Sharjah: Chinese women’s world champion Hou Yifan and her compatriot GM Ju Wenjun won their respective sixth round games to maintain lead with five points each in the Fide Women’s Grand Prix at the Sharjah Chess Club.
Hou Yifan used the Nimzo Indian defence with black to beat former women’s world champion Anna Ushenina of Ukraine in 50 moves. Hou controlled the centre and advanced a passed pawn to threaten promotion and force the Ukrainian to resign.
Ju Wenjun had an easier assignment against cellar dweller Alina L’Ami of Romania. L’Ami gave a Rook for Knight on the 21st move and Ju exchanged pieces to transpose to a won endgame with a pawn up.
Batchimeg Tuvshintugs of Mongolia follows a point behind the leaders with four points after a draw with Elina Danielan of Armenia in 47 moves of a minor piece endgame.
Ushenina, Harika Dronavalli of India and Tatiana Kosintseva of Russia trail with 3½ points each. Kosintseva smashed the French defence of Dronavalli, launching a kingside attack that forced the Indian GM to blunder on the 30th move with a backrank weakness.
It was an unlucky day for India as Koneru Humpy also lost in only 24 moves of her Queen’s Indian defence by a two-move blunder against Zhao Xue of China. Koneru resigned after losing the exchange in a knight fork and facing further loss of material. Zhao Xue and Danielan have three points each. Koneru has two points together with Nafisa Muminova of Uzbekistan.
In another sixth round match, Zhu Chen of Qatar drew with Muminova in 47 moves of a Slav defence to tally one point followed by L’Ami at the bottom with half a point.
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 placed in the Grand Prix circuit will become the Challenger.
Koneru and Hou Yifan lead the Grand Prix race with 370 and 365 points respectively. Ju Wenjun has only 195 points from her two best tournaments. A total of 850 Grand Prix points are at stake in the Sharjah leg. 1st place 120 points, 2nd place 110, 3rd place 100 with bonus of 40, 20 and 10 points respectively for the top three. Fourth to 12th place receive 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10 points respectively.
Koneru Humpy won the preceding Women’s Grand Prix tournaments held June last year in Dilijan, Armenia and repeated her victory in the next leg, September in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Koneru tied for 7th 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.
