Anastasia Bodnaruk Wins FIDE World Rapid Women's Championship
Magnus Carlsen defends his title.
Thursday, December 28, the FIDE World Rapid Championship finished in Samarkand. It was the Swiss system with the time control of 15+10, in which 13 rounds were played in the open section and 11 in the women's section.
In the women's championship, Anastasia Bodnaruk (Russia), Humpy Koneru (India) and Lei Tingjie (China) scored 8.5 points out of 11. According to the tournament regulations, Bodnaruk and Koneru, who had the best additional tiebreakers, went into a tie-break to contest the first place. Two blitz games with 3+2 control did not decide a winner: Koneru won game one as Black, Bodnaruk came back as Black as well. Then the chess players continued to play with the same control until the first victory. Game three of the tiebreaker match ended in a draw, and Anastasia Bodnaruk took game four as Black to become the World Rapid Women's Champion!
President of the Chess Federation of Russia Andrey Filatov, "Our players continue to win medals at world's most important competitions. Anastasia Bodnaruk, who this year became the national champion in rapid chess and then won the SCO tournament in China as part of the Russian team, has now won the World Women's Rapid Championship in a brilliant style. Our player was in the lead most of the way, and an incredibly nervous overtime match against the experienced Humpy Koneru saw her ability to recover from her defeat and then win. This is an outstanding achievement and a prestigious award at one of the most esteemed tournaments that gather all chess stars. I congratulate Anastasia and all Russian chess fans on such a great result! I wish our players good luck at the World Blitz Championship!"
Here are the results of some of our other chess players: Valentina Gunina scored 8 points, Kateryna Lagno, Aleksandra Goryachkina, and Leya Garifullina - 7.5 points.
In the Open section, Magnus Carlsen (Norway) took an unshared first place with 10 out of 13 points. Vladimir Fedoseev (Slovenia) came in half a point behind. Yu Yangyi (China, took 3rd place over additional tiebreakers), Vidit Santosh (India), Volodar Murzin (Russia), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Daniil Dubov (Russia), Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (India), Dmitry Andreikin, Alexander Grischuk (both Russia), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan), Peter Svidler (Russia), Fabiano Caruana (USA), and Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran) have scored 9 points. Maxim Matlakov, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Vladislav Artemiev of Russia are among those with 8.5 points.
The World Blitz Championships begins in Samarkand Friday, December 29.
Tournament on Chess-Results
Photo album of Eteri Kublashvili
Official website
Tournament page
Photos by Vladimir Barsky
