Norway Chess Women: Vaishali stuns Humpy, grabs the lead

The first classical win in Stavanger

Out of the six classical games played so far at the Norway Chess tournaments — both the open and the women’s — only one has finished decisively, and the player who won this one game was Indian rising star R Vaishali. The 22-year-old stunned Humpy Koneru in the second round to become the sole leader in the women’s event. Vaishali prevailed with the white pieces in a double-edged encounter which saw Humpy failing to make the most of her advantage in the early middlegame.

Standing at a 1-point distance from the leader are Ju Wenjun and Lei Tingjie, who won Armageddon tiebreakers in rounds 1 and 2 after drawing their classical encounters. The two Chinese stars, who are also the highest-rated players in the field, collected wins with white over Anna Muzychuk and Pia Cramling, respectively, in Tuesday’s round.

Ju found a nice tactical shot to convert her clear advantage against Muzychuk in the rapid tiebreaker.

The prosaic 32.Rxd6 is winning for White, grabbing a crucial pawn and increasing an already major positional advantage. However, much stronger is 32.Bxh6, as played in the game — after 32...Qxf6, White counts with 33.Bg5+, a killer discovered check.

Understanding Middlegame Strategies Vol.1 - 9

In this Video-Course we deal with different dynamic decisions involving pawns. The aim of this Course is to arm club/tournament players with fresh ideas which they can use in their own practice.

There followed 33...Kg7 34.Bxf6+ Rxf6 35.Bxc6 bxc6, and the white queen is clearly stronger than Black’s rook and bishop. The world champion went on to convert her advantage into a 48-move victory.

Ju Wenjun and Anna Muzychuk | Photo: Stev Bonhage

Vaishali 1 - 0 Humpy

Analysis by André Schulz

Improve your Tactics

The aim of this course is to help you understand how to make tactical opportunities arise as well as to sharpen your tactical vision - these selected lectures will help to foster your overall tactical understanding.

R Vaishali won the all-Indian confrontation against Humpy Koneru | Photo: Stev Bonhage

Standings after round 2

All games - Classical

All games - Armageddon

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.

Links

• Official site
• Nakamura beats Caruana to win Norway Chess (2023)
• Magnus Carlsen wins Norway Chess for a fourth straight time (2022)
• Carlsen wins Norway Chess, Firouzja shines (2021)