Shuvalova Edges Past Vaishali, Ju Wenjun Dominates Vs. Lagno On Path To Final

IM Polina Shuvalova and four-time World Champion Ju Wenjun are the two finalists of the 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship. Shuvalova defeated GM Vaishali Rameshbabu 11.5-9.5 in a close match, while Ju nearly doubled GM Kateryna Lagno's score, 14.5-7.5, in an utterly one-sided duel.

The Final begins on Thursday, September 5, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.

Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship Bracket 

• Polina Shuvalova 11.5-9.5 Vaishali Rameshbabu
• Ju Wenjun 14.5-7.5 Kateryna Lagno

Polina Shuvalova 11.5-9.5 Vaishali Rameshbabu

SmarterChess assessed this to be a virtually equal match, with 51 percent for Shuvalova's victory and 49 for Vaishali's. It predicted that Vaishali would win the 3+1 portion and Shuvalova would take the 1+1. But as it happened, Shuvalova solidified her lead in the 3+1 segment, and the players were evenly matched in the other two.

5+1: Shuvalova 3.5-3.5 Vaishali

Shuvalova was the more consistent player in the first half, but Vaishali recovered in the second—a theme that would recur throughout each of the segments.

Shuvalova won the first two games. Vaishali must have confused her preparation as she aggressively—and mistakenly—expanded her kingside in the first game. Then, Shuvalova flexed the power of the bishop pair in the second.

Shuvalova held onto the two-point lead until game five, when Vaishali struck back with a streak of her own. The Indian grandmaster won two games in a row to even the score and nearly won the third to take the lead. She first converted a position after her opponent sacrificed a pawn before slamming down a knight sacrifice in the next game.

Had Vaishali converted a pawn-up endgame with bishop vs. knight in the last game, she would have finished the segment in the lead. But the bullish defense by Shuvalova, earning the draw, kept the match even.

3+1: Shuvalova 4.5-2.5 Vaishali

Time trouble plagued Vaishali in this segment. Although she got playable positions, she collapsed when reaching under 10 seconds. Shuvalova made most of her gains in the first half before Vaishali again stopped the bleeding in the second, though this time with a two-point deficit.

Shuvalova won three games in a row, capitalizing on the time advantage in every case. In the screenshot below, Vaishali lost game two after blundering her queen with four seconds on the clock—though the position was already bad.

Like in the last portion, Vaishali picked up momentum in the second half. First, she drew a game, though she could have won with a brilliant bishop sacrifice.

Missed in the game, White had the bishop sacrifice 40.Bxg5!! winning. Still, with a draw, Vaishali stops the bleeding and is down by three points.https://t.co/hj2uctxH4n#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/OCXsv0tiB7

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 4, 2024

Then, she won from a losing position after Shuvalova blundered both of her remaining minor pieces. Finally, she again won from another losing position after Shuvalova promoted to a queen—overlooking a checkmating attack.

Still, she was two points down in the match.

1+1: Shuvalova 3.5-3.5 Vaishali

Vaishali evened the score right off the bat by winning three of the first four games. The first two wins were decided by one-move blunders, while Vaishali won the third by using her king as an active piece in the endgame.

Shuvalova won the next two games, however, and there were six minutes left on the match clock for Vaishali to catch up. In an endgame where both players blundered their rooks to forks at various points, Shuvalova hung her knight—but was saved by the match clock running out. Ultimately, she even held the draw, though she would have won the match even if she had lost that final game.

Shuvalova blunders her knight in the final game, but she manages to keep the game going and the match clock runs out!

She ultimately saves the game and wins the match.https://t.co/MkqsLR05ix#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/s4c1UMXcCA

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 4, 2024

Shuvalova takes home $10,827.38, and Vaishali wins $1,922.62 by win percentage.

"I think it was going good for me as I did have a lot of advantage, like plus three and plus two, plus one, and and I did spoil some completely winning positions... but it happens," said Shuvalova after the match. "I saw her match against Alexandra yesterday, I saw she's playing very good in bullet, so she plays good speed chess, and I understood that +2 could be either way."

Considering the fact that Vaishali never led the match, the better player did win on Wednesday. But Shuvalova's next opponent may be her greatest challenge yet.

Ju Wenjun 14.5-7.5 Kateryna Lagno

SmarterChess predicted another close encounter, with 51 percent odds for Ju, who started the match at 11 p.m. local time and ended just after 2 a.m., and 49 percent for Lagno. It forecasted that Lagno would score one point more in the 3+1, while Ju would excel in the bullet by one point—in actuality, the Chinese grandmaster won all three parts of the match.

5+1: Ju 5-2 Lagno

Though she lost the first game, Ju went on to dominate the first portion.

After getting outplayed in game one, Ju won the next three games in a row. The first game was crushingly one-sided as Ju powered through, first with the pawn break 21.b6!, then shoving the e-pawn up the board later on.

Though Lagno stopped the bleeding by winning on time in a double-edged but equal position, Ju won the last two games. 

After Lagno's loss with the white pieces against the Berlin Defense in the final game, GM Benjamin Bok assessed that she should try a new opening in the match—something that did not happen. Ju equalized comfortably and then played for more, ultimately winning the game by chasing the white king up the board to the very last rank. GM Rafael Leitao explains the Game of the Day below.

3+1: Ju 4.5-2.5 Lagno

The 3+1 portion was all Ju. The first game was a draw, but then the Chinese grandmaster took over—losing her momentum a bit in the end.

Lagno's misery began when she, in a winning position, lost on time. From there, it went downhill, and in the following game she already started reaching for the facepalm before the desperado 31.Qxh6! was on the board, causing immediate resignation.

In the following game, Lagno lashed out with an overly aggressive g4-push. The position started to turn in Black's favor, but it ended immediately once the three-time women's world blitz champion blundered her queen to a skewer. On the camera, she was clearly demoralized by the last two games.

In the last three games, Ju seemed to lose steam, playing at 1 a.m. at this point. Up the exchange, she started to lose control and repeated moves to draw, and after that, she dropped not only a rook but a back-rank checkmate.

A tremendous blunder by Ju Wenjun! She is still up by five points in the match.https://t.co/PNb8ZSrGK5#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/fgWsNiFJ5f

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 4, 2024

A wild knight vs. bishop endgame ended in a draw, though Lagno could have even won that one, too. Thus, the world champion entered the bullet portion with a five-point lead, one that would only balloon further.

1+1: Ju 5-3 Lagno

Just as the match started, Ju dropped one game before racing off to rack up the points.

The first game featured an unfortunate blunder. After 29...Re6??, Lagno effortlessly found the forced checkmate in four moves with a well-known pattern. Can you?

But the world champion won the next four games. The most brutal one was the last one of this series, which she won in 20 moves.

After two more draws, Ju collapsed and lost the final game when she had a winning position, but the match result was never in doubt. Ju took home $11,301.13, while Lagno earned $1,448.87 by win percentage. 

Shuvalova will have her work cut out for her in the Final if Ju shows up in the same form.

The Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship is a Chess.com event where some of the strongest female chess players in the world battle for a $75,000 prize fund. The main event sees 16 players compete in a single-elimination bracket in matches played at 5+1, 3+1, and 1+1 time controls. Four places go to the winners of four Play-ins held on August 12-16 and open to all female titled players. In each Play-in the top four players in a Swiss qualify to compete in a knockout. 

Previous coverage:

• Quarterfinals: Ju Wenjun, Lagno Advance To Semifinal Clash Of World Champions
• Quarterfinals: Shuvalova, Vaishali Get Even vs. Hou, Kosteniuk
• RO16: Kosteniuk Beats Narva In Armageddon, Joins Gunina In Quarterfinals
• RO16: Alice Lee, Vaishali Win Thrillers To Reach Quarterfinals
• RO16: Hou Yifan Storms Into Quarterfinals With 6-Game Winning Streak
• RO16: Shuvalova, Lagno Prevail In Nail-Biting Encounters
• RO16: Ju Wenjun Wins With 10-Point Margin, Nearly Goes Undefeated
• Play-Ins: Bodnaruk Wins Play-In 4 Despite Great Fightbacks By Ismayil
• Play-Ins: Eline Roebers Wins Play-In 3 Despite Competing From Train
• Play-Ins: IM Mai Narva Wins WSCC Play-In 2 Convincingly
• Play-Ins: WIM Alua Nurman Keeps Her Cool To Win First WSCC Play-In
• Announcing The 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship