Women's World Championship reaches semifinals
31.05.2004 We're down to the Final Four in Elista. We already know who the best woman player in the world is, but she's off in Hungary. So we're waiting to see which of the ladies in Kalmykia will win the women's world championship. Well, if Kasparov, Anand, and Kramnik won't play in the FIDE WCh in Libya, why can't we have equal rights?! Report and games.
And then there were four
Round 4 – Player on the left had
white in game one |
Score |
|
|
|
Humpy, Koneru |
Xu Yuhua |
1-0 1-0 |
Stefanova, Antoaneta |
Dzagnidze, Nana |
1-0
0-1, 1/2 1-0 |
Chiburdanidze, Maia |
Cmilyte, Viktorija |
1-0 0-1, 1-0 0-1, 1-0
1/2 |
Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina |
Kachiani, Ketino |
0-1
1-0, 1-0 1/2 |
With
the inexorability of an Agatha Christie novel, the participants continue to
disappear from the Women's World Championship in Elista, Kalmykia. We've talked
to a few of the players who have returned and most reports say FIDE has done
a fine job of organizing the event in a hurry after it had to be moved from
Georgia at the last minute due to safety concerns.
Top seed Koneru Humpy eliminated the final Chinese participant, thus
guaranteeing the women's title will move to a new country for the first time
since 1999. The Indian knocked out Xu Yuhua in the only quarterfinal match not
to need rapid playoff games. She will face Russia's Kovalevskaya, who eliminated
Kachiani of Germany.
The latest batch of attrition victims also included young Georgian hope Dzagnidze,
whose games failed to impress our Grandmaster observers despite her positive
results. One of our experts predicted overall victory for Bulgaria's Stefanova
before the event started and she arrived to the semifinals after a playoff against
the Georgian.
The hat beat no hat. Your waiter this evening will be FIDE president Ilyumzhinov.
The longest match was between former champion Chiburdanidze of Georgia and
Lithuanian Cmilyte. They went to a second set of rapid games, where the veteran
was triumphant. Humpy is the last remaining teenager, but if she seems precocious
it is worth remembering that Maya Chiburdanidze was the same age, 17, when she
took the world title from Gaprindashvili way back in 1978. She defended her
title four times before losing it to China's Xie Jun in 1991. In the last KO
world championship Chiburdanidze made it to the semifinals only to lose to eventual
champion Zhu Chen.
The upcoming semifinal matches are still just two games. The final will be
four, a far cry from the sixteen game matches Chiburdanidze used to play in
the 80's.
Semifinals – Player on the left has
white in game one |
Score |
|
|
|
Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina |
Humpy, Koneru |
* |
Stefanova, Antoaneta |
Chiburdanidze, Maia |
* |
Stefanova
– Dzagnidze after 59.a5
How can Black lose with that passed h-pawn to distract
the white knight? It doesn't seem possible, but Black found a way by using
her king to take a critical square away from her knight.
59...Kd7? This square should be for the knight,
which finds itself without any good squares after White's answer. 60.Nc4.
If Black captures the knight the queen and pawn endgame will be almost
a certain loss. 59...Kd8 was the right path, allowing 60.Nc4 Nd7 and tough
defense to crack.
Dzagnidze was forced play the knight to the useless f7
square, making defense very hard after 60...Nf7 61.a6 Kc8 62.d6 h4
63.d7+. Here Black made the real blunder, keeping an eye on the wrong
pawn with 63...Kc7?? when 63...Kb8 gave good defensive chances.
Black's move lost instantly to 64.a7 Kb7 65.Nd6+! 1-0
a classic deflection sacrifice to draw the knight away from the coverage
of d8.
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