Harika wins $15,000 at Belt and Road Women Open 2019 in China

by Shahid Ahmed - 20/07/2019

Harika made a strong comeback in Belt and Road Women Open 2019 and won the Bronze. She did not have the perfect start. In fact after six rounds she was only on 3.5 points. Then she turned things around and won her seventh and eighth round games. Her best came against former Women's World champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk in the penultimate round. In the last round, she made a quick draw against the eventual champion who is also a former Women's World champion GM Antoaneta Stefanova. Among the other Indians, IM Soumya Swaminathan scored 5.0/9 and finished 11th, WIM Pratyusha Bodda finished at 19th by scoring 4.5/9 and WIM Rucha Pujari netted 3.5/9 securing 28th place. Photo: Harika's fb

Harika's harmonic finish at the Belt and Road Women's 2019

India no.2 GM Harika Dronavalli did not have the perfect start as she made five consecutive draws from round 2 to 5. However that did not stop the fighter in Harika to make a strong comeback and finish 3rd, bagging home US$15000 at the Belt and Road Women's tournament 2019 in China.

The podium finishers (L to R) - IM Guo Qi (2nd) , GM Antoaneta Stefanova (1st) and GM Harika Dronavalli (3rd) | Photo: Harika's fb

Harika faced 2 out 3 compatriots in the tournament. She made all the difference in the last 3 rounds

Speaking to ChessBase India after the tournament was over Harika said, "It’s something new to play, a women open tournament. That’s already a good news for women’s chess especially with such a huge prize money. Organization was just brilliant. I hope this tradition continues every year." After five draws how did Harika get into the groove to score two wins against strong playes like Gulrukhbegim and Kosteniuk? "I got really tired of draws. It's not like I didn’t take risk but even if it was winning or losing, finally it used to end up in a draw. After rest day, I started afresh and played it like a new tournament. Luckily everything worked in my favor."

On rest day, Harika played simultaneous matches with local Chinese kids | Photo: Harika's fb

SA: Which is your best game of the tournament?

Future world champion vs. former world champion? | Photo: imsa.cn

HD: Definitely Kosteniuk game is best but I also like the finish of the game with Tokhirjonova.

Here are the best games of Harika, annotated by IM Sagar Shah.

Harika vs Kosteniuk, Round 8

Black has just played her rook to a6. How did Harika finish off the game?

The move played by Harika was 24.e6! A beautiful case of interference. The rooks cannot take it as the bishop on d5 would be hanging. But at the same time, taking it with the pawn is impossible as the rook on e8 is hanging. Bxe6 is met with d5 as in the game and Harika finished the game with a flourish.

Soumya Swaminathan was the only other Indian to have finished in top 15. She scored 5.0/9, finishing 11th and won $1500 | Photo: Soumya's twitter

According to her tweet, Soumya was happy with her final round game

Here is Soumya's final round win against Li Xueyi:

Soumya vs Li Xueyi, round 9

When you are the first one to attack, you do not need two queens! The queen and bishop coordinate perfectly to mate Black's king, while the two black queens are mere bystanders!

Pratyusha started well but a couple of odd loses, cost her some valuable rating points. She still managed to score 4.5/9 and increase her Elo rating by 22 points | Photo: imsa.cn

With a win over Tingjie, Sara Khadem and draw with Harika, Pratyusha definitely had some good games

Rucha had a perfect start by winning against former Women's World champion Tan Zhongyi but then she lost one game too many | Photo: imsa.cn

Former World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova dominated the tournament and won it by a full point with 7.0/9 and went back home richer by US$ 40,000

Stefanova vs Girya, round 7

White has just played her knight to f5. What would you do here?

Of course, ....Qf5 is the right move. White has the initiative for the pawn but nothing more. In the game something quite weird happened.

A post on social media by IM Kevin Goh Wei Ming. Recently GM Jacob Aagaard has been sharing positions on his Facebook page of top GMs who make anti-intuitive and wrong decisions. And hence this reference!

Round 9 results

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	7	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	BUL	2474	6½	½ - ½	5½	GM	Harika Dronavalli	IND	2492	5
2	13	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	MGL	2412	5½	½ - ½	5½	IM	Guo Qi	CHN	2375	17
3	1	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	RUS	2517	5	½ - ½	5	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	GEO	2511	2
4	10	GM	Ushenina Anna	UKR	2448	5	½ - ½	5	WGM	Girya Olga	RUS	2457	8
5	9	WIM	Zhu Jiner	CHN	2454	5	½ - ½	4½	GM	Tan Zhongyi	CHN	2511	3
6	14	WGM	Ni Shiqun	CHN	2407	4½	½ - ½	4½	GM	Lei Tingjie	CHN	2505	4
7	16	WFM	Munkhzul Turmunkh	MGL	2386	4½	½ - ½	4½	IM	Khademalsharieh Sarasadat	IRI	2481	6
8	15	WGM	Soumya Swaminathan	IND	2402	4	1 - 0	4½		Li Xueyi	CHN	2330	18
9	11	GM	Batsiashvili Nino	GEO	2433	4	1 - 0	4	WFM	Li Yunshan	CHN	2254	23
10	19	WIM	Song Yuxin	CHN	2277	4	½ - ½	4		Zhang Xiao	CHN	2259	22

Complete final round results

Final Standings

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4
1	7	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	w	BUL	2474	7,0	2428	37,5	46,5	5
2	17	IM	Guo Qi	w	CHN	2375	6,0	2479	38,0	47,0	3
3	5	GM	Harika Dronavalli	w	IND	2492	6,0	2409	34,5	46,0	3
4	13	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	w	MGL	2412	6,0	2391	35,5	46,0	4
5	10	GM	Ushenina Anna	w	UKR	2448	5,5	2461	36,0	45,0	2
6	9	WIM	Zhu Jiner	w	CHN	2454	5,5	2438	36,5	48,0	3
7	1	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	w	RUS	2517	5,5	2431	37,5	47,0	3
8	8	WGM	Girya Olga	w	RUS	2457	5,5	2401	36,0	47,5	3
9	2	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	w	GEO	2511	5,5	2361	35,5	45,5	3
10	14	WGM	Ni Shiqun	w	CHN	2407	5,0	2421	35,5	46,0	2
11	15	WGM	Soumya Swaminathan	w	IND	2402	5,0	2407	36,0	46,0	3
12	3	GM	Tan Zhongyi	w	CHN	2511	5,0	2391	35,0	44,5	3
13	6	IM	Khademalsharieh Sarasadat	w	IRI	2481	5,0	2341	32,0	40,5	3
14	16	WFM	Munkhzul Turmunkh	w	MGL	2386	5,0	2334	31,0	38,0	4
15	4	GM	Lei Tingjie	w	CHN	2505	5,0	2318	32,0	41,0	3
16	11	GM	Batsiashvili Nino	w	GEO	2433	5,0	2246	28,0	36,0	3
17	18		Li Xueyi	w	CHN	2330	4,5	2435	36,5	47,0	3
18	26		Zhang Lanlin	w	CHN	2195	4,5	2413	34,5	42,0	4
19	21	WIM	Pratyusha Bodda	w	IND	2265	4,5	2402	33,5	43,0	3
20	12	WGM	Tokhirjonova Gulrukhbegim	w	UZB	2422	4,5	2398	33,5	43,5	4

Complete standings

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