Kosintseva wins 3rd Women Grand Prix
Tatiana Kosintseva kept her 1.5 point lead in the last three rounds of the Women Grand Prix tournament in Nalchik. The Russian grandmaster won the tournament with a superb 9 out of 11 (2735 perfomance). Second came 16-year-old Hou Yifan from China.The third FIDE Women Grand Prix tournament took place April 25 - May 8 in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. The participants were GM Humpy Koneru (2622, IND), GM Hou Yifan (2570, CHN), GM Tatiana Kosintseva (2524, RUS), GM Pia Cramling (2523, SWE), IM Lilit Mkrtchan (2503, ARM), IM Elina Danielian (2491, ARM), GM Zhao Xue (2490, CHN), GM Nana Dzagnidze (2479, GEO), GM Zhu Chen (2476, QAT), WGM Munguntuul Batkhuyag, (2428, MGL), WGM Baira Kovanova (2385, RUS) and WIM Betul Cemre Yildiz (2244, TUR).In our previous report we saw that the youngest of the Kosintseva sisters, Tatiana, was doing very well. By then she had beaten Dzagnidze, Hou Yifan, Munguntuul, Kovanova and Danielian and drawn with Zhao Xue, Koneru and Yildiz. In the last three rounds Kosintseva managed to stay unbeaten. After a draw with former World Champion Zhu Chen the Russian grandmaster beat Pia Cramling in a crucial game, since the Swedish number one was trailing by point. This meant Kosintseva had already won the tournament with a round to go, reaching 8/10 while Hou Yifan and Dzagnidze collected 6.5 points. This didn't stop her from beating Mkrtchian in the last round with the black pieces. It appears that the Sofia rule isn't even an issue at women's tournaments, or is it?And so Kosintseva won this third Women GP convincingly, though perhaps it was not as easy as it looked. At the final press conference she said: "As for the toughest [game], I think it’s yesterday’s game against Cramling: first of all, it was very long, and, secondly, it was extremely important. I wanted to make proper use of white pieces and interrupt my draw series. I was particularly focused on it. It wasn’t the only tough game, though. The game against Yildiz in the 9th round was pretty difficult as well, and I was on the verge of defeat in it."Below you'll find another small selection of games. The last three GPs will be held in Jermuk, Armenia (23 June-6 July 2010), Ulanbaatar, Mongolia (29 July-12 August 2010) and Santiago, Chile (27 October-9 November 2010). Today the last of six men's Grand Prixs started in Astrakhan, Russia.
Selection of games rounds 9-11
Game viewer by ChessTempo
A happy Kosintseva at the press conference...
...wearing a traditional Kabardian dress at the closing ceremony
Hou Yifan, who turned 16 in February, finished on clear second place. After the last round she said: 'It’s impossible always to be number one. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I just try to play well instead of worrying too much about the overall result.'
Photos © Ilya Akhobekov & Eldar Mukhametov, more here
Update: GP standings after three events, thanks to ebutaljib
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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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