 Muzychuk-Dzagnidze. Once again Dzagnidze chose the Sicilian Defense.The variation wasn't a surprise for Anna.
In this position she played 16.Bg4 and this is better than 16.c4 Rd8 17.c5 b6 18 cb (Motylev-Rublevski 2011.) 16...Bd7 and now 17c4!.Later Muzychuk won a pawn and in the endgame found a very nice solution.
27.Rd7+ K:e6 28. Re1+ Kf6 29.Rd6+ Kf5 30. R:d5+ Kg4 31.h3+ Kh4 32. R:d4 R:c6 33. Re5 Rc2 34.a4 Rb7 35.Rg5 g6 36.Rdd5 h5 37.R:g6 Rb1+ 38.Kh2 a5 39.Rh6 and black resigned.
The leader of the tournament Koneru was playing against Stefanova. She played Benoni,but instead of developing the dark square bishop on the big diagonal as usual she chose 6...Ne7, 7...Ng6 and 8...Be7.White was planning to push the f pawn to f4 and limit black's activity but didn't have enough time for this as Koneru started a counterplay on the queen side. later she maintained control over the dark squares all over the board and organized a powerful attack on white's king.
26.N:d6? Qf4!27.N:e8 h4 28.Re3 hg+ 29.R:g3 R:e8 30.Qa4 Ra8 31.Q:b4 Bd3 32.B:d3 N:d3 33.Qb7 Rb8 34.Qa7 R:b2 35.Nf3 Nf2 36.Ng5 Rb1 37. Q:f7+ Q:f7 38.N:f7 Rh1#
Tuvshintugs was playing Kosintseva. In Zaytsev variation of Ruy Lopez players were repeating moves from Kosintseva-Shen Yang game played in 2008.On move 16 Kosintseva played a new move (16.ba) and soon had a huge advantage.
instead of 26.N:e8 Q:d1 27.R:d1 B:e8 28.B:e8 R:e8 29.Nd2 with good winning chances she took the rook with the wrong piece.26 B:e8 ef 27.B:c6 N:c6 28.Ne4 (28.Q:f3 e4!) Nd4 and black is very active.Later Kosintseva blundered her knight, but this went unnoticed.
35 Nd2?? Rb4? (35...Q:d2 36.Q:f4 ef 37.B:d2 B:a1 was simply winning the game.)Later being in time trouble black made some more inaccuracies and Kosintseva won the game.
The three other games of this round were drawn.
Danielyan-Cmilyte game was equal from the opening and none of the players had a real chance to win.
The two other games were very exciting.
Khotenashvili-Girya.The winner of the previous Women's Grand Prix is not having a good tournament and her performance here is well below her normal level.After the opening she found herself in a position where her opponent had an extra pawn and solid control over the e file.
33... Q:e4! forcing white to trade the queens as 34.Q:d6 Q:g4+35. Kf1 Qh3+ 36. Ke1 Qh1+ 37 Kd2 Ne4+ loses immediately.Girya played 33... Ncb5 34 Ne5 Nd4 35.Nc6 N:c6 36.bc and this pawn became a real distraction for black.Draw on move 57 with threefold repetition.
Ushenina-Dronavalli was a complicated game from the very beginning.Both players had chances in this game. The rook and pawn against bishop and pawn endgame wasn't as simple as it seemed to be.
Here Dronavalli could play 72...Rg5 73.Kh2 Kf2 74.Kh3 R:g3+ 75.Kh4 Rg7 76. Bc6 Rh7 77.Be8 Kf3 78 Bc6+ (78 B:h5 Kf4) Kf4 and its not clear if black can improve the position any more.Dronavalli missed this opportunity and later tried for 50 moves to win rook against bishop theoretical draw ending.The defense is very simple here and of course this was a real waste of time.Draw om move 143.
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