Kashlinskaya Catches Leader Before Final Round In Tbilisi
IM Alina Kashlinskaya goes into the final round of the 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix level with IM Bibisara Assaubayeva in the lead after a long but convincing win over IM Lela Javakhishvili. Three players are just half a point behind after a fighting round that also saw wins for GM Anna Muzychuk over IM Sara Khadem and for GM Vaishali Rameshbabu over GM Nana Dzagnidze.
Round nine will start two hours earlier on Saturday, August 24, at 5 a.m. ET / 11:00 CEST / 2:30 p.m. IST.
Round eight was arguably the most fighting yet and could easily have produced five decisive games. In the end we got three.
Round 8 Results
Kashlinskaya caught Assaubayeva in the lead, but IM Stavroula Tsolakidou and GMs Anna and Mariya Muzychuk can all still take first place.
Standings After Round 8
Assaubayeva could have taken a huge step toward both Grand Prix victory and her third and final GM norm with a win over Tsolakidou, but it was a game that soon got out of hand.
Tsolakidou took over with the black pieces from the opening but then ran into trouble on the board, and especially on the clock, as she made her 33rd move with 12 seconds to spare. The Greek star held on until the time control, however, and on move 41 Assaubayeva saw some ghosts and gave up a piece. After that the game more or less logically ended in a draw.
That left a chance for others to catch Assaubayeva, and it was Kashlinskaya who accepted the challenge.
"I have some ideas in the opening from the previous life," said Kashlinskaya, referring to giving birth to her child, after getting a position in the Nimzo-Indian that was all but overwhelming by move 17. There were still some twists ahead, however, and it was only after 29.e6 that the decisive mistake came. After capturing with the knight, Black would have good chances of holding, while after taking with the pawn it was "a matter of technique" to win a position an exchange up, as Kashlinskaya ultimately did on move 71.
Kashlinskaya was asked if her thoughts are now on the final round? "Now I’m thinking that I have one hour to have dinner, to rest a bit, and to put my baby asleep!"
Anna Muzychuk is just half a point behind the leaders after following seven draws in a row by her first win, against Khadem. It was a game that escalated fast, since Black had a difficult position, but it suddenly became lost in the space of a few moves. 38.h5!, shutting off any escape for the knight on f8, was the final move.
Just six moves earlier, 32...Qa5? had given Black problems that were too tough to solve.
Anna is now level on points with her sister Mariya, who could have caught the leaders but couldn't punish a dubious line of the Scotch played by GM Alexandra Kosteniuk. She commented: "Quite a disappointing result for me because I was much better after the opening and I feel I was winning at some moment... but I’m not sure when!
"I just know that I am White, and it’s quite pleasant to play White!" she said about her final-round clash with co-leader Kashlinskaya.
The other leader, Assaubayeva, also has Black and takes on Vaishali, who will go into the last round with the boost of winning a wild clash against Dzagnidze in the penultimate round.
Vaishali invited a fight by going for the King's Indian Defense, and Dzagnidze was happy to accept. She then went for a curious plan of castling queenside and seemed to be doing well before going astray. By the time she played 28.Kd1!?, it was clear things had gone wrong for White. In mutual time trouble, Vaishali broke through and won.
Vaishali can still have a big say in who wins the Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix, with the last-round pairings as follows.
The action begins two hours earlier than usual.
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 the 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:
- Round 7: Assaubayeva Beats Kosteniuk, Grabs Sole Lead
- Round 6: Kashlinskaya Beats Vaishali, Joins Leaders In Tbilisi
- Round 5: Sara Khadem, Nana Dzagnidze, Mariya Muzychuk All Score 1st Wins
- Round 4: Kosteniuk Joins Grand Prix Leaders
- Round 3: Vaishali Breaks The Deadlock In Tbilisi
- Round 2: Vaishali, Dzagnidze Miss Wins In Tbilisi
- Round 1: Assaubayeva, Tsolakidou Win As Muzychuk Sisters Improve On Nakamura-Vidit
- FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2024-2025: All The Info
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.
