Sharjah: Indian Grandmaster Harika Dronavalli assumed sole leadership at the Fide Women’s Grand Prix Chess Championship being held at the Sharjah Chess Club on Tuesday.
Dronavalli beat Nafisa Muminova of Uzbekistan to be the lone leader with two points after as many rounds of the competition.
Playing white, Dronavalli essayed the English Opening and created a passed pawn, which tied down Black’s Knight to stop the pawn from advancing. With more active pieces, the Indian threatened a Knight fork and forced Muminova to resign on the 50th move.
Five players trailed half a point behind Dronavalli led by women’s world champion Hou Yifan along with her Chinese team-mates Ju Wenjun and Zhao Xue and former women’s world champion Anna Ushenina of Ukraine and Batchimeg Tuvshintugs of Mongolia with 1.5 points each.
Hou Yifan used the Nimzo-Indian defence against Zhao Xue and drew by repetition of position on the 22nd move, while woman Grandmaster Ju Wenjun employed the Pirc Defence and threatened back rank mate with two Rooks to force former women’s world champion Zhu Chen to resign on the 52nd move.
Former women’s world champion Ushenina of Ukraine outmanoeuvered the Nimzo-Indian Defence of Elina Danielan of Armenia. Danielan gave a Knight for two centre pawns in order to open up the game. Ushenina forced an exchange of Queens on the 61st move and used her two Bishops against Knight to force resignation but only after 103 moves and six hours of play.
Tatiana Kosintseva of Russia could not take advantage of the White pieces against Batchimeg Tuvshintugs of Mongolia and they drew a Ruy Lopez game in 45 moves. Pace-setter Koneru Humpy bounced back from a first round loss to crush the King’s Indian defence of Romanian Alina L’Ami in 48 moves.
The final leg of the World Chess Federation (Fide) Women’s Grand Prix offers €60,000 (Dh290,345) for the tournament and €90,000 total cash prizes for the Grand Prix. The series will choose the Challenger to the Women’s World Championship next year.
Indian Grandmaster Humpy was leading the Fide Women’s Grand Prix series before the last leg of the six-tournament series. Games start at 3pm daily, with rest days on August 29 and September 3.
Twelve players are competing in a single round-robin of 11 rounds. In the Women’s Grand Prix, each player plays in four of the six Grand Prix tournaments, but only the best three results count. The player accumulating the highest number of points will get the right to challenge the Women’s world champion in a match next year. If the same player wins both events, the second-place person in the Grand Prix circuit will become the Challenger.
Before the final leg in Sharjah, Humpy led the Grand Prix with 370 points followed by reigning women’s world champion Hou Yifan with 365. Humpy won the previous Women’s Grand Prix tournaments held June last year in Dilijan, Armenia, and repeated her victory in the next leg in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She tied for seventh last June in Lopota, Georgia, which was won by Hou Yifan. Other previous Women’s Grand Prix tournaments in this series were held in Geneva, Switzerland and Khanti Mansiysk, Russia.
Games are broadcast live through the www.fide.com site, with live video coverage and post-game interviews of players.
