The 3rd round of the European Individual Women’s Chess Championship 2015 brought about lots of surprises.
The first seed and Georgia #1 GM Nana Dzagnidze (2570) saved the game against GM Elina Danielian (ARM 2458) and managed to draw with a perpetual check. (Note: Dzagnidze is not paired for the remainder of the event)
On the second board, former World and European Champion GM Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL 2512) lost with White pieces to IM Alina Kashlinskaya (RUS 2423), for the biggest upset that marked round three.
Russian hope WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina (2474) lost to WGM Mihaela Sandu (ROU 2300), while IM Svetlana Matveeva (2380) lost to WIM Salomeja Zaksaite (LTU 2203), who is so far having a good tournament with 2.5/3.
28 representatives of the hosting country are taking part in the Championship, of whom 7 players with 2400+. The best ranked so far is IM Nino Batsiashvili (2473) with the perfect score. Nana Dzagnidze, GM Bela Khotenashvili (2527), IM Lela Javakhishvili (2472) and IM Nino Khurtsidze (2451) are on 2.5 points each.
Joining Batsiashvili on the shared first place are Sandu, Kashlinskaya and Girya.
Top pairings of the 4th round are: Girya vs Sandu, Kashlinskaya vs Batsiashvili, Danielian vs Khotenashvili, Khurtsidze vs Galliamova, Galojan vs Hoang, Javakhishvili vs Zaksaite, Kovalevskaya vs Socko, Stefanova vs Sviridova, etc.
Round 4 is on schedule on 22nd May at 3.00 pm local time. Report by ECU.