Tashkent Final: Humpy clinches, leads GP series

The Tashkent Women's Grand Prix was held in Uzbekistan from September 17th - October 1st. The tournament was part of the Women's World Championship cycle that will determine the next challenger for the world title. The twelve player round robin featured the standard FIDE time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, with 30 minutes being added at that point and an additional 30 seconds per move through the entire game.

Round 11

Everything's set for the final round

Kosteniuk didn't have to work too hard today for her win

Muminova, Nafisa 0-1 Kosteniuk, Alexandra
The disgrace of the tournament, of course. Muminova did not make it out of the opening as her cell phone rang and she was immediately forfeited.

An amateur mistake is hard to justify in the Grand Prix series

Ju Wenjun ½-½ Danielian, Elina
White's symmetrical play did not bring her any advantage to speak of and both players agreed to a draw in a very even endgame.

Ju Wenjun could have had a better opening today to try to overpower her opponent

Zhao Xue 1-0 Dronavalli, Harika
A crushing defeat for Harika! Because of this game she was knocked out of the top three spots of the tournament, despite being in this position since the very beginning. Harika's mistake came with 18...f5? It was better to sacrifice the pawn on h6 than to weaken herself as much as she did. White soon crashed through and heavy material losses became unavoidable.

A fateful game! Harika was soundly outplayed by Zhao Xue who rebounded from her streak of losses by going on a winning streak

Khotenashvili, Bela 1-0 Stefanova, Antoaneta
Khotenashvili had already obtained a pleasant edge when Stefanova made a big mistake. Strategically speaking the move 17...Na6?! cannot be recommended as White gets an unbreakable hold on the light squares and on top of that the b5 pawn becomes unbelievably weak. White quickly won two pawns because of this, and that was the end of the game.

Nakhbayeva had a very sour tournament, despite obtaining many comfortable positions

Nakhbayeva, Gulishkan 0-1 Lagno, Kateryna
After an equal opening, the game came to a very complicated tactical situation. Obviously both sides were quite tired by now and they consistently missed winning or saving resources, until a drawn endgame was reached. However, Nakhbayeva made a very obvious blunder and had to resign as she could not defend against mate in one...

With the combination of results Lagno got third on tiebreak, as Harika was out of the picture

Girya was better, but ended up barely surviving

Girya, Olga ½-½ Koneru, Humpy
White held a fair advantage as her pieces were significantly more active in the endgame. However, she underestimated the power of Black's a-pawn and found herself against the ropes as Black won a pawn. Girya was resilient and held the endgame despite Black's best attempts.

Pictures by Maria Emelianova

Final Standings

Replay final round games

Closing Ceremony

The official closing ceremony of the 3rd stage of the Women Grand Prix Series 2013-14 was held in the Gallery of Fine Arts of Tashkent on 30th of September. The ceremony was attended by many honoured guests such as the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the Chairperson of Fund Forum's Board of Trustees Gulnara Karimova, the Minister of Culture and Sports of Uzbekistan Minhozhiddin Hozhimatov, the First Deputy Minister of Sports of Uzbekistan Zhasur Akramov, the Head of the Administration of Sports Rashid Talipov,  the Director of Tashkent branch of REU after G.V. Plekhanov acad. K.Kh. Abdurakhmanov, the Head of the Administration of Olympic reserve Kamil Bayazitov, the Head of The State Committee for Communication, Informatization and Telecommunication Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan Hurshid Mirzahidov and many others. 

The players had a chance to rest, enjoy some food and talk to some top FIDE officials before the closing ceremony

Many young fans came in for the autographs of the Grand Prix participants

Even Kirsan gave some autographs!

A traditiontal dance to open the tournament and to close it

A slight twist: the popular modern group Sahro also made an appearance

The Chairperson of Fund Forum's Board of Trustees Gulnara Karimova gave a speech. Most importantly she announced the continuing partnership with FIDE and the guarantee that one of the Men's Grand Prix stages next cycle will be held in Tashkent!

Kateryna Lagno: 3rd place

Bela Khotenashvili: 2nd place. It's easier to give player's medals when you are naturally tall and are wearing six inch heels...

The winner of the tournament, Koneru Humpy, who only showed one game of weakness and convincingly overpowered the event

All of the girls with their respective prizes

Afterwards the players were invited to a closing dinner

Stefanova with one of the hardest working individual in this event: Evegenij Miroshnichenko, the commentator

The closing dinner was graced by a professional performance as well... by Kosteniuk and Lagno...

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Current Grand Prix Standings

Schedule

The games start at 11:00h European time, 13:00h Moscow, 5 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be 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