Cairns Cup R5: New Leaders After Round Without Draws
GMs Ju Wenjun and Alexandra Kosteniuk took over the lead from GM Nana Dzagnidze at the Cairns Cup in St. Louis. After a round with only decisive games, the players can enjoy a rest day on Wednesday.
You can follow the tournament here as part of our live portal. Chess.com is offering a daily, live-commentary broadcast with GM Robert Hess, IM Hans Niemann, GM Roeland Pruijssers, WFM Anna Cramling, WFM Alessia Santeramo and WIM Jesse Nikki February on Chess.com/tv. The rounds start at 1 p.m. local time which is 11 a.m. Pacific and 20:00 Central European Time, with rounds on Feb. 7-11 and 13-16.
The official broadcast has WGM Jennifer Shahade, GM Yasser Seirawan, and GM Alejandro Ramirez, and there's a Russian-language broadcast with IM Almira Skripchenko and WGM Anastasiya Karlovich, on www.uschesschamps.com.
It was Humpy Koneru who brought down the tournament leader in a long game that had a brief tactical phase, and then a long technical one. With Morphy's rook lift still active in this author's brain, let's focus on a moment where Black could have followed in his footsteps:
Two world champions took over the lead. The reigning champ, Ju, did so with a topsy-turvy victory against Kateryna Lagno. In the opening, the Chinese GM got away with snatching a poisoned pawn and then made a good practical decision to give up an exchange for two pawns and an enduring attack on the white king. The final move was quite elegant:
Former world champion Kosteniuk won an excellent game against Mariya Muzychuk and now ties for first place with Ju. Valentina Gunina won with her typical, uncompromising style against Harika Dronavalli using the Closed Sicilian. (Find those games in the game viewer below.)
Wearing a Chess.com hoodie, Carissa Yip scored her first win in the tournament. (Her connection with our site is that she has recorded videos for ChessKid two years ago.) In a game that deserved to end in a draw as Irina Krush failed to capitalize on her opening advantage, the seven-time U.S. Women's Champion overpressed:
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Want to see Carissa present some of her best games? Check out her popular videos on ChessKid.com including her first win over a GM! |
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The sixth round will be played on Thursday, starting at 1 p.m. local time, which is 11 a.m. Pacific and 20:00 Central European Time. The tournament is a 10-player round-robin with a prize fund of $180,000.
Round 5 games
Previous reports:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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