Assaubayeva, Tsolakidou Win As Muzychuk Sisters Improve On Nakamura-Vidit
A one-move blunder cost Indian GM Vaishali Rameshbabu a loss against Greek IM Stavroula Tsolakidou as the 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix got underway. The day's other winner was Kazakh IM Bibisara Assaubayeva who sprang a surprise on move one to defeat Iran-born Spanish IM Sara Khadem. The draw between Ukrainian GM sisters Anna and Mariya Muzychuk was entirely predictable, but they found a fun way to do it by improving on a famous game.
Round two will start on Friday, August 16, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 4:30 p.m. IST.
A New Women's FIDE Grand Prix Series Begins
The 10-player tournament in Tbilisi, Georgia is the start of a six-tournament FIDE Women's Grand Prix series that will eventually select two players for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament. There are 20 players in the running and two events more than for the last Women's Grand Prix series, but both Anna Muzychuk and Assaubayeva pointed out that it wasn't a significant change for the players, since they still play in a total of three events each.
What is different is that 10 players instead of 12 compete in each event, and there are nine rounds instead of 11. Here are the 10 players competing for €80,000 in prize money (€18,000 or ~$20,000 for 1st place) and up to 130 Grand Prix points in Tbilisi.
The event got off to a lively start, with two decisive games and one incredibly hard-fought 66-move draw.
Round 1 Results
That of course meant that we had two early leaders.
Standings After Round 1
Let's take a look at the day's action.
Anna Muzychuk ½-½ Mariya Muzychuk
This pairing of two incredibly talented Ukrainian sisters has long been the most predictable draw in chess, but at least on this occasion there was some curiosity to the moves played. Mariya "unleashed" the 11...Bxh3!! sacrifice that Indian GM Vidit Gujrathi had used to score a stunning win over GM Hikaru Nakamura in round two of the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Toronto this year.
Vidit gave up a pawn vs. Nakamura, but only to land a blow with his bishop on h3! #FIDECandidates pic.twitter.com/A4Y2roGgyg
— chess24 (@chess24com) April 5, 2024
That game ended so badly for the American superstar because he spent just five minutes before going wrong with 12.Nc4? and going on to lose in 29 moves.
At the time Vidit revealed that taking the bishop was fine for White with best play, and that's what Anna demonstrated in Tbilisi—we got a 21-move draw by repetition that showcased the computer's top line.
The one other quiet draw was between IM Alina Kashlinskaya and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, though it was a tense game before it finally fizzled out.
The remaining games were all either decisive or full-blooded struggles.
Tsolakidou 1-0 Vaishali
The biggest surprise of round one was that the lowest seed, Tsolakidou, took down one of the favorites, Vaishali.
It was a game where the 24-year-old Greek star was applying constant pressure, but essentially it turned on one moment: Vaishali, down to five minutes on her clock, took a bishop on e5 with 25...Nxe5?. If Tsolakidou had captured the knight the balance of power would have stayed about the same, but she played 26.dxc5! instead, and the Indian grandmaster could essentially resign, since both her rook and queen were attacked.
Vaishali played on, but there was no way back.
The other win was a complex battle full of twists and turns.
Assaubayeva 1-0 Khadem
20-year-old Assaubayeva revealed that she'd got her first big surprise of the day in early:
I enjoyed it because the whole game was going to my plan, and I think it was a good game. I surprised her with the first move, usually I play 1.d4 or 1.c4, but here I played 1.e4. I just wanted to play something new, and it worked well.
Khadem found herself defending a difficult, passive position, and one that caught fire when Assaubayev went for the spectacular 19.Rf6!. There were many twists after that, until, with under a minute on the clock, Khadem finally collapsed on move 31, allowing some devastating tactics.
A good start for Assaubayeva, who revealed she'd last visited Georgia eight years ago when winning the World Under 12 Girls Championship in Batumi.
The last game of the day to finish was the one that got away.
Dzagnidze ½-½ Javakhishvili
Georgia has an incredibly rich history when it comes to women's chess, as witnessed by 83-year-old former Women's World Champion Nona Gaprindashvili attending the opening ceremony.
That spirit continues today, as we saw in a combative draw between the two Georgian players in this latest event. GM Nana Dzagnidze seemed on the brink of toppling IM Lela Javakhishvili when 30.Rxe6! appeared on the board...
...but a couple of inaccuracies saw the advantage slip away until we reached a rook endgame with equal pawns that looked sure to end in a draw. It ultimately did, but only after Dzagnidze had again generated serious winning chances. 53.h5?! may have been the move that let the last hopes fade away.
There are eight more rounds to go in Tbilisi.
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 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.
