WGP Tbilisi: Tsolakidou and Assaubayeva share the lead

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
8/18/2024 – Three rounds into the first event of the 2024/25 Women's Grand Prix series, Stavroula Tsolakidou and Bibisara Assaubayeva (pictured) are sharing the lead with 2 points each. Both co-leaders scored a win in the first round and drew their next two encounters. R Vaishali, who lost in the first round and missed a big chance to bounce back in the second, was the only player who scored a win in Saturday's third round. | Photo: FIDE / Anna Shtourman

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Vaishali beats Khadem in round 3

The 2024/25 Women's Grand Prix series is the seventh edition of the cycle organised by FIDE. This edition consists of 6 tournaments, with each of the 20 participants set to play in 3 of them. The top 2 finishers in the overall standings will qualify for the next edition of the Women's Candidates Tournament, which this year took place alongside the open Candidates for the first time in history.

Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, is hosting the first tournament of the series. The Muzychuk sisters, Nana Dzagnidze and R Vaishali are the top seeds. The 10-player single round-robin will see rounds being played daily except on Tuesday, the one rest day in the event.

After 3 rounds, Stavroula Tsolakidou from Greece and Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan are sharing the lead with 2 points each. Both players scored wins with the white pieces in the first round - Tsolakidou upset Vaishali while Assaubayeva got the better of Sara Khadem.

Coincidentally, the two players who lost on Thursday were the contenders in the one game that has ended decisively since then. After all games finished drawn in the second round, Vaishali defeated Khadem with white on Saturday. The Indian GM thus returned to a 50-percent score, while Khadem is now in the cellar of the standings with a half point to her name.

Vaishali Rameshbabu

Vaishali Rameshbabu | Photo: FIDE / Anna Shtourman

Vaishali 1 - 0 Khadem

Analysis by Shahid Ahmed

Vaishali had never defeated Khadem in a classical rated game, until yesterday. Khadem, now representing Spain, chose a line in the Two Knights' Defence which cramped her position as the pieces lacked enough space to move around.

Black's position was already bad, but 23...f6? made things worse. It completely blinded the bishop on e7 and allowed 24.Nh4.

24...Nf7 25.Nf5 c6 26.Nf3 Bd8 27.N3h4 What's better than one knight in the attack? Another knight joining the party and supporting it.

27...Be8 28.Kh2 b6 29.b5 axb5 30.axb6 Rb8 31.dxc6 Bxc6 32.cxb5

Black went on to lose the game in another 14 moves.

Sara Khadem

Sara Khadem | Photo: FIDE / Anna Shtourman

Standings after round 3

All games

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Topics: Bibisara Assaubayeva, Stavroula Tsolakidou, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Women's Grand Prix 2024/25
Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
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After 1.d4 d5 many players with White avoid the great amount of theory in the Slav, Semi-Slav, QGA and Orthodox Queen's Gambit and do not therefore play 2.c4. This is not very ambitious, but the painful experience of many chess players has been that the Colle System, the Trompowsky Attack, the Torre Attack and the London System are nevertheless extremely dangerous. Black has to be prepared for each of these openings and IM Valeri Lilov offers you some help with his six instructive videos, in which he demonstrates for each single opening a relevant plan for Black. In addition to the openings mentioned, the Bulgarian trainer also delves into the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov Opening.