It was a very quiet day at the International Women’s Tournament today. Klaudia Kulon opted for the solid Russian Defence against Natalia Buksa, who had won a sharp Najdorf game the previous day. Just as she had done the day before, Kulon, playing Black, made no mistakes and exchanged pieces with Buksa fairly quickly to reach a knight endgame, in which they agreed to a draw.
It’s not a bad result for either player. Kulon will have White three times in her next four games, and Buksa continues to lead the field by half a point. This is because the match between Song Yuxin and Dinara Wagner also ended in a draw. In a rather lively position, Yuxin decided to agree to a repetition of moves, which even came as a bit of a surprise to the German international:
“I’m happy with the draw. I had the feeling that, rather than repeating the move, she still had some ideas up her sleeve – for example, continuing with Nf5. So that was fine by me.”
In fact, the suggested move would have led to a slightly better position for Yuxin, but she seemed to want to play it safer following yesterday’s defeat.
Tomorrow, however, is guaranteed to be more exciting. The women will be playing their blitz tie-break for the tournament at the German Football Museum. The games can be followed online from 6.45 pm – or, even better, in person, as admission to the event is free.
A-Open
In the A-Open, the race at the top is getting increasingly tight. After the third round, there are now only seven players left with a perfect score of 3/3. This is due not least to some curious turns of events in the games.
On the top board, GM Pavlovic, in a failed attempt at manoeuvring, removed two defenders from a pawn, which Matthias Blübaum was then able to capture without consequence. Pavlovic resigned the game immediately.
The young FM Luka Schwitkowski on board nine received an even bigger gift from the Chinese IM Kaifan Xie. In a move completely out of character, Xie allowed a fork as early as the eleventh move, which would cost him a whole piece. Schwitkowski gratefully accepted the knight and, in addition to the prize for the game of the day, was able to celebrate a very easy point.
However, it was the Polish grandmaster Kacper Piorun who really pushed his luck to the limit. Piorun got carried away in his attack against the Kyrgyz FM Bayastan Sydykov. Having already sacrificed a pawn and a piece, he reached his intended checkmate position – which, however, was not a checkmate at all. Bayastan could easily have thwarted Piorun’s threats by repositioning his bishop, but failed to find the decisive move. Consequently, the FIDE Master resigned in what the engine deemed a ‘winning position’. In the chasing pack on 2.5 points are the joint favourites David Navara, Surya Ganguly, Raja Rithvik, Elham Amar and also Rasmus Svane, who was actually lucky today to snatch half a point in a rook endgame. The surprise winner of 2024, IM Nico Zwirs, also stands on 2.5 points, meaning there will be many high-calibre clashes in the chasing pack in Round 4.
Round 4 then begins on Tuesday at 3 pm. Due to the parallel evening event at the Football Museum, there will, exceptionally, be no live stream with commentary by GM Artur Yusupov (photo).