Dortmund: Lu Miaoyi wins International Women‘s Tournament

by ChessBase
8/8/2025 – 15-year-old Lu Miaoyi claimed her fourth consecutive win in round four of the International Women's Tournament, securing overall victory with two rounds to spare. In the Open, German GM Luis Engel defeated Rinat Jumabayev and now shares the lead with GM Matthias Blübaum, who won against Ashot Parvanyan. | Photos: Michelle Lassak
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Press release (Text: Patrick Zelbel)

Outstanding Lu Miaoyi wins International Women's Tournament

Lu Miaoyi continues her impressive winning streak in the fourth round of the Sparkassen Chess Trophy women's tournament. The 15-year-old Chinese player also won her fourth game, this time with an uncompromising attack against Deimantė Daulytė-Cornette.

This means that Lu Miaoyi is already the winner of the 2025 International Women's Tournament! She is two points ahead of Elisabeth Pähtz with two rounds remaining. But even if Pähtz manages to draw level, Lu Miaoyi will still be the winner, as she finished ahead of Pähtz in the blitz tiebreak.

Lu Miaoyi

Although Daulyté-Cornette had an extra pawn at one point, Lu consistently played towards her opponent's king. He was under constant pressure – and ultimately couldn't withstand it. The preliminary decision of the tournament! The attacking player shows why, at the age of 15, she is already considered one of the world's best and why experts are tipping her as a future World Cup contender.

The first game on stage at the Alte Schmiede cultural centre, however, was the German duel. After six tournament games last year, two blitz games in the tiebreaker at the Football Museum and the tournament game in the first half of the season on Sunday (won by Pähtz after 129 moves), Elisabeth Pähtz faced Dinara Wagner once again. Pähtz had a slight advantage with an extra pawn, but with bishops of opposite colours, Wagner seemed to have no problem holding the draw. Pähtz later praised her opponent's defence 22...Nd5.

Results of round 4

1 4
IM Lu, Miaoyi 2439 3 1 - 0 ½ IM Daulyte-Cornette, Deimante 2402
1
2 3
GM Pähtz, Elisabeth 2424 1½ ½ - ½ 1 IM Wagner, Dinara 2404
2

Table

Rk. Name Pts.
1 Lu, Miaoyi 4
2 Pähtz, Elisabeth 2
3 Wagner, Dinara 1,5
4 Daulyte-Cornette, Deimante 0,5

Games

A-Open

In the A Open of the International Dortmund Chess Days, however, no decision is in sight yet. But the top German players Matthias Blübaum and Luis Engel have taken the lead with victories.

‘It was a lucky day today, but a little luck is part of winning big tournaments in the end,’ said Matthias Blübaum after the game when asked. His opponent, IM Ashot Parvanyan, played an uncompromising attack on the king with black in the King's Indian Defence. But he ran out of time, and with only 30 seconds per move left, Parvanyan lost track of the game. Blübaum quickly punished this and won on the top board.

On the second board, GM Rinat Jumabayev lost control of the game early on. He creatively tried to get into the game with two minor pieces against a queen, but Luis Engel kept his overview and now leads the field alongside Matthias Blübaum.

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In the first part of the video series, we will look at White’s four main moves: 6. Bg5, 6. Be3, 6. Be2 and 6. Bc4.

Luis Engel

The fifth player from the leading group, IM Nitish Belurkar, could not get beyond a draw against GM Tong Xiao. Nevertheless, it was a strong performance and the Indian is well on his way to a grandmaster norm. 

Round 6 - results

Bo. No. White Elo Pts. Result Pts. Black Elo No.
1 1
GM Blübaum, Matthias 2660 4½ 1 - 0 4½ IM Parvanyan, Ashot 2403
27
2 5
GM Engel, Luis 2562 4½ 1 - 0 4½ GM Jumabayev, Rinat 2556
6
3 19
IM Belurkar, Nitish 2486 4½ ½ - ½ 4 GM Xiao, Tong 2539
8
4 16
IM Zwirs, Nico 2502 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Kollars, Dmitrij 2644
2
5 3
GM Wagner, Dennis 2621 4 0 - 1 4 IM Dau, Khuong Duy 2462
22
6 4
GM Ganguly, Surya Shekbar 2566 4 1 - 0 4 IM Chen, Qi b 2468
21
7 24
GM Vaganian, Rafael A 2449 4 0 - 1 4 GM Gavrilescu, David 2531
9
8 25
IM Glöckler, Christian 2449 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Liu, Yan 2531
10
9 28
Wang, Tongsen 2400 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Malek, Jan 2526
11
10 31
IM Ahmadinia, Ebrahim 2388 4 ½ - ½ 4 GM Cornette, Matthieu 2524
12
11 13
GM Klimkowski, Jan 2517 3½ 1 - 0 4 IM Jin, Yueheng 2374
35
12 15
IM Deuer, Marius 2507 3½ 1 - 0 3½ WGM Abrahamyan, Tatev 2342
41
13 17
IM Materia, Marco 2500 3½ ½ - ½ 3½ FM Sydykov, Bayastan 2322
48
14 47
FM Borne, Felix 2328 3½ ½ - ½ 3½ IM Peyrer, Konstantin 2500
18
15 49
IM Soumya, Swaminathan 2320 3½ 0 - 1 3½ IM Vijaya Sivakumar, Rathanvel 2486
20

Tournament atmosphere

A Borussia Dortmund fan

Standings after round 6

Rk. Name Pts.  Tb1 
1 Engel, Luis 5,5 22
2 Blübaum, Matthias 5,5 20
3 Belurkar, Nitish 5 19
4 Ganguly, Surya Shekbar 5 19
5 Gavrilescu, David 5 18,5
6 Dau, Khuong Duy 5 17,5
7 Jumabayev, Rinat 4,5 23,5
8 Kollars, Dmitrij 4,5 21,5
9 Parvanyan, Ashot 4,5 21
10 Ahmadinia, Ebrahim 4,5 20,5
11 Klimkowski, Jan 4,5 20
12 Liu, Yan 4,5 20
13 Xiao, Tong 4,5 20
14 Cornette, Matthieu 4,5 19,5
15 Vijaya Sivakumar, Rathanvel 4,5 18,5
16 Glöckler, Christian 4,5 18,5
17 Zwirs, Nico 4,5 18,5
18 Deuer, Marius 4,5 18,5
19 Dahl, Christoph 4,5 18
20 Sargsyan, Anna M. 4,5 18
21 Gschnitzer, Adrian 4,5 17
22 Malek, Jan 4,5 17
23 Farokhi, Keyvan 4,5 16,5
24 Wang, Tongsen 4,5 16,5
25 Thiemann, Marc 4,5 14,5

...196 players

Games

Tournament page...

Topics: Dortmund Sparkassen Chess-Meeting 2025
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