Women's SCC: Shuvalova stuns Hou, Vaishali beats Kosteniuk

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
9/3/2024 – The first two matches of the quarterfinals in the Women's Speed Chess Championship took place on Monday. Polina Shuvalova (pictured) and Vaishali Rameshbabu advanced to the semifinals after knocking out two former women's world champions, Hou Yifan and Alexandra Kosteniuk, respectively. Both matches were really hard-fought, with Shuvalova only beating Hou in the bullet tiebreaker. | Photo: FIDE / Lennart Ootes
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Close matches

The quarterfinals of the Women's Speed Chess Championship kicked off with two exciting matches. Polina Shuvalova defeated Hou Yifan in tiebreaks after winning the fourth and final bullet game on time (in a losing position). Later in the day, Vaishali Rameshbabu knocked out Alexandra Kosteniuk after scoring three consecutive wins in the final encounters of the bullet section to get an overall 9-8 victory.

In both cases, the eventual winner had lost against the exact same opponents in the previous edition of the event, as noted by Dani Sharon on X. Last year, Hou and Kosteniuk - two former women's world champions - had defeated Shuvalova and Vaishali by 13½-7½ and 13-8 scores respectively.

The two remaining quarterfinal matches will take place on Tuesday: Ju Wenjun v. Alice Lee will start at 15.30 CEST, while Kateryna Lagno v. Valentina Gunina will kick off at 18.00 CEST. The semifinals and final will be played on Wednesday and Thursday, a day before the start of the Speed Chess Championship main event - featuring the much anticipated Magnus Carlsen v. Hans Niemann match in Paris.

Women's Speed Chess Championship 2024

Women's Speed Chess Championship 2024

Hou's king hunt

3-minute game

All games - Quarterfinals

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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.