The leaders of the Women’s Grand Prix tournament H. Koneru and A. Muzychuk are facing a strong resistance during the last few rounds. Today they both drew again. This was the third draw in a row for both players.
Girya was playing white against Koneru. She methodically traded the queens and all minor pieces and reached a dead drawn rook ending.
H. Dronavalli – A. Muzychuk was a theoretical discussion in one of the Meran variations of Slav Defense. Till move 17 they were repeating Morozevich – Caruana ( Reggio Emilia, 2010) game.
Here Harika tried 17 Be2 (Morozevich had played 17.Bc2).17…h5! and after spending a significant amount of time white decided to force a threefold repetition.18.Kh2 Ng4+19.Kh1 Kf2+ 20.Kh2 Ng4+.
V. Cmilyte – N. Dzagnidze. White sacrificed a pawn in the opening and had a promising position, but Dzagnidze demonstrated excellent defending skills.
25…Qe7!.26.N:h6 Rad7!27.Qf4 f5 28.N:f5 ef 29.Q:f5 g6 30.Q:g6 N:d4 31.Qh5+ Kg8.The position is far from normal standarts and it’s hard to give any evaluation here. 32.Bf5 Rd5 33.Qg6+ Kf8 34.Ra3 Qg7 35.Qh5 R:e5 36.R:d4 R:d4 37.Rf3 Ke7 38.Kh2 Nd7 0-1
After missing so many opportunities in the previous rounds the host of the tournament Elina Danielian finally scored her first victory.
24.B:g6! fg 25.B:f6+ B:f6 26.Qh6+ Kh8 27.N:g6+
Anna Ushenina also had no victories in this tournament before this round. After drawing the first 8 games she lost to Cmilyte yesterday. Today she was playing Kosintseva whose performance here is not very stable.
25…B:a4? 26 Bc4!c6 27.e4 g6 28.Q:h6 (28.Qf3 was more simple)Ne7 29.Rc1 Qd4 30.Nf3 Qg7 31.Qf4 Bb5 32.Bb3! Rf8 33.Ng5. White has a winning attack and on move 41 Kosintseva resigned.
Tuvshintugs had better chances against Stefanova during the entire game, but her experienced opponent managed to trade most of her attacking units and with limited material left her chances to win the game became very slim. Draw on move 55 as players reached a theoretical draw position.
They play exciting chess.