The Chess World Cup is coming to an end in Baku. Unfortunately, all the Russians dropped out of the open category, but the result of the women’s tournament is definitely worth following. After all, our Alexandra Goryachkina became the first runner-up. And this despite the fact that many women’s chess stars have already left the tournament: world champion Ju Wenzjun, world number four Humpy Koneru (India), former world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, who recently moved to the Federation Swiss Chess from Russia.
Russian Alexandra Goryachkina in the semifinals fought with the third strongest Chinese woman, the finalist of the last matches of the contenders Tan Zhongyi.
For Alexandra, this was the most important match – it was Zhongyi who knocked Goryachkina out of the last draw for the Candidates Tournament, in which the Russian woman was among the top favorites. As a result, the draw for the women’s crown turned out to be a purely Chinese internal affair, both in the final matchup of the qualifying round and in the battle for the title.
What was the fateful defeat:
The disaster of the debut deprived Russia of the chances of the crown. How did Goryachkina make such a mistake?
But this time, Alexandra is once again very determined and her chances of storming the championship throne are significant: current second place in the world rankings, an excellent performance in the Grand Prix series and now a confident path to the Cup final. of the world. In the semifinals, the Chinese woman was defeated in all respects!
Tan Zhongyi (China) – Alexander Goryachkina (Russia)
World Cup 2023. Semifinals
29…d4!
Alexandra’s breakthrough in the center! The weak pawn is the first to attack White’s barricades. Surprisingly, there is no protection anymore.
30.e4
30.e:d4 Rc2 31.Rf2 Re1+ 32.Rf1 Bh4 33.Rxe1 Bxe1 34.Kf1 (losing 34.d5 Bg3) 34…Bg3 35.Ne2 Bd6 36.Ke1 Rxa2 with an almost decisive advantage for Black.
30… Rc2 31.Rf2 Rec8 32.Rfd2 Rxd2 33.Rxd2
White repelled the first wave of charges, but now he’s starting to have problems with the knight.
33…Bg5 34.g3 h4 35.Rxd4
The Chinese seeks to quickly destroy a dangerous pawn. Nothing better than 35.Kg2 Rc3.
35… Rc1+ 36.Kh2 Rc2+ 37.Ng2 Rxa2
The figures of the Chinese chess player are completely paralyzed. It is not for nothing that Goryachkina is often called “Petrosyan in a skirt”, because it was the ninth world champion Tigran Petrosyan who first demonstrated this famous viscous and unpleasant style for rivals.
Alexandra Goryachkina
Photo: fide.com
38.e5
The last attempt to be active, but the difference in the position of the figures is too great. 38.g:h4 Bf4+ loses immediately.
38…Bd2 39.Rd7 a4
39…Kf8 might have been possible, but Goryachkina calculated a beautiful winning line.
40.e6 Kf8 41.b:a4 b3
The pawn runs towards the queens and cannot be stopped.
42.Rb7
42.Rxf7+ Ke8 or 42.e7+ Ke8 doesn’t help White.
42…b2 43.f4 f:e6 44.N:h4
44…Bb4!
And here is the gist of Black’s plan! Now the case is decided by the revealed check with the queen’s promotion, from which there is no protection! 45.Nxg6+ Kg8, and White resigned due to 46.Rxb4 b1Q+.
Great interview with Alexandra Goryachkina:
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“Magnus’s hands were shaking in the match with Jan.” Interview with the vice world chess champion
In the final, Alexander Goryachkina will face the winner of the second semifinal, where the Ukrainian titleholder Anna Muzychuk and the Bulgarian tournament opener Nargyul Salimova met. In regulation time, the opponent played with a score of 1:1, and now the best of them will be determined by a tiebreaker.
But what will happen if Goryachkina and Muzychuk meet in the final? Will this match take place? Prior to this, the International Federation did everything possible to prevent Russian and Ukrainian chess players from meeting female chess players in official tournaments. Artificial draw, breeding in different grids in past matches of the candidates and in the current World Cup. At the 2023 FIDE Grand Prix stage in Munich, sisters Anna and Maria Muzychuk (former world champion; Anna did not run for this title) found themselves on the board with former Russians Alexandra Kosteniuk, Dinara Wagner and Alina Kashlinskaya. , but when the faces The face-to-face battle with Goryachkina and another powerful Russian woman, Ekaterina Lahno, became inevitable in the following stages – they left the draw.
Anna Muzychuk
Photo: fide.com
What will happen now is impossible to predict. We wait.
As for the purely chess relations between the Russian and the Ukrainian, Anna Muzychuk mainly beat the still young Alexandra at the beginning of her career (now the Ukrainian chess player is 33 years old, and the Russian is 24), and the last few years have passed. under the sign of Goryachkina’s superiority. Alexandra beat Anna in the 2021 World Cup semifinal and the 2021 World Team Championship, unbeaten since 2017.
As for Salimova, a newcomer to the world elite, Goryachkina played her only once, it turned out to be a draw. I suspect that the organizers in this situation are praying to heaven for the victory of the Bulgarian, if everything went quietly, if there was no scandal. But the goddess of chess, Kaissa, loves hand-to-hand combat and misses such vendettas as Karpov – Korchnoi or Karpov – Kasparov* (included in the list of individuals performing the functions of a foreign agent. – Approx. “Championship”) , so for some reason it seems to me that the super battles of the Russian woman Goryachkina and the Ukrainian woman Muzychuk, as well as everything that will surround her, cannot be avoided.
There are no more Russians left in the men’s tournament:
Nepomniachtchi failed at the World Cup. What happens to the best chess player in Russia?
* recognized in the Russian Federation as an individual acting as a foreign agent.
