European Women’s Blitz: Kosteniuk, Khadem and Khotenashvili reach the podium

Khadem beats Kosteniuk in the final round

Two weeks after Valentina Gunina obtained a memorable victory at the World Blitz Championship in Samarkand, European players made their way to Monaco to participate in the European Women’s Rapid and Blitz Championship.

(Note that the Russian Chess Federation moved to Asia last year, although “Russian players who live in Europe and do not want to follow the RCF to Asia will be permitted to transfer to the ECU without paying fees to Russia and FIDE”.)

The blitz tournament took place on Saturday, with 13 rounds of games with a time control of 3 minutes plus 2-second increments.

The Vienna Variation - a reliable and ambitious weapon against 1.d4

The Vienna Variation is a particular and independent system of the Queen's Gambit. It arises after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4, when Black's capture on move 4 is strongly reminiscent of the Queen's Gambit Accepted.

Alexandra Kosteniuk, now representing Switzerland, entered the event as the clear rating favourite. Moreover, the former women’s world champion came from getting second place behind Gunina in Samarkand. After collecting 9 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss in the first 12 rounds of the event, Kosteniuk entered the final round with a full-point advantage over a 5-player chasing group.

The playing hall during the blitz championship

The clear leader had the white pieces against Sara Khadem, and came out of the opening with an extra pawn and a visible strategic advantage.

A tactical recourse here justifies the engines’ evaluation of +2, one that the tournament favourite failed to find.

Kosteniuk, an excellent tactical player, would quickly assess that 20.Rxe4 Rxe4 21.Qd3 is good for White under normal circumstances. However, it is likely that fatigue and nerves (at this point of the tournament) prevented her from playing the winning sequence here.

Instead, the game continued with 20.Bd5, looking to simplify the position, as a draw was enough to secure her outright victory.

After 20...Bxd5 21.Rxd5 Nf4, Kosteniuk faltered again with 22.Rf5

22.Rdd1 was the way to go — what Kosteniuk missed was Khadem’s 22...Ne2, forcing 23.Rxe2 Rxe2, gaining an exchange and the initiative.

Kosteniuk began to look for active counterchances with 24.Qd3 Rfe8 25.Rh5, failing to foresee her opponent’s killing blow: 25...Re1+

Black crucially controls the h2-square, the king’s only way to escape the back rank. Kosteniuk resigned since after 26.Nxe1 Rxe1+, White could only keep the game going with 27.Qf1, giving up the queen.

Attacking with the Jobava London System

The Jobava London System is a minor form of the London System. White tries to play Lf4 quickly followed by Nc3.

Sara Khadem now represents Spain

The next two boards, featuring four players who entered the round with 9 points (a full point behind the leader) saw Bella Khotenashvili beating Marta Garcia with white and Ukrainian compatriots Yuliia Osmak and Anna Ushenina signing a 20-move draw.

Therefore, Kosteniuk, Khadem and Khotenashvili all finished the event with 10 points each. Remarkably, throughout the 13 rounds of play, Kosteniuk and Khotenashvili did not face each other, which meant that the results of the contenders tied for first place could not be used as a tiebreak criterion. The second criterion, though, gave Kosteniuk the gold medal, Khadem the silver medal and Khotenashvili the bronze medal.

This is Kosteniuk’s third victory in this event. Curiously, her triumphs in 2017 and in 2019 were also obtained in Monaco. On those occasions, she scored 10½ and 10 points, respectively.

Khadem, on her part, claimed silver medals at both the Rapid and the Blitz World Championships in 2018.

Final standings

...105 players

All available games

Links

• Official website
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• Full technical information on Chess-Results