A draw with Mariya Muzychuk in the last round of the Gibraltar Women’s Grand Prix was enough for Kateryna Lagno to secure a spot in the next edition of the Women’s Candidates Tournament. The one scenario in which the Russian would have failed to qualify was not so far from happening, as Muzychuk did not go for the most trying continuation nearing the end of the game while Nana Dzagnidze had a superior position against Valentina Gunina at some point in their lengthy encounter. | Photo: John Saunders
In this opening Black opts for active piece play and is not afraid to fight for the initiative from an early stage. One of the many good features of this opening is that Black is often the side which controls the pace of the game. €29.90
A short power outage
The very exciting ninth round on Monday was followed by a quieter one on Tuesday, in which the players went through a 20-minute power outage in the playing hall at around the early middlegame phase of the encounters. By then Zhansaya Abdumalik had already secured tournament victory, as she had quickly agreed to a draw with Kateryna Lagno.
IM Zhansaya Abdumalik, of Kazakhstan, increased her lead to a full point over the field in round eight of the Gibraltar leg of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix
Round 7: Black is more than OK
After another exciting day’s play and four decisive results, round seven of the Gibraltar leg of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix at the Caleta Hotel on 29 May 2021 ended with
Zhansaya Abdumalik of Kazakhstan in the lead on 5½,
Mariya Muzychuk in second place on 5, and
Kateryna Lagno of Russia and
Gunay Mammadzada of Azerbaijan in joint third on 4½. In the race for the two places in the Candidates’ tournament, it was a good day for Humpy Koneru, watching from afar in India, and Kateryna Lagno, but a bad one for the other contenders, Nana Dzagnidze and Anna Muzychuk, who both lost with White and now have considerable ground to make up.
After round five of the Gibraltar leg of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix played at the Caleta Hotel on 26 May 2021, two players share the lead on 4/5 points