Kosteniuk Joins Grand Prix Leaders
GM Alexandra Kosteniuk has joined IMs Bibisara Assaubayeva and Stavroula Tsolakidou in the lead of the 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix after pouncing on a mistake by the luckless IM Sara Khadem in round four. GM Anna Muzychuk could have joined them but was held to a 102-move draw after fantastic resistance a piece down by GM Nana Dzagnidze.
Round five will start on Monday, August 19, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 4:30 p.m. IST.
For a second day in a row there was just one winner, and this time it was Kosteniuk.
Round 4 Results
That means we have three leaders, but only Khadem is more than half a point behind after losing three of her first four games.
Standings After Round 4
The day's winner was Kosteniuk, who said afterward that she hadn't gone into the game with great fighting spirit, since the night before she'd watched her husband GM Pavel Tregubov get eliminated from the French Championship after making seven draws, the last with the white pieces in armageddon. She told WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili:
Last night I watched my husband play in a tiebreak till three in the morning. He reached the armageddon and unfortunately wasn’t able to win, so he made all draws and got eliminated. Since I couldn’t sleep well after that, I decided to play it very safe. It’s a very safe line, pretty drawish, of course.
With the white pieces she got a clear advantage, since 15.Qc2 attacked two pawns, though Kosteniuk revealed she'd very nearly gone for a Paul Morphy-like sacrifice on h7 before spotting the fatal flaw in her plan.
Kosteniuk won a pawn, but Khadem's play for compensation was almost flawless, and her opponent admitted she was ready to repeat moves for a draw. The Spanish player missed the chance in time trouble, however, and a couple of moves later was dead lost after Kosteniuk found the killer blow 33.Bxg6!. Khadem knew it was game over and resigned just as her final seconds were running out.
That took Kosteniuk into the lead, while it was another painful loss for Khadem.
The other games were drawn, but again there was incident everywhere. IM Alina Kashlinskaya vs. Assaubayeva seemed sure to promise drama when the latter sacrificed a pawn on the queenside, but a handful of moves later the players found a draw by repetition.
The other co-leader, Tsolakidou, played the Najdorf against GM Mariya Muzychuk and seemed to be in trouble when queens were swapped off, but in the end Muzychuk achieved only a drawn endgame a pawn up.
IM Lela Javakhishvili couldn't win a rook endgame against GM Vaishali Rameshbabu, though she may have missed a chance to prolong the battle right at the end.
By far the most enthralling draw, however, came between Anna Muzychuk and Dzagnidze, which was full of dramatic moments. There had already been plenty before Dzagnidze went for the bishop sacrifice 20...Bxf2+!?.
"Actually I thought I have some mating ideas," said Dzagnidze, though later she regretted not going for the other move she'd looked at, the computer-approved 20...Rb6!.
Anna managed to navigate to a position where she was clearly winning, with Dzagnidze's compensation at times taking on almost comic proportions in the shape of tripled pawns.
"The only thing I know is I have to fight to the end!" Dzagnidze said, after earlier missing wins in her previous three rounds. She also shared her approach to the endgame: "I was looking at some checks in the position, and I had some checks, so I decided just to continue! When the checks finish, I will resign, but somehow the checks didn’t finish!"
When the checks finish, I will resign, but somehow the checks didn't finish!
—Nana Dzagnidze
The persistence was richly awarded, as Anna's 78.a7? finally saw White's advantage disappear as the white king lacked any shield from checks.
It was a curiosity that Dzagnidze could have claimed a draw by three-fold repetition on move 86, but perhaps by that point she was having too much fun. The game ultimately ended on move 102!
After the marathon, the players can't rest yet, as there's one more round on Monday before the rest day.
How to watch?
You can watch the broadcast on FIDE's YouTube channel. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and GM Valeriane Gaprindashvili.
The 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix is the first of six legs of the 2024-2025 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The 10-player round-robin runs August 15-24 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Players have 90 minutes per game, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move. The top prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with players also earning Grand Prix points. Each of the 20 players competes in three of the six events, with the top two overall qualifying for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament that decides the World Championship challenger.
Previous Coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
