GMs Vaishali Rameshbabu and Nana Dzagnidze each performed the identical line of the French Protection, and although their video games diverged on transfer seven they each missed enormous successful possibilities in spherical two of the 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Ladies’s Grand Prix. All 5 video games had been finally drawn, in order that IMs Bibisara Assaubayeva and Stavroula Tsolakidou proceed to guide, now on 1.5/2.
Spherical three will begin on Saturday, August 17, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 4:30 p.m. IST.
It wasn’t for the need of attempting, however all 5 video games ended peacefully in Tbilisi on Friday.
Spherical 2 Outcomes
Meaning the leaders are unchanged, whereas Vaishali and IM Sara Khadem are off the mark after their losses in spherical one.
Standings After Spherical 2
Three of the 5 attracts in spherical two had been comparatively quiet, and none extra so than IM Alina Kashlinskaya‘s conflict with GM Anna Muzychuk. 10 captures in a row ranging from transfer 19 noticed all rigidity go away the place.
Khadem’s try to bounce again from her loss in spherical one noticed her play a shaky-looking late 10.f3!? towards early chief Tsolakidou’s Nimzo-Indian, however the Spanish participant held on till a draw by repetition simply after the time management at transfer 40.
Tsolakidou, who talked about in an interview afterward that she was enjoying her first Grand Prix and had solely been a chess skilled for a 12 months, commented:
At this time I wasn’t that happy. I believe I had some possibilities in some unspecified time in the future and I additionally misplayed it a bit after the opening—at the very least that’s my impression.
For the second day in a row, IM Lela Javakhishvili performed the longest sport, and as soon as once more all of it got here right down to a rook endgame, this time towards Assaubayeva. Whereas Javakhishvili had been defending in spherical one, this time she was urgent for a win a pawn up, however she was unable to disprove the suspicion that each one rook endgames are drawn as the sport fizzled out in 52 strikes.
That leaves the 2 French Defenses, which had been an entire lot extra enjoyable. Each video games reached the identical place on transfer seven.
In typical French style, White has seized an enormous house within the middle and Black has a locked-in bishop on c8, however in each video games Black would get to strike again.
For Vaishali it got here with a superb knight sacrifice, exorcizing the ghost of her blunder with Nxe5 a day beforehand. This time 29…Nxe5! was a game-winning transfer.
Sadly for Vaishali, nevertheless, she did not understand how good her place grew to become after the sacrifice and, brief on time, she took a draw by repetition towards GM Alexandra Kosteniuk when she might have performed on with each likelihood of selecting up a win.
The opposite French Protection was altogether wilder, with former Ladies’s World Champion Mariya Muzychuk making a identified mistake when she castled lengthy. Dzagnidze’s punishment of the error was removed from text-book, however she nonetheless common a successful place and, as time ran out for each gamers, missed the chance to pounce on a hid however 100% sure win.
After 28.Ka1 the pc is screaming that it is a win for White if Dzagnidze takes the knight on e4, although it isn’t so simple as it appears at a look. 28…Bxe4! 29.Qxe4 Qd1+ isn’t checkmate, since 30.Qb1! defends, nevertheless it seems Black then does have a transfer to pressure mate-in-10!
That combating draw left each gamers on 50 %, with the whole lot nonetheless to play for within the remaining seven rounds.
The 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Ladies’s Grand Prix is the primary of six legs of the 2024-2025 FIDE Ladies’s Grand Prix. The ten-player round-robin runs August 15-24 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Gamers have 90 minutes per sport, plus half-hour from transfer 40, with a 30-second increment per transfer. The highest prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with gamers additionally incomes Grand Prix factors. Every of 20 gamers competes in three of the six occasions, with the highest two general qualifying for the 2026 FIDE Ladies’s Candidates Event that decides the World Championship challenger.
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