The first game of the final of the World Chess Cup, in which the Russian Alexandra Goryachkina and the Bulgarian Nurgul Salimova fight for the title, could not but cause concern among the fans of our country. Sasha, playing white, gave up the initiative to his opponent, but thanks to accurate and unmistakable defense at the decisive moments, he was able to draw.
It would seem that now the advantage passes to Salimova, because in the second game -the last of this tournament with classical time control- she already had an advantage on the first move. But the current World Cup surprises in many aspects. If you start to list the games in which the owners of the black pieces looked better, you can easily lose count.
The situation could well be repeated this time. Alexandra confidently played the debut of the second game, and very soon the computer programs began to give a rating of “minus”, that is, to fix the advantage of Goryachkina, who played as black. In principle, the fact that the Russian chess player’s pieces are better developed was evident even without the prompting of the electronic mind.
Now Salimova had to think of something, if, of course, she still hoped to continue the fight on Monday as part of a tiebreaker. And Nurgul, thanks to several competent exchanges, was able to even the situation on the board. After that, the problems began already with Alexandra. Goryachkina was clearly nervous: it was difficult to explain the loss of a pawn in another way, in fact, out of the blue.
FIDE
The situation on the board took a 180 degree turn. Sasha’s game fell apart before our eyes. She thought more and more of each move, but Salimova’s advantage grew. All this was very reminiscent of the recent match for the chess crown with the participation of Ian Nepomniachtchi. Then the initiative was left entirely in the hands of the Russian grandmaster, but a series of incomprehensible mistakes led to the title going to his opponent from China.
It was impossible not to recall that Goryachkina was fatally unlucky in matches for international trophies. In 2020, she lost in the duel for the chess crown to the Chinese Ju Wenjun, and a year later she failed in the World Cup final with her compatriot Alexandra Kosteniuk. And now history could repeat itself again – another prestigious title was quickly slipping away from Sasha.
Salvation came from where they did not expect. Or she waited, but she was afraid to believe. Goryachkina came to the time control, and then Nurgul was already confused. He reviewed every move to the last, unable to believe that Sasha wasn’t going to give up. And so, he got into the most severe timing problems, after which he started making mistakes one after another.
The scales again tipped in favor of Alexandra, who, having received an additional knight in the endgame, was looking for a winning line in the best traditions of Magnus Carlsen, until move 118. The result was a draw, which, apparently, was not possible. could happen in this game. And now the tie-break, which is scheduled for Monday, will decide the fate of the trophy.
