Cairns Cup, Round 8: Carissa Yip wins fourth game in a row

by Johannes Fischer
6/19/2025 – With her fourth consecutive victory, Carissa Yip has taken the lead at the Cairns Cup in Saint Louis. She won convincingly with Black against Bibisara Assaubayeva in round 8 and, with one round to go, is now half a point ahead of Alice Lee, who had to settle for a draw against Harika Dronavalli. And one of the two - Alice Lee or Carissa Yip - will win the tournament, as they face each other in the ninth and final round! | Photo: Lennart Ootes/Saint Louis Chess Club

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The chances of winning the prestigious Cairns Cup, one of the strongest women's tournaments of the year, do not seem to faze Carissa Yip, who, after three consecutive victories, also won confidently against Bibisara Assaubayeva in round 8 with Black. After the opening, Assaubayeva failed to find a plan and was outplayed step by step.

Alice Lee, Carissa Yip’s main rival, had White against Harika Dronavalli, but in a line of the Queen’s Gambit, she still emerged slightly worse from the opening and was lucky to escape with a draw.

Tan Zhongyi and Mariya Muzychuk also drew their game. After a mishandled opening by Tan, Muzychuk had promising attacking chances, but she chose not to press her luck and instead went for a perpetual.

Humpy Koneru, who had been tied for the lead with Yip and Lee before the round, had White against Nino Batsiashvili. Wanting to win at all costs, she played aggressively, but Batsiashvili calmly repelled Koneru’s overly direct attack and then successfully exploited the weaknesses in White’s position to win the game.

Alina Kashlinskaya, by contrast, was unable to make use of her chances against Nana Dzagnidze. The Najdorf Variation with 6.f4 gave Kashlinskaya a clear advantage in the middlegame, but she couldn’t find a way to increase it. As a result, Dzagnidze gradually gained the upper hand and eventually won the game.

The tournament will be decided in the ninth and final round in the direct encounter between Carissa Yip and Alice Lee. Yip leads Lee by half a point, has White, and needs only a draw to win the Cairns Cup 2025.

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Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".
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