Danielian still dominating in Doha

Elina Danielian is still leading strongly in Doha, Qatar. At the final tournament in the FIDE Women Grand Prix Series, the Armenian GM scored 6.5/7 and is still 1.5 points ahead of the rest of the pack.

General info

The 6th and final tournament of the 2009-2011 FIDE Women Grand Prix Series takes place February 22nd-March 5th in Doha, Qatar. It's a 12-player round-robin. Games start at 15:00 local time (13:00 CET), round 11 three hours earlier. For more info, and current GP standings, see our previous report.

Rounds 5-7

Danielian continued her winning streak in round 5 with a win against Xu Yuhua. In a Ragozin she kept a tiny edge from the start and then profited from the many weaknesses in the Chinese's position. In this round Humpy Konery and Marie Sebag drew a Breyer Ruy Lopez. Nana Dzagnidze, who is currently second in the overall GP standings, lost to Pia Cramling. The Swedish GM nicely killed all counterplay on the kingside:



36. h4! gxf4 37. gxf4 Qxh4 38. Rxg7+ Kxg7 39. Kg2! and Black has no checks whatsoever. After 39... Bc4 40. Rh1 Dzagnidze resigned.



The next day the ladies enjoyed their first (and only) rest day. The program included a visit to the exposition of the Pearl-Qatar, the man-made island encompassing 985 acres (400 hectares) of reclaimed land just off the shore of the Arabian Peninsula in the state of Qatar.



You can find out more about the rest day activities here, and browse the photo gallery here.

In round 6 Danielian dropped her first half point, with Black against Lilit Mkrtchian. Humpy Koneru, who basically needs to win in Doha to finish first in the overall Grand Prix, kept the pace with wins against former World Champion Maia Chiburdanidze and Batkhuyag Munguntuul. Here's how Chiburdanidze miscalculated:



19... e5?! 20. d5 e4 21. Qxe4 Rbe8



22. dxc6! and now 22... Rxe4 fails to 23. cxd7 followed by 24. Bxe4 so Black had to try 22... Bxc6 23. Qg4 Bb5 24. Nf4 Bxd3 25. Nxd3 Qe3+ 26. Nf2 but was lost anyway.

Then, in the 7th round, Danielian won again, which was good news for Dzagnidze. As long as Koneru doesn't win this event, Dzagnidze will most probably qualify for a World Championship match with Hou Yifan by virtue of finishing second in the Grand Prix, behind Hou Yifan. And so today all eyes are on the game Koneru-Danielian...



Danielian-Zhu Chen Doha 2011 White gives mate in two.

Dzagnidze won her round 7 game in just 18 moves, with Black against former World Champ Antoaneta Stefanova.



White had set her hopes on 17. Nd5? (17. Qg4 should be played) and was rudely awakened by 17... Rxd5!! 18. Bxd4 Rxg5 0-1

Games rounds 5-7

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Doha Women GP 2011 | Round 7 Standings

Photos © Maria Bolshakova & Anastasiya Karlovich, more here

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC