Vaishali, Dzagnidze Miss Wins In Tbilisi
GMs Vaishali Rameshbabu and Nana Dzagnidze both played the same line of the French Defense, and though their games diverged on move seven they both missed huge winning chances in round two of the 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix. All five games were ultimately drawn, so that IMs Bibisara Assaubayeva and Stavroula Tsolakidou continue to lead, now on 1.5/2.
Round three will start on Saturday, August 17, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 4:30 p.m. IST.
It wasn't for the want of trying, but all five games ended peacefully in Tbilisi on Friday.
Round 2 Results
That means the leaders are unchanged, while Vaishali and IM Sara Khadem are off the mark after their losses in round one.
Standings After Round 2
Three of the five draws in round two were relatively quiet, and none more so than IM Alina Kashlinskaya's clash with GM Anna Muzychuk. 10 captures in a row starting from move 19 saw all tension leave the position.
Khadem's attempt to bounce back from her loss in round one saw her play a shaky-looking late 10.f3!? against early leader Tsolakidou's Nimzo-Indian, but the Spanish player held on until a draw by repetition just after the time control at move 40.
Tsolakidou, who mentioned in an interview afterward that she was playing her first Grand Prix and had only been a chess professional for a year, commented:
Today I wasn’t that satisfied. I think I had some chances at some point and I also misplayed it a bit after the opening—at least that’s my impression.
For the second day in a row, IM Lela Javakhishvili played the longest game, and once again it all came down to a rook endgame, this time against Assaubayeva. While Javakhishvili had been defending in round one, this time she was pressing for a win a pawn up, but she was unable to disprove the suspicion that all rook endgames are drawn as the game fizzled out in 52 moves.
That leaves the two French Defenses, which were a whole lot more fun. Both games reached the same position on move seven.
In typical French fashion, White has seized a huge space in the center and Black has a locked-in bishop on c8, but in both games Black would get to strike back.
For Vaishali it came with a brilliant knight sacrifice, exorcizing the ghost of her blunder with Nxe5 a day previously. This time 29...Nxe5! was a game-winning move.
Sadly for Vaishali, however, she didn't realize how good her position became after the sacrifice and, short on time, she took a draw by repetition against GM Alexandra Kosteniuk when she could have played on with every chance of picking up a win.
The other French Defense was altogether wilder, with former Women's World Champion Mariya Muzychuk making a known mistake when she castled long. Dzagnidze's punishment of the mistake was far from text-book, but she still fashioned a winning position and, as time ran out for both players, missed the opportunity to pounce on a concealed but 100 percent certain win.
After 28.Ka1 the computer is screaming that it's a win for White if Dzagnidze takes the knight on e4, though it's not as simple as it seems at a glance. 28...Bxe4! 29.Qxe4 Qd1+ is not checkmate, since 30.Qb1! defends, but it turns out Black then does have a move to force mate-in-10!
That fighting draw left both players on 50 percent, with everything still to play for in the remaining seven rounds.
How to watch?
You can watch the broadcast on FIDE's YouTube channel. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and GM Valeriane Gaprindashvili.
The 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix is the first of six legs of the 2024-2025 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The 10-player round-robin runs August 15-24 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Players have 90 minutes per game, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move. The top prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with players also earning Grand Prix points. Each of 20 players competes in three of the six events, with the top two overall qualifying for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament that decides the World Championship challenger.
Previous Coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
