Lopota 06: Chasing the World Champion

The fifth stage of the the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix series 2013-2014 is taking place in Lopota, Georgia from the 19th of June until the 1st of July 2014. It is a twelve-player round robin with time controls of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, with 30 minutes plus an additional 30 seconds per move for the rest of the game. The total prize fund is 60,000, with the winner getting 10,000 Euro.

Round six

The walk to the hotel from the playing hall at night

Some stop by the dock to take in the day's events

Stefanova, Antoaneta ½-½ Danielian, Elina
A repetition in an almost equal position typical of a Semi-Slav. A rest day never hurt anyone.

Stefanova has two wins and two losses and despite two short draws on top of that
no one can complain about her not having any fighting spirit

Danielian's unique pen

Muminova, Nafisa 0-1 Kosteniuk, Alexandra
Muminova's intuition and bravery is spot on. She finds aggressive and powerful moves and can obtain winning positions against anyone. However when it is time to wrap things up by precisely bringing the point home she often fails to do so. Somehow instead of driving her crushing attack forward she ended up getting mated when she ran out of ideas in the kingside...

Alexandra was helped somewhat by her opponent

An inspirational shirt...

Khotenashvili, Bela 0-1 Muzychuk, Anna
An early mistake by the Georgian player blundered a pawn and a further mistake left her position in ruins after which it was simple for Muzychuk to clean up the game.

Muzychuk needed this victory to keep fighting for the top places

Koneru, Humpy 1-0 Harika, Dronavalli
Koneru came very well prepared to the game with an interesting novelty in move 15 of a sharp Grunfeld. Harika was simply unable to navigate the complications well enough and her double pawn sacrifice did not provide enough counterplay. The game reached a queen endgame that was surely lost for Black, but a series of mistakes by Koneru allowed Harika to eliminate a powerful passed pawn for free. White was still better but had to win the game all over again, which she did in the 96th move. The game should have taken half as long as that.

Dronavalli fell victim to great prep from Humpy

Zhao Xue 0-1 Dzagnidze, Nana
Zhao Xue certainly seems out of shape in this tournament. From an interesting position that was very complicated from a strategical point of view she kept making mistake after mistake until her position simply collapsed.

2778 performance and on Hou Yifan's heels: Nana Dzagnidze

Hou Yifan 1-0 Ju Wenjun
The most important game of the day, for sure:

Hou Yifan with a not-too-shabby 2920 performance

Standings after six rounds

Round six games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Photos and information by Alina l'Ami, from the official website

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All Games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.