Halfway the match, GM Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia and WGM Zhu Jiner of China are sharing the lead on the first leg of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix in Astana, Kazakhstan. The high two gamers of the Grand Prix will qualify for the following FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament.

The girls’s world championship cycle is underway once more with the beginning of the Grand Prix in Kazakhstan. At the beginning, there was an oddity in regards to the location: the opening ceremony came about on Saturday, September 17 within the capital, then nonetheless referred to as Nur-Sultan, the identify it obtained in March 2019 after the nation’s long-term president Nursultan Nazarbayev. The subsequent day, the primary spherical of the match came about in Astana, as the town was renamed again to what it was between 1998 and 2019.

There was a funnier story. Reggio Emilia 91/92 with Anand and 9 Soviet gamers (Kasparov, Karpov, and so forth.) But on Jan 1, there was no extra USSR…

— Emilchess (@EmilSutovsky) September 18, 2022

The girls’s Grand Prix works very related because the outdated system for FIDE’s ‘common’ Grand Prix. 16 gamers compete in 4 round-robin tournaments with every particular person participant solely taking part in in three of the 4 tournaments, which have 12 gamers every. Players rating Grand Prix factors, and the highest two gamers within the general GP standings after 4 legs will qualify for the FIDE Women Candidates Tournament 2023-24.

Getting pairing primary, high seed Goryachkina had the luxurious of beginning with two white video games. The 23-year-old GM, who’s the world’s quantity two behind GM Hou Yifan, took down her compatriot GM Polina Shuvalova within the first spherical and likewise beat the previous Russian, now Polish participant IM Alina Kashlinskaya, and China’s GM Tan Zhongyi.

Kashlinskaya had been beneath strain as she misplaced her compensation for the remoted d-pawn, however the draw was nonetheless in hand when she blundered:

Zhu is doing surprisingly properly, with the identical, undefeated rating as Goryachkina to date: three attracts and three wins. An enormous one was her recreation with GM Zhansaya Abdumalik which she gained relatively shortly regardless that she did not suppose she had a superb place out of the opening.

GM Alexandra Kosteniuk has been struggling to date, partly as a result of she has one thing else on her thoughts: getting her baggage, which by no means arrived in Kazakhstan. In the sixth spherical, she obtained a present from IM Elisabeth Paehtz:

FIDE Women GP Astana 2022 | Round 6 Standings

All video games rounds 1-6

The FIDE Women’s Grand Prix First Leg (of 4) takes place September 18-29, 2022, in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. The format is a round-robin match with 12 gamers. The time management is 90 minutes for the primary 40 strikes, adopted by half-hour for the remainder of the sport, plus a 30-second increment beginning on transfer one. The prize fund is 80,000 euros. Official laws.