Rest day and two more rounds in Doha

The FIDE Women Grand Prix is a series of elite tournaments organised by FIDE and Global Chess, with six legs over two years in various countries around the world, with three tournaments every year. The winner of each tournament gets 6,500 Euros out of a prize fund of 40,000 Euros, and the overall winner of the series will win a further 15,000 Euros at the end of the series. The sixth event of the cycle is currently being held from the 21st of February to 5th of March. It is taking place in the Sharq Village and Spa in Doha, Qatar. Games start: Rounds 1-10 at 3:00 PM local time, round 11 at 12 AM local time, the rest day is February 27th (after round 6).

Results of round six

Long games in round six
Marie Sebag defeated Martha Fierro with the black pieces in 59 moves; Nana Dzagnidze won the white side of a Nimzo-Indian in 71 moves; Pia Cramling defeated Antoaneta Stefanova in a 95-move struggle. There were two "short" games: Humpy Koneru defeated Maia Chiburdanidze in a Nimzo-Indian in 42 moves; and the game Lilit Mikrtchian vs Elina Danielian ended after 32 moves in a peace agreement (the only draw in both the rounds we are reporting on today. Zhu Chen was defeated by Mongolian IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul in a King's Indian with black in 67 moves, after an unfortunate miscalculation:

Zhu,Chen (2495) - Munguntuul,Batkhuyag (2410) [E95]
6th Women GP Doha QAT (6), 28.02.2011
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nbd7 8.Re1 exd4 9.Nxd4 Nc5 10.f3 Re8 11.Be3 Nfd7 12.Qd2 c6 13.b4 Ne6 14.Nb3 g5 15.Rac1 Ndf8 16.Red1 Be5 17.b5 Qf6 18.bxc6 bxc6 19.c5 dxc5 20.Na4 Rd8 21.Qe1 Rxd1 22.Bxd1 c4 23.Na5 c5 24.Nxc4 Bd4 25.e5 Qf4 26.g3 Bxe3+ 27.Qxe3 Qxe3+ 28.Nxe3 Nd7 29.Nc4 Ba6 30.Nd6 Rd8 31.Bb3 Nd4

The temptation is hard to resist: 32.Bxf7+? Kf8 33.Rxc5 Nxe5 34.Bh5 g4 35.Ne4 Ndxf3+ 36.Kf2 Nd3+ 37.Ke3 Nxc5 38.Naxc5 Bc8 and Black is an exchange up and on the path to victory. Former women's world champion Zhu Chen tries hard to resist but in the end she has to capitulate. 39.h3 Ne5 40.hxg4 Nxg4+ 41.Kf4 Nh6 42.g4 Kg7 43.g5 Rf8+ 44.Ke5 Nf7+ 45.Kd4 Rd8+ 46.Ke3 Ne5 47.Nc3 Nc4+ 48.Ke4 Nd2+ 49.Ke5 Rf8 50.Nb5 Rf5+ 51.Kd4 a5 52.Nd6 Rxg5 53.Be8 Bh3 54.Ndb7 Nf3+ 55.Ke4 Re5+ 56.Kxf3 Rxe8 57.Nxa5 Ra8 58.Nab3 Rxa2 59.Kg3 Bc8 60.Nd4 h5 61.Nf3 Kh6 62.Kf4 Rg2 63.Nd3 Bb7 64.Nfe5 h4 65.Nf7+ Kh5 66.Kf5 h3 67.Nf4+ 0-1.

Results of round seven

Humpy ground down her opponent Batkhuyag Munguntuul in a rook and minor piece ending in 60 moves; in her Sicilian game against Pia Cramling French GM Marie Sebag picked up two pawns and then the full point in 45 moves; former women's world champion Maia Chiburdanidze outplayed her South American opponent Martha Fierro in a minor piece ending to put the lowest ranked player back in her place on the cross table. We should mention that even with minus one Martha is 126 points better than her nominal rating and stands to gain eleven points on the next FIDE list. The three remaining games are interesting enough to show:

Danielian,Elina (2454) - Zhu,Chen (2495) [E61]
6th Women GP Doha QAT (7), 01.03.2011
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 0-0 5.Bf4 d6 6.e3 Nh5 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bh4 c5 9.dxc5 g5 10.Nd2 Nf6 11.Bg3 dxc5 12.Be2 Nc6 13.0-0 Bf5 14.h3 Rc8 15.Re1 Bg6 16.Bf3 b6 17.Bxc6 Rxc6 18.Qa4 Rc8 19.Nf3 Ra8 20.Ne5 Bh7 21.Rad1 Qc8 22.Nd5 Re8 23.Nc6 Nxd5 24.cxd5 Bxb2 25.e4 Bg7 26.h4 a6 27.hxg5 hxg5 28.Qc4 e6 29.a4 Bf8 30.Qc3 exd5 31.exd5 Be4 32.Ne5 Qf5 33.f3? Bc2 34.Rd2 Bxa4 35.d6 Rad8 36.Qa1 Bb5 37.Ng4 Bg7 38.Be5

After White's error on move 33 Black has a very promising position but blunders it away with her own mistake: 38...Qe6? 39.Rdd1! Qg6 40.Bxg7. The point is that Black cannot recapture: 40...Qxg7 41.Nf6+ Kf8 42.Re7 Ra8 (42...Rxe7 leads to mate in four: 43.dxe7+ Kxe7 44.Qe5+ Kf8 45.Rxd8+ Be8 46.Rxe8#) 43.Qe5 and the game is clearly over for Black. The text move hardly provided more resistance: 40...Rxe1+ 41.Rxe1 f5 42.Nf6+ Kxg7 43.Re7+ Kf8 44.Qe5 f4 45.Rh7 Re8 46.Qe7+ with mate in one to follow. 1-0.

Xu,Yuhua (2484) - Mkrtchian,Lilit (2475) [C04]
6th Women GP Doha QAT (7), 01.03.2011
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nc6 4.Ngf3 Nf6 5.e5 Nd7 6.Nb3 Be7 7.Bb5 a5 8.a4 Na7 9.Be2 b6 10.h4 c5 11.c3 Nc6 12.Rh3 f6 13.Rg3 0-0 14.Bh6 Rf7 15.exf6 Bxf6 16.Ng5 Re7 17.Bb5 Bb7

White needs to move her knight or play Qh5. After 18.Qc2? gxh6 19.Nf7+ Kxf7 20.Qxh7+ Ke8 21.Rg8+ Nf8 the black king is perfectly safe and White can only pick up a few pawns for the two pieces. The out-of-form Chinese GM does not recover from this error. 22.Qxh6 Rf7 23.dxc5 Kd7 24.0-0-0 Kc7 25.Qe3 bxc5 26.Nxc5 Qd6 27.f4 Bxh4 28.g3 Be7 29.Ne4 Qd7 30.c4 d4 31.Qe2 Rd8 32.Nf2 Kb8 33.Nd3 Bd6 34.Qe4 Qc7 35.Kb1 Nb4 0-1.

Stefanova,Antoaneta (2546) - Dzagnidze,Nana (2550) [A13]
6th Women GP Doha QAT (7), 01.03.2011
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.b3 d4 5.e3 Nc6 6.Bg2 e5 7.0-0 Bg4 8.h3 Bh5 9.g4 Bg6 10.exd4 e4 11.Nh4 Qxd4 12.Nc3 0-0-0 13.Nxg6 hxg6 14.g5 Nh5 15.Rb1 Kb8 16.Bb2 Nf4 17.Nd5?

White's last move gave her Georgian opponent the chance to finish things off with a nice queen sac: 17...Rxd5! 18.Bxd4 Rxg5 and White resigned because the threat 19...Rxg2+ 20.Kh1 Rxh3# forces her to play 19.Re1, after which 19...Rxg2+ 20.Kf1 Rxh3 lead to mate in three. 0-1.

Standings after seven rounds

The columns on the right of this ChessBase 11 generated table indicate the score, the tiebreak points, the performance and the number of points the player is gaining on the FIDE rating list.

Statistics Of the 42 games played so far: White won 15 games = 35.7% Black won 16 games = 38.1% 11 games were drawn = 26.2%

Tomorrow will bring the difficult encounter IM Fierro Martha L Baquero 2363 vs IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul 2410. Who knows how we are going to fit those long names into the resutls tables.

The free day

On 27th of February, after round five of eleven, the players enjoyed a day off. Most of the players, trainers and organizers took part in the rest-day activities, but some preferred to stay in the hotel and relax before the next games.

The outing started at twelve o’clock. The participants were picked up and driven
around in Bentleys, provided by the Golden Sponsor of the event: Bentley Qatar.

The program of the day included the visit to the exposition of the Pearl-Qatar – a man-made island encompassing 985 acres (400 hectares) of reclaimed land just off the shore of the Arabian Peninsula in the state of Qatar.

You can explore Pearl-Qatar in the satellite view above or do it in a full-sized map

Participants take a look at a model of this incredible project

The participants take a walk along the marina of the Pearl

A photo-shooting of the players and organizers of the Women Grand Prix in Qatar

An interview for Qatari TV: top seed Koneru Humpy talks about her first visit to Qatar

After the walk lunch in a sea food restaurant...

...with Martha Fierro and Antoaneta Stefanova obviously enjoying the feast

The two pose here with German soccer star Lothar Matthäus, on a visit to Doha

And here another famous soccer star, Bora Milutinovic, who has trained the Al-Sadd
Soccer Club in Qatar, with former women's world champion Nona Gaprindasvili

After lunch Bora tries his hand at outdoor chess against a very young lady...

... whom the famous soccer player and coach clearly finds enchanting

The young lady is then interviewed by Qatari TV about the game. So who is this star
who stole the show from all the famous chess players and soccer greats?

She is Dana, the daughter of GM Zhu Chen and Qatari GM Mohamed Al-Modiahki

Here they are together: Matthäus, Dana, Zhu Chen and Milutinovic

This is Lothar Matthäus with the organizers of the Women's Grand Prix: GM Mohamed
Al-Modiahki with his daughter Dana, left Hamad Mohammed Al-Tamimi and and right Ali Jaihn

PR manager for the event Hamad Mohammed Al-Tamimi with Milutinovic

Our photographer Anastasiya Karlovich shows Al-Tamimi and Al-Modiahki her shots

All photos by Maria Bolshakova and Anastasiya Karlovich

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN All games are being broadcast on the official site and on Playchess. To read, replay and analyse the PGN games we adivse you to download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light. This program also gives you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.