Ding Liren Leads Danzhou As Hou Yifan Wins Women's Tournament
GM Ding Liren leads the 11th Danzhou tournament, the annual Chinese event that is held on the Chess.com server this year due to the pandemic. GM Hou Yifan came first in the women's tournament that has already finished.
The 11th edition of the Danzhou tournament is played at a 15+10 time control. It is a double round-robin among eight players: four from China and four international participants.
The Chinese players are all playing from the same venue: the Danzhou Country Garden Havana Holiday Hotel in Danzhou, Hainan. The other four are all playing from their homes in Europe. Interestingly, this includes GM Veselin Topalov, who played his last official game of chess at the Gibraltar Masters in January this year.
After five rounds, Ding is the leader with 5/7. Hungarian GM Richard Rapport, the only player still undefeated, is in second place. Two rounds were played on Thursday, two on Friday, and three on Saturday.
11th Danzhou Tournament | Round 7 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Ding Liren | 2836 | 2900 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 5.0/7 | |||
| 2 | Rapport, Richard | 2727 | 2858 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 4.5/7 | |||
| 3 | Grischuk, Alexander | 2784 | 2798 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 4.0/7 | |||
| 4 | Yu Yangyi | 2738 | 2755 | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 3.5/7 | |||
| 5 | Wei Yi | 2752 | 2704 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | 3.0/7 | 9.5 | ||
| 6 | Giri, Anish | 2731 | 2707 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3.0/7 | 9 | ||
| 7 | Topalov, Veselin | 2707 | 2658 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 0 | 2.5/7 | 10 | ||
| 8 | Wang Hao | 2750 | 2652 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 2.5/7 | 8.25 |
The game between the current number one and two took place in the first round. In a hyper-sharp middlegame, Rapport was lost at one point but profited from two mistakes by Ding:
Ding continued with an impressive 5/6. His win over co-Candidate GM Wang Hao was crushing:
GM Anish Giri started well with a draw against GM Yu Yangyi and wins against Wang and Topalov. However, the Dutchman had a terrible Saturday when he lost all three games.
Here's his game with GM Alexander Grischuk from round seven:
All games rounds 1-7
Sunday is a rest day. The tournament has three more rounds on Monday, two on Tuesday, and two on Wednesday. The total prize fund is 400,000 RMB ($61,241 or 50,516 euros), with 80,000 RMB ($12,249 or 10,103 euros) going to the winner.
Alongside the Danzhou tournament, another online event was held on Friday and Saturday: the second edition of the Belt and Road 2020 World Chess Women (Xi‘An) Summit. This two-day, women-only rapid tournament had a slightly faster time control of 15+5.
For this event, the local Chinese participants played from the Xi'An Tieyi Middle School in the city of Xi'An, the capital of the Shaanxi Province and the capital of 13 ancient Chinese dynasties.
The tournament was won by GM Hou Yifan, who finished a point ahead of the field. She won 40,000 RMB ($6,124 or 5,516 euros). The total prize fund was 126,000 RMB ($19,291 / 15,913 euros).
Hou's last-round game with GM Mariya Muzychuk is quite interesting:
Belt and Road 2020 World Chess Women Summit | Final Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Hou,Yifan | 2621 | 2627 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6.5/9 | |||
| 2 | Khademalsharieh,Sarasadat | 2393 | 2565 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5.5/9 | 23.75 | ||
| 3 | Tan,Zhongyi | 2501 | 2553 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5.5/9 | 22.25 | ||
| 4 | Lei,Tingjie | 2527 | 2512 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 5.0/9 | |||
| 5 | Abdumalik,Zhansaya | 2462 | 2479 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4.5/9 | 19.75 | ||
| 6 | Muzychuk,Mariya | 2506 | 2475 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 4.5/9 | 17 | ||
| 7 | Dzagnidze,Nana | 2447 | 2403 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 3.5/9 | 17 | ||
| 8 | Zhao,Xue | 2442 | 2404 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 3.5/9 | 16.25 | ||
| 9 | Stefanova,Antoaneta | 2461 | 2402 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 3.5/9 | 13.75 | ||
| 10 | Atalik,Ekaterina | 2419 | 2365 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 3.0/9 |
All games
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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