Ankara GP R01: Fighting chess, four decisive games

From 15th to 29th September 2012 the sixth Women's Grand Prix is taking place in Ankara, the capital of Turkey and the country’s second largest city after Istanbul. It is the last of the 2011–2012 series of elite events organised by FIDE and Global Chess. The winner of each tournament takes home 6,500 Euros, the total prize fund is 40,000 Euros. The overall winner will get a further 15,000 Euros at the end of the series, and qualifies to challenge the Women's World Champion in 2013. Starting time of the games is 15:00h (check your local time here). The final round starts five hours earlier – at 10:00 a.m. local time. A full shedule with all pairings is given at the bottom of the page.

Round one

The first round of the Ankara Grand Prix tournament under way in the building of TCF

The opening round produced tense struggles on all the boards: Chinese players Ruan Lufei and Zhao Xue won their games against Kubra Ozturk and Antoaneta Stefanova respectively. Viktorija Cmilyte and Humpy Koneru overplayed Monika Socko and Betul Yildiz with the black pieces.

TCF President and FIDE Vice-President Ali Nihat Yazici makes the symbolic first
move 1.e4 in the game between Betul Yildiz vs Humpy Koneru

Humpy Koneru after the game: "We played this position before but I changed the line a little bit and played Rfc8 instead of Rfd8. There was quite normal position for this line. My opponent should have played 19.Qf2 instead of 19.Qe1 with the idea to continue h3 and f4. After 20.c5 my position was slightly better and after 23…Rc1 24.Bc1 the position of my opponent became clearly worse as all white pieces are misplaced. The rest was the matter of technique." Betul Yildiz: "It’s strange but all my attention was concentrated on the queen side, so I didn’t even check the plan with h3 and f4."

Betül and Humpy anayse together after the game

Ju Wenjun (right) made a draw with the top-seed of the tournament Anna Muzychuk

The longest game of the first round between Munguntuul Batkhuyag and Tatiana Kosintseva finished in a draw. In the press conference with Anastasiya Karlovich (left): Munguntuul Batkhuyag (middle): “The game was very complicated, I had a good position with an extra pawn. But I didn’t really see how I could improve my position. I didn’t see direct win at any moment." Tatiana Kosintseva (right): “After the opening we got into a complicated Spanish position. In one moment I started to play not very well. I made few inaccurate moves and White took the initiative. In the endgame with opposite color bishop I sacrificed a pawn. I think it was necessary otherwise the rooks of my opponent could have come to the eighth rank. Later on I was just trying to escape.”

Zhao Xue - Antoaneta Stefanova 1-0

Antoaneta Stefanova (right): "I think 13…exd5 was a bad move. I don’t know if immediate 14.e5 was better than Bf6." Zhao Xue (middle): "I agree that after 13…exd5 White got some advantage and an attack. Unfortunately I missed some good moves. I believe that 23.Qb7 is a very bad move. After 23.Nf6 Rxf7 I was checking only 24.Ne8 Qg2 (winning for Black) and overlooked the possibility to play 24.exf7 with Bg4 later on…"

Full round one report on the official tournament page

German IM (and former Junior World Champion) Elisabeth Pähtz is doing live
commentary from 14:00h to 17:30h in English on Playchess (free for all visitors).

Pictures by Anastasiya Karlovich and Özgür Akman, courtesy FIDE

Schedule and results of the Sixth Grand Prix in Ankara

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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.