Ju Wenjun, Lagno Advance To Semifinal Clash Of World Champions

Reigning World Champion Ju Wenjun and three-time Women's World Blitz Champion Kateryna Lagno will face each other in the Semifinals of the 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship. Ju defeated IM Alice Lee 9.5-5.5, while Lagno eliminated GM Valentina Gunina with a 9-6 score.

The Semifinals begin on Wednesday, September 4, with GM Vaishali Rameshbabu vs. IM Polina Shuvalova. The first match starts at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST, followed by Ju vs. Lagno at 12 p.m. ET / 18:00 CEST / 9:30 p.m. IST.

Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship Bracket 

• Ju Wenjun 9.5-5.5 Alice Lee
• Valentina Gunina 6-9 Kateryna Lagno

Ju Wenjun 3.5-1.5 Alice Lee

Surprisingly, SmarterChess preferred Lee's chances of winning the match with 55 to 45 percent odds. While it conceded that Ju would win the 5+1 portion by a point, it anticipated a two-point victory by Lee in the bullet portion. Bok pointed out, however, that the predictions are based on Chess.com ratings, which may be a bit misleading as Ju is less active online than Lee.

In the end, Ju defied the prediction, outclassing her younger opponent in the first two portions and finishing with an even score in the bullet, though the match was already clinched by the halfway point of it.

5+1: Ju 3.5-1.5 Lee

Ju won nearly all three of her games with the white pieces while making draws with the black pieces. Lee attempted three different defenses—first the Caro-Kann, then the Italian, and finally the Sicilian—but the four-time women's world champion managed to get an advantage against each of them. Only in the last game did Lee stop the bleeding.

The very first game was an instructive positional victory by the Chinese grandmaster, who deftly exploited the weak d6-square 

After another victory with a crushing attack in the Italian, Ju again achieved a winning advantage in her last white game. There, however, Lee escaped with cunning tactics—and, in the wild endgame, either player could have won. They drew in a position where Lee had two queens against Ju's rook and queen.

A wild draw with 2 queens vs. queen vs rook ends the 5+1 portion!https://t.co/G3jP6wtAlb#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/VZkkwpe7HU

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 3, 2024

3+1: Ju 3.5-1.5 Lee

After a draw in game one, every other game was decisive in this segment. While Lee scored her first victory, Ju won three more times to take a four-point lead heading into the bullet. By this point, Ju moved on from playing 1.e4 and, instead, branched out to throwing in 1.d4.

Just as she used the d6-square in the previous portion, Ju again took hold of the dark squares to score her first full point in the second part of the match.

Lee won her only game in the first two portions after, attentively, finding a game-ending fork.

While Lee would put up her best performance in the next portion, she wouldn't come close to evening the score.

1+1: Ju 2.5-2.5 Lee

After one draw, the black side won all four of the remaining games in the portion. Each of the players traded two wins, which left Ju up by four points.

After Lee's 36.Bh6??, Ju won her first game of the portion with a forced checkmate in three moves. It took her three seconds to play the first move, and she played the next two instantly, gaining time on the clock. Can you find it?

Already having clinched the match, Ju must have lost her concentration as she allowed 21...Nxd4 in the last game. Lee found a cute checkmate, starting by placing her knight in the corner, even if it didn't change the final result. 

After the match, Ju commended her opponent, "I think Alice played very fighting and it's not as simple as the score shows." She later added that Lee's style surprised her: "To be honest, I didn't expect so many complicated things from her because, in general, I feel she is quite a positional player, but okay, in speed chess anything can happen."

I think Alice played very fighting and it's not as simple as the score shows.

—Ju Wenjun

Ju earned $6,583.33, and Lee received $916.67 by win percentage.

Valentina Gunina 6-9 Kateryna Lagno

SmarterChess predicted a one-point victory for Gunina, assessing her advantage to lie in the bullet segment. It predicted that Lagno would win the 5+1 portion 2.5-1.5, that the 3+1 would end in a 2.5-2.5 even score, and finally, Gunina would break away in the bullet with 3.5-1.5. 

In actuality, SmarterChess wasn't too far off in the first two portions but truly misjudged Lagno's dominance in the bullet.

5+1: Gunina 3-2 Lagno

Though she lost the first game, Gunina went on to finish the segment in the lead by one point, and it could have been even more if not for a few missed chances.

Lagno won the first game on time, though a few moves before that, Gunina had a chance to win a pawn with a free attack, something both players missed with under five seconds on the clock.

Gunina misses the crushing 48...Qxf2 and, several moves later, loses on time! Lagno takes game one.https://t.co/p74XPfIMU8#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/nn7XG0gRAa

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 3, 2024

Gunina won the next two games. First, Lagno either blundered or sacrificed an exchange to a one-move fork, and then Gunina found a more sophisticated tactic to win another exchange:

Gunina could have won the last game, which ended in a draw, but Lagno showed resilient defense to save a losing position, one where she should have lost a piece for no compensation.

3+1: Gunina 2-3 Lagno

The second portion ended with an even 5-5 score, as Lagno won it by a point.

Indeed, the second segment started just like the first: Lagno won the first game on time. However, this time, she had the black pieces and really was winning on the board after Gunina sacrificed a pawn for insufficient compensation.

Lagno won the next two games as well to take a two-point lead. First, she won on time in an objectively equal position, and then she went on to sacrifice her queen and capture virtually all her opponent's pieces.

Gunina won the last two games to even the score just before the bullet portion. First, Lagno blundered a central pawn, and then she was unable to defend her exposed king, even if the position was objectively equal according to the engine.

The match was even, with just the bullet portion to go.

1+1: Gunina 1-4 Lagno

In what was an otherwise close match, Lagno simply took off in the bullet portion. She later shared that her goal was just not to blunder: "I checked my games during the break, just to see where I made a mistake in the openings, and that's all what I have done. And try, you know, not to lose pieces in one move, that was the main goal for the bullet."

...not to lose pieces in one move, that was the main goal for the bullet.

—Kateryna Lagno

Lagno won the first game with a crushing attack.

Though she dropped a game by blundering her queen (she was losing anyway), she went on to win the rest of them. She clinched the match in the penultimate game when Gunina reached a drawn position but lost on time. 

Just as Gunina reaches a drawn opposite-color bishop endgame, she loses on time! This means Lagno virtually wins the match, unless she manages to lose two games in one minute!https://t.co/dHpifgo26v#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/o411zmL82L

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 3, 2024

Lagno takes home $6,500 as the match winner, while Gunina earns $1,000 by win percentage.

The semifinalist shared that, as preparation for her match with Ju, she will take a look at some openings, play some practice blitz games, and hopefully get a good night's rest—the usual. The winner of that match, of course, will move on to the Final.

The Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship is a Chess.com event where some of the strongest female chess players in the world battle for a $75,000 prize fund. The main event sees 16 players compete in a single-elimination bracket in matches played at 5+1, 3+1, and 1+1 time controls. Four places go to the winners of four Play-ins held on August 12-16 and open to all female titled players. In each Play-in the top four players in a Swiss qualify to compete in a knockout. 

Previous coverage:

• Quarterfinals: Shuvalova, Vaishali Get Even vs. Hou, Kosteniuk
• RO16: Kosteniuk Beats Narva In Armageddon, Joins Gunina In Quarterfinals
• RO16: Alice Lee, Vaishali Win Thrillers To Reach Quarterfinals
• RO16: Hou Yifan Storms Into Quarterfinals With 6-Game Winning Streak
• RO16: Shuvalova, Lagno Prevail In Nail-Biting Encounters
• RO16: Ju Wenjun Wins With 10-Point Margin, Nearly Goes Undefeated
• Play-Ins: Bodnaruk Wins Play-In 4 Despite Great Fightbacks By Ismayil
• Play-Ins: Eline Roebers Wins Play-In 3 Despite Competing From Train
• Play-Ins: IM Mai Narva Wins WSCC Play-In 2 Convincingly
• Play-Ins: WIM Alua Nurman Keeps Her Cool To Win First WSCC Play-In
• Announcing The 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship