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Round 1 report by GM Anna Sharevich |
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Monday, 10 October 2011 |
 Zhu Chen - Kosteniuk Alexandra
Open Catalan happened in the game. Zhu Chen expected the line that
appeared, but actually forgot the main variation. After the move
10...f6, Zhu Chen lost much time and get into real trouble. Alexandra
played very confident and on move 36, Zhu Chen lost the game on time.
During the press-conference Alexandra said that she was a bit surprised
with Catalan, but after that she decided to repeat the same line that
happened in her game against Natalia Zhukova.
Zhu Chen on her side told the audience that of course she expected the
variation chosen by Alexandra Kosteniuk, but forgot the line.
 Zhao Xue – Cmilyte Viktorija
An unusual Kings Indian structure happened in this game. After the move
12. ..f5 black’s pawn structure became very bad indeed and white managed
to use the weakness of the pawn structure. Viktorija made another
mistake by moving the queen to f6 and Zhao Xue immediately started the
transfer of the knight to g3. It turned out that it’s pretty hard to
defend the position.
In the press-conference Zhao Xue was very satisfied with her game. She
said that after move 12. ... f5 the ideas seemed to be very clear and no
problems with the main plan, and she immediately found the right
knight’s transfer to g3.
Viktorija agreed that f5 wasn’t the best choice and added that another
mistake was to develop the Queen on f6, where the Queen was situated
badly.
 Stefanova Antoaneta – Kosintseva Tatiana
This game turned to be very lucky for Tatiana, because after the opening
she lost some tempi and black’s position was very bad. Instead of move
31.g5 Antoaneta could have played Kg2 giving some more problems and the
position would have given her a big advantage. In the mutual time
trouble, both girls didn’t have time to calculate a lot and after the
time control the position was already drawn.
The press-conference brought some clearness in the fact why Antoaneta couldn’t use such a great advantage of her position.
She said that she didn’t have enough time to calculate all the lines in
the critical moment of position, because of the mutual time trouble, but
of course she felt that the advantage was very huge.
On the question “What problems did you face in the opening?” Tatiana
answered that probably she had wasted too much time with the knight’s
transfer from h5 (maybe this wasn’t the right decision) and she had been
to slow with her pieces.
 Munguntuul Bathuyag – Kovalevskaya Ekaterina
Sicilian defence, Chelyabinsk variation happened in the game. The girls
played very accurate and after the move 18. ... d5, the knights were
traded and after that the position became totally equal, and ended in a
drawn rook ending.
In the press-conference it seemed that the girls were very satisfied with the result of the game.
Munguntuul said that she had been playing this line for a long time and that she had liked it.
Ekaterina shared her impressions: “In black’s position the best was do
push d5, what exactly appeared in the game, and after the trade of the
knights the position was drawn”. Also she noticed that the draw was ok,
because the first round was always a bit complicated to play.
 Lahno Kateryna – Galliamova Alisa
White chose the English opening and Alisa reacted very interesting
playing the novelty 6. ... b6, which Kateryna didn’t expect. White
changed the light-squared bishops. Alisa on her side made a very
optimistic move 16. ... c6, which wasn’t the best decision in the
position. The game finished with 3-times repetition when the
chessplayers were in the mutual time trouble.
During the press-conference Alisa seemed to be in a great mood and very
satisfied with the result. She said that in Rostov she had lost the game
to Kateryna and now it was ok about the result.
Kateryna told the journalists that she hadn’t expected the line with
move 6. ... b6, had tried to find the best decision. On the question
about her leading position after two previous stages she replied: “It’s
ok, but there are still many Grand-Prix stages ahead!”
 Kosintseva Nadezhda – Ju Wenjun
This game turned out to be the real thriller of the round. The Najdorf
variation was chosen by black and Nadezhda achieved a totally winning
position after black’s slip on move 19. However, after a critical
mistake by white 25.Qf1 the position became equal. Instead 25.Rh2! would
have sealed the result. Maybe losing her concentration, white
continued making a few inaccuracies and finally lost the game.
In the press-conference both of the opponents seemed to be very sad, especially Nadezhda. Ju Wenjun agreed that she was pretty lucky in this game.
Nadezhda told the audience that she hadn’t known the whole variation
till the end in the opening, but she understood that the position had
been great and maybe simply won.
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