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Women GP exciting till the very end

PeterDoggers
| 0 | Chess Event Coverage
Danielian leads by a point in Doha, two rounds to goWith 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:

Diagram 1

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

Diagram 2

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.

Koneru

Humpy Koneru: still not defeated yet



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.

Cramling-Danielian

A handshake at the start of the game Cramling-Danielian



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.

Dzagnidze-Zhu Chen

Zhu Chen looking into the camera; Nana Dzagnidze with more than just the game on her mind



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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PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

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.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


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