The third round of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix Cyprus was played this afternoon at Hilton Nicosia. The ceremonial first move was performed by His Excellency Liu Yantao, the Chinese Ambassador, who opened the game for Zhu Jiner, and by His Excellency Mr. Manish, the Indian Ambassador, who played for Harika on the same board.
With accuracy scores in the high nineties across most games, the round featured many fighting draws, proving that this will be a closely contested event.
The only decisive result of the round was Anna Muzychuk’s victory over Nana Dzagnidze, ending in checkmate on move 83—the longest game of the tournament so far.
Let’s take a closer look at all five games.
Divya Deshmukh 0.5 – Aleksandra Goryachkina 0.5
Despite having faced each other only four times, Goryachkina has been a tough opponent for Divya, winning three games and drawing one. However, Divya has made substantial progress in recent months and, playing with White, was eager to improve her record.
Goryachkina defended with the Berlin variation in the Ruy Lopez, one of her regular setups with Black. Both players had obviously done their homework as they blitzed out twelve moves of theory. Suddenly, Divya slowed down, spending nearly forty minutes on her fourteenth move!
Possibly fearing some complications, the young Indian went for a solid continuation with a massive piece trade. The resulting rook and opposite-color bishops endgame was completely equal and after further simplifications a draw was agreed on move forty-two. The 99% accuracy game score is a testament to the no-risk approach taken by both players.
Stavroula Tsolakidou 0.5 – Mariya Muzychuk 0.5
The Greek International Master is rapidly becoming a fan favourite player to follow. All her games are exciting, and today’s encounter was no exception. In two previous classical games, Stavroula had already defeated Mariya Muzychuk, while the other ended in a draw.
After a close shave yesterday against Harika, Stavroula opened with 1.d4 and went for the very new 9.Rg1 in Semi-Slav Anti-Moscow Gambit.
Visibly surprised, Mariya spent nearly fifteen minutes figuring out her reponse. Although it took her some time, to her credit Mariya nailed all of the twenty difficult computer moves, while Stavroula was blitzing out her own preparation.
Tsolakidou was very impressed with her opponent’s play. “I prepared all the line at home with my coach,” said Stavroula in her postgame interview. “It’s amazing that Mariya was able to find all the computer defensive moves, but my coach did warn me to be prepared for this scenario.”
Muzychuk achieved an impressive 100% accuracy score: she played a complicated game like a top-level computer, finding her way to a draw in the complications. Check out the Stavroula’s interview for mind-boggling lines.
Zhu Jiner 0.5 – Harika Dronavalli 0.5
Having faced each other on six occasions, with six draws recorded, this matchup would prove to be very equal and the 98% accuracy score confirmed this prediction.
Facing Harika’s Winawer French, the leader of the tournament advanced her h-pawn “a la Kasparov”. Harika reacted correctly with the precise maneuver 9…b6, trading off the light squared bishops and subsequently the queens on the a6-f1 diagonal.
The resulting endgame had the bishop vs knight imbalance but both players kept it close to the vest with absolutely no mistakes and a draw was agreed on move forty-one. With this result Zhu Jiner keeps the lead going into the fourth round.
Olga Badelka 0.5 – Elisabeth Paehtz
This was the first time that IM Olga Badelka faced GM Elisabeth Paehtz in classical chess.
The game opened as an English Defence and remained quite balanced until Badelka launched a fierce kingside pawn storm. True to classical principles, Paehtz counterattacked in the centre by sacrificing a couple of pawns for active piece counterplay.
At one moment, Badelka had three extra pawns, but Paehtz’s activity was immense, based mainly on her active dark-squared bishop in the middle of the board, which ultimately allowed her to force a perpetual check.
“The game was tremendously complicated,” Olga explained in her post-game interview. “In fact, I was very worried about the safety of my own king.”
Although she missed some small opportunities in her calculations, Olga was satisfied with the draw and the chance to play against the best female players in the world.
Anna Muzychuk – Nana Dzagnidze 1-0
A classic matchup! Anna and Nana have played no less than twenty-six classical games against each other, with a total score of seven wins for Dzagnidze, three wins for Muzychuk and sixteen draws. These two players know each other in and out!
The Georgian GM decided to abandon her favorite defence, the Najdorf Sicilian, in favor of the rare O’Kelly variation, in an attempt to surprise her opponent and take her “out of the book”.
After three or four minutes of thought, Anna Muzychuk returned the favour by playing 3.Be2 instead of one of the more popular moves, and only seven moves the position was totally new, with no major game references in the databases.
“Knowing Anna, who is such a hard-working person, and normally prepares for so many hours the day before the game, during the morning, she checks everything! She probably spent so much time preparing all the options, but I don’t think 2…a6 was one of them,” explained commentator WGM Anastasiya Karlovich on the live stream.
As the game progressed, the position in a Marozcy pawn structure was mostly equal, although it was always Muzychuk who was pressing. In the ending, Dzagnidze had to defend a queen ending a pawn down, a draw according to the engines, but it still accuracy was needed.
Moment of the Day
After defending the ending correctly for more than 50 moves, Dzagnidze blundered right at the end. It has to be said that both players were nearly out of time, essentially only playing with the 30-second increment.
In this position, Dzagnidze played 83…Kg8, which loses after 84.f5! Qh1 and now 85.Qe8+ Kg7 86.f6 checkmate!
The correct move, which would have still held the draw, was 83…Kf8! avoiding the queen check on e8 in the previous variation. Now if 84.f5 Dzagnidze would have to find 84…Qg1 or 84…Qc2, the only two moves that secure the draw, by opening up the perpetual check on c1 and c6 when White captures the h7-pawn.
A very difficult sequence to find in a vacuum, even less under 30 seconds increment and after fighting for five hours!
Round 4 pairings:
Nana Dzagnidze – Elisabeth Paehtz
Harika Dronavalli – Olga Badelka
Mariya Muzychuk – Zhu Jiner
Aleksandra Goryachkina – Stavroula Tsolakidou
Anna Muzychuk – Divya Deshmukh
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
