Women GP exciting till the very end

With one more round to go in the final event of the FIDE Women Grand Prix series, anything can happen. Friday's results were excellent for Humpy Koneru: she won her game against Lilit Mkrtchian while tournament leader Elina Danielian lost to Pia Cramling. Nana Dzagnidze lost yet again, and so Koneru still has some chances to finish ahead of her in the overall standings.

Humpy Koneru still has a chance to finish ahead of Dzagnidze in the Grand Prix

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. More info here.

Round 10

The final FIDE Women Grand Prix tournament in Doha is up for a nerve-racking finish on Saturday. After five events and ten rounds into the sixth, it's still not clear yet who will qualify for a title match against Hou Yifan later this year.

In today's round, Koneru vs Mkrtchian was quite an interesting game with a nice, temporary pawn sac by the Indian. The Armenian lady responded well and gave back the pawn. But, getting closer to the first time control, she blundered a piece:



31... d4?! Black should play 31... Nxh2+ 32. Kg2 Bxf4 33. gxf4 Ng4 or even 33... Rxb4. 32. Bxd6 Nxh2+?! Also after 32... Rxd6 33. Qe4! Nxh2+ 34. Kg1! Nf3+ 35. Kg2 Ne5 36. Qxa8 Rxa8 37. a5 Black seems in trouble. 33. Ke2 Rxd6 34. Rh1



The knight can't move because of Qxh7 mate. 34... e5 34... Qg2 doesn't help: 35. Rcg1 Qh3 36. g4! 35. Rxh2 and White won.



Danielian chose the Cambridge-Springs against Cramling, and the two quickly entered a queenless middlegame. Cramling had the bishop pair, but Danielian's pawn structure was healthy. The Armenian, who lives in The Netherlands, even managed to isolate one of Cramling's pawns, but the Swedish grandmaster demonstrated that piece activity was more important. With subtle manoeuvres she forced her opponent to resign at move 59.



Nana Dzagnidze lost her fifth game already, against tail-ender Zhu Chen. In an ending Dzagnidze suddenly just dropped loads of pawns, perhaps distracted by the developments on the other boards. Sebag split the point with Chiburdanidze and is in shared second place with Koneru.



Humpy Koneru is half a point behind Elina Danielian and still has chances: she needs a win with Black against Zhu Chen in the final round, Danielian needs to draw or lose against Stefanova and Sebag shouldn't beat Munguntuul.

Games round 10

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 10 results

SNo.		Name	Rtg	Res.		Name	Rtg	SNo.
12	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	2550	0 - 1	GM	Zhu Chen	2495	11
1	GM	Koneru Humpy	2607	1 - 0	IM	Mkrtchian Lilit	2475	10
2	IM	Fierro Baquero Martha L	2363	0 - 1	GM	Xu Yuhua	2484	9
3	GM	Cramling Pia	2516	1 - 0	GM	Danielian Elina	2454	8
4	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2546	½ - ½	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	2410	7
5	GM	Sebag Marie	2489	½ - ½	GM	Chiburdanidze Maia	2502	6

Doha Women GP 2011 | Round 10 Standings

Round 11 pairings

SNo.		Name	Rtg	Res.		Name	Rtg	SNo.
6	GM	Chiburdanidze Maia	2502	-	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	2550	12
7	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	2410	-	GM	Sebag Marie	2489	5
8	GM	Danielian Elina	2454	-	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2546	4
9	GM	Xu Yuhua	2484	-	GM	Cramling Pia	2516	3
10	IM	Mkrtchian Lilit	2475	-	IM	Fierro Baquero Martha L	2363	2
11	GM	Zhu Chen	2495	-	GM	Koneru Humpy	2607	1

Current GP standings

Rank	Name	Istanbul	Nanjing	Nalchik	Jermuk	Ulaan baatar	Total	Worst result	GP points	Tourn. played
1	Hou Yifan	120		130	70	160	480	70	410	4
2	Dzagnidze		130	100	160		390	-	390	3
3	Kosintseva,T			160	130	93.3	383.3	-	383.3	3
4	Koneru	160		70		93.3	323.3	-	323.3	3
5	Zhao Xue	90	110	40		93.3	333.3	40	293.3	4
6	Stefanova	45			93.3	130	268.3	-	268.3	3
7	Xu Yuhua		160		30	60	250	-	250	3
8	Danielian	120		10	93.3		223.3	-	223.3	3
9	Cramling	65		100	55		220	-	220	3
10	Mkrtchian		80	40	93.3		213	-	213	3
11	Sebag	80	80			30	190	-	190	3
12	Shen Yang	25	60		55	45	185	25	160	4
13	Chiburdanidze	45			40	70	155	-	155	3
14	Zhu Chen		30	70		45	145	-	145	3
15	Monguntuul		50	70		20	140	-	140	3
16	Kovanova		40	40	20		100	-	100	3
17	Fierro	65	20		10		95	-	95	3
18	Ju Wenjun		80				80	-	80	1
19	Yildiz	10	10	20		10	50	10	40	4
20	Mamedjarova	25					25	-	25	1

Photos © Maria Bolshakova & Anastasiya Karlovich, more here

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