Elisabeth’s position started to go downhill after 23…e5.
Stavroula Tsolakidou – Zhu Jiner 0.5-0.5
Leading the event with 5/7, Zhu Jiner decided to go all-in with an aggressive approach in this important game against Stavroula. Instead of the solid Ruy Lopez or Italian game, she went for her favourite Sicilian, the Najdorf variation.
Tsolakidou’s response was unsurprising – the aggressive 6.Bg5 followed by 7.Qf3 and 8.0-0-0, echoing her 2017 victory over Zhu Jiner at the World Junior Girls Championship.
Her opening strategy was successful: her opponent was caught off-guard with 9.g4 and spent quite a lot of time figuring out the best response. Zhu Jiner took up the gauntlet, captured the “poisoned pawn”, and the game was on!
The position remained balanced, according to the engines, but it was very double-edged, and anything could happen.
But the exchange of queens on move twenty-two cooled things down. In the queenless middlegame, Zhu Jiner had the two bishops but a slightly worse pawn structure: the game was heading for a draw and indeed a draw was agreed on move forty-nine, both players clocking a 98% accuracy score with no mistakes whatsoever.
Nana Dzagnidze – Mariya Muzychuk 0.5-0.5
The head-to-head between Nana and Mariya is quite extensive. In eighteen classical games, twelve games have ended in a draw, with two wins for Nana and four wins for Mariya.
In addition, as GM Gershon most astutely pointed out, both Nana and Mariya have only played one leg of the cycle and this is their second event: if one of them were able to score two consecutive game wins, they might have a chance to fight for one of the two candidate spots. Indeed, a very important game for both of them.
The opening was the Three Knights variation in the Grunfeld, with a well-deserved reputation of being very solid. Neither of the two players wanted to risk today, and each time a piece could be traded they would go for it.
Around move twenty-five, Mariya enjoyed a slight initiative on the board and also quite a bit of extra time con the clock (twenty minutes for Nana’s six minutes, with fifteen moves to the time control). However, Nana kept her cool, played solidly and without much trouble was able to liquidate into an equal ending.
A draw was agreed on move fifty-three. Both players achieved an outstanding 99% accuracy score in the game!
Divya Deshmukh – Olga Badelka 1-0
The last game to finish was an exciting battle. The Indian champion has mainly been an 1.e4 player for most of her career, but every now, and then she opens with 1.Nf3 against specific opponents. That was her choice today.
She went for the Zukertort opening, exactly the line that Badelka used to defeat Anna Muzychuk yesterday! A risky decision? “After yesterday’s loss I decided not to prepare for today’s game and just freestyle it,” Divya explained in her postgame interview.
Olga took no chances and played it safe. A couple of minor piece exchanges allowed her to go into the middlegame with a totally equal position and excellent chances to hold her opponent to a draw. It even seemed that she was going to take over the initiative due to the control of the d-file and potentially two bishops.
After major piece exchanges, and with Divya under time pressure, Olga started pressing in the two bishop’s vs bishop and knight endgame. However, sometimes it’s hard to find the balance between pressing and overpressing.
Badelka crossed the line with 57…e2 (57…Kf7 was still a draw) and ended up having to resign a few minutes later. A much-needed win for Divya, who exclaimed “At last!” when leaving the playing hall.
Moment of the day
Even though 63.c8=Q is winning, Divya found an even nicer finish, by playing 63.Ne5+ followed by 64.Nd7! and White promotes a full queen.
Round nine dates and pairings:
The final ninth round of the 2024/25 Women’s Grand Prix series will be played on Monday, March 24, at 14:00 CET local time in Nicosia, Cyprus, one hour before the usual starting time.
These are the pairings of the round:
Zhu Jiner – Nana Dzagnidze
Olga Badelka – Stavroula Tsolakidou
Elisabeth Paehtz – Divya Deshmukh
Harika Dronavalli – Anna Muzychuk
Mariya Muzychuk – Aleksandra Goryachkina
More information about the event, including the regulations and details of the pairings, as well as live games can be found on the official website: womengrandprix.fide.com
You can follow the games live and watch the action with our wonderful commentators GM Alik Gershon and WGM Anastasiya Karlovich on YouTube.
Written by Michael Rahal
Photos: Mark Livshitz
