WGP Shymkent: Goryachkina continues to win

by André Schulz
11/6/2024 – In the 6th round of the Women's Grand Prix Tournament in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, Aleksandra Goryachkina won her fourth game in a row. She played against German Grandmaster Elisabeth Paehtz, who missed study-like drawing chances in a difficult endgame. Stavroula Tsolakidou, Tan Zhongyi and Kateryna Lagno also won their games. With three rounds to go Goryachkina now leads with 5.0/6, followed by Tsolakidou and Tan Zhongyi with 4.0/6 each. | Photos: Konstantin Chalabov and Anastasia Abramova (FIDE)

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The duel between Goryachkina and Paehtz featured a French Tarrasch Defence in which the queens were exchanged early on and Paehtz then had to defend against White's bishop pair.

Paehtz was on the defensive, but missed drawing chances in an endgame with opposite-coloured bishops.

Stavroula Tsolakidou has had a very good tournament so far. She lost against Goryachkina in round four, but won against Batkhuyag Munguntuul in round 1 and against Paehtz in round 5.

In round 6 Tsolakidou played with Black against the higher-rated Humpy Koneru, but demonstrated the power of the King's Indian. After sacrificing an exchange, Tsolakidou's bishops took over and she won a fine game.

King's Indian: A modern approach

Bologan: "If you study this DVD carefully and solve the interactive exercises you will also enrich your chess vocabulary, your King's Indian vocabulary, build up confidence in the King's Indian and your chess and win more games."

Kateryna Lagno demonstrated the power of a strong pawn centre in a convincing strategic win over Bibisara Assaubayeva.

Tan Zhongyi scored the fourth win of the round - she won against Batkhuyag Munguntuul.

A Slav with an early Bf5 was on the board, a kind of London System with colours reversed. The former women's world champion from China added some spice to the game by castling queenside and still had the slightly better game after the queens were exchanged. In the endgame, with a rook and two minor pieces on each side, the game finally tipped in Tan's favour.

Divya Deshmukh and Nurgyul Salimova played the only draw of the round.

Results

Standings after round 6

Games

Links

Official website...


André Schulz started working for ChessBase in 1991 and is an editor of ChessBase News.
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