Kazan GP Rd.3: four decisive games, Muzychuk and Danielian lead

From June 9 to 23, 2012 Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, will play host to the FIDE Women's Grand Prix, part of a series of elite events organised by FIDE and Global Chess. There will be six tournaments over two years in various countries around the world. 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. Starting time of the games is 15:00h (check your local time here).

Round three

Four decisive games, two with black and two with white. Alexandra Kosteniuk and Alisa Galliamova lost their games against Nadezhda Kosintseva and Viktorija Cmilyte respectively.

Viktorija Cmilyte (above) could have played quiet variation but preferred to go into an extremely sharp middle-game and outplayed her opponent in complications.

Alexandra Kosteniuk (above left) got quite comfortable position with black but didn’t play precisely and got into trouble in the rook ending. The former world champion desperately tried to find a draw, but after 78 moves the longest game of the third round was over.

Elina Danielian (above) made use of inaccurate play by Betul Yildiz in the middlegame and found an interesting plan which destroyed the position of her opponent.

Hou Yifan (above) recovered after the previous round and outplayed Tatiana Kosintseva with black. The women's world champion found a few exact moves in the opening and got sensible advantage.

One more decisive game could have happened in the game Antoaneta Stefanova vs Kateryna Lahno (above). Repeating the scenario of the previous round the Bulgarian player grabbed a pawn, but had problems with the coordination of her pieces. This time she managed to escape, as Katerina Lahno didn’t find the precise way to fight for more than a draw.

In the game Humpy Koneru (above) vs Anna Muzychuk the Slovenian player, playing black, succeeded in equalizing the position after the opening, and after 72 moves the players agreed for a draw.

After the third round two players Anna Muzychuk (above) and Elina Danielian lead with two points.

Replay the games of round three

Standings after three rounds

Photos and reports by Anastasiya Karlovich and Rashit Shiriyazdanov, with kind permission of FIDE

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being 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.