WGP Geneva: four players in the lead

Neva Women's Grand Prix in Geneva

The Neva Foundation in partnership with the Internation Chess Federation (FIDE) has organised the first leg of the official Women's Grand Prix series for the first time in Geneva. From May 3 to May 15, twelve of the best women players featuring current Women World Champion Anna Ushenina from Ukraine, will confront each other at the N'vY Manotel. The tournament is an eleven-round all-play-all at classical time controls.

Round six report

Anna Muzychuk (above left) decided to avoid Carlsbad pawn structure, and Nana Dzagnidze spent a lot of time in the opening trying to find the right move order. The Georgian player managed to get a slight edge and could have been better at some stage. But Black managed to find the right way to equalize the position and after 33 moves the game finish in three-time repetition.

After six rounds of play Bela Khotenashvili remains the only player who
hasn’t made any draws: she has won four games and lost two.

Batchimeg Tuvshintugs managed to get a position with slight edge against Bela Khotenashvilil, but missed an interesting opportunity to gain an advantage and became upset during the game because of this.

Hou Yifan decided not to prepare too much for the opening but simply play chess today. The former World Champion tried to create an attack on the kingside, but her Russian opponent, Olga Gira, found precise moves to avoid the threats. Olga simplified the position and transferred the game into an endgame with an extra pawn, which eventually finished in a draw.

Olga Girya said that the tournament would be a great opportunity for her to face the top women players. “I’ve never played against Hou Yifan and looking forward to meet her over the board”, said Russian player at the start of the event. This round fulfilled her wish.

Despite disappointing results in previous rounds former Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk (above right) keeps trying to fight with principal variations in every game. Current World Champion Anna Ushenina spent a lot of time in the opening trying to calculate many different lines, and after 20 moves she had just three minutes left on her clock.

Alexandra could have tried to play 18. Nc6 or 23. Be5 24. Nc6 but for some reason the former world champion avoided playing this move today. After 23. Bc1 b4 White’s position became worse and after a few moves Black won a pawn. Black didn’t play precisely and White could have kept chances to hold the position by playing 31.Bc3. After 31.Bc1 Ba6 the position of Black became absolutely winning.

Replay all games of the round

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A full summary of all six games is to be found here on the official tournament site.

Current standings

Tournament participants, arbiters and commentators on a free day outing

Recognise all? Batchimeg, Bela, Nana, Anna, Viktorija, Tatiana, Anna, Yifan, Ju, Olga

Lake Geneva, famous for it cumulus clouds (or something)

Information and photos supplied by FIDE Press Officer Anastasiya Karlovich

Analysis by Adrian Mikhalchishin

To be added soon...

Trainings DVDs by Adrian Mikhalchishin in the ChessBase Shop

Schedule and results

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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.