Assaubayeva Leads Women's, Nakamura Scores Hat Trick In Open

One player, IM Bibisara Assaubayeva, leads the FIDE Women's Grand Swiss 2023 after five rounds. The 19-year-old rising star defeated former World Champion Tan Zhongyi to reach 4.5/5, the highest score in either section.

Top-seed GM Aleksandra Goryachkina defeated WGM Meruert Kamalidenova to join two other players half a point behind the leader. They are IM Vaishali Rameshbabu and GM Anna Muzychuk, who drew in their matchup this round.

In the Open, three players are in pole position with 4/5, followed by 15 players half a point behind. GM Andrey Esipenko stays tied for first-third after making a draw with GM Fabiano Caruana, while two players joined him at the top: GM Hikaru Nakamura, after scoring the hat trick against GM Alexey Sarana, and GM Arjun Erigaisi, who won the Game of the Day against GM Rinat Jumabayev.

Round six begins on Monday, October 30, at 10:30 a.m. ET / 15:30 CEST / 8 p.m. IST.  

• Women's
• Open

We are about halfway through the tournament, although the rest day comes after round six. While the world's best players fight for two spots in the Candidates Tournament in the Isle of Man, the world number-one is occupied in Manchester with other matters.

Good to be back in Manchester with the boys! @MagnusCarlsen @MagnusBarstad and @OdinSjakk🔥 pic.twitter.com/W5OT49yAZU

— Askild Bryn (@AskildB) October 29, 2023

Seven of the top 10 boards in the Women's section had decisive results. In contrast, there were just two decisive results on the top-10 boards in the Open, despite many tough battles.

Women's

Assaubayeva seized the lead in the Women's section after defeating the former world champion. It was her first time beating Tan in a classical game, after one draw and one loss.

The international master, who has eclipsed 16 grandmasters and 22 other international masters in this tournament so far, has a 2804 performance rating as she vies for her third and final grandmaster norm.

The younger player's decision to play the King's Indian Defense showed an intention to fight for the win with the black pieces. The standout move was Tan's positional mistake, 16.Bxc5?, giving Black the bishop pair (dark squares) and the d6-square for the knight.

Leko said after the game: "This is the real question mark, and the rest is just punishment." The engine, as always, points out that White could have played better to stay in the game. As it went, Assaubayeva won a one-sided game.

After the game, Assaubayeva said she tries not to pay too much attention to the standings but plays the best she can. About potentially making it into the Candidates: "It will be great if I have one of the spots, but I try not to think about this because it's a lot of pressure."

Vaishali vs. Anna Muzychuk, a Ruy Lopez Berlin Defense, ended reasonably in a draw. One board down, Goryachkina defeated Kamalidenova, who had a 2659 performance rating up to this point.

The game took a sharp turn on 20...Bd2?, which had the solid positional idea of trading on d3 and blockading the dark squares with ...Bb4. The problem was tactics. After 21.c5!, the black bishop turned out to just be a liability, and it even got trapped.

Other notable results were IM Leya Garifullina's upset victory over GM Valentina Gunina to reach 3.5 points, GM Mariya Muzychuk's bounce-back victory against IM Eline Roebers to reach three points after losing on Saturday, and IM Vantika Agrawal's draw with number-two seed GM Alexandra Kosteniuk to finish the day with a 50 percent score. 

Anna Muzychuk will have the white pieces against tournament leader Assaubayeva in round six, while Vaishali will have them against Goryachkina on board two. 

Round 5 Standings | Top 20 

Open

Nakamura and Arjun were the only players on three points to win in round five to join the lead.

Nakamura, playing the white pieces, employed the Catalan Opening and, curiously, moved his dark-squared bishop five times in the first 18 moves before trading it off. He mentioned in his recap that he saw the idea of 8.Bc3, the first unusual bishop move, on Chessable.com. 

The first turning point, however, came on move 22, where Leko predicted: "If he finds this move [22.Qc1!], then he will win the game!"

If he finds this move [22.Qc1!], then he will win the game!

—Peter Leko

The move pressures the c5-pawn further, and the immediate tactical point is that 22...Qxe2 is met with 23.Nxd4!, using the pin.

Nakamura ultimately won the c5-pawn and then the game, although not without further adventures, in the pure knight endgame.

This is Nakamura's third consecutive victory after starting the tournament with two draws, and you can listen to his thoughts below. 

Today's Game of the Day is the other decisive game on the top boards, which was one of the last to finish in the playing hall. There were many phases to this tremendous fight, where Arjun was better or winning multiple times, but Jumabayev continued to bounce back.

The complicated endgame was what stood out most. GM Rafael Leitao writes: "This is one of the most extraordinary endgames I've ever seen. A fight of attack and counterattack, pawns against pawns, similar to a study, with incredible moves popping up at all times." You can read the full annotations below.

Plenty Of Fights Yet Plenty Of Draws On Other Boards 

Tournament leader Esipenko had the white pieces against top-seed Caruana. Their previous two encounters were draws, and although they had stirred up complications from the opening, they still added a third to their record.

Caruana, who recently published a Chessable course on the Ruy Lopez "Dark Archangel," hasn't shown it off in this tournament yet. In his first game with Black, he opted for the Sicilian Defense against 1.e4, but after that, his opponents opted for 1.d4—depriving him of the opportunity.

Of course, it's a big question whether he would play the opening his opponents will undoubtedly expect. 

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the U.S. champion had only one objective chance for the advantage the entire game, which was a fight despite the result. After 15.e4?! Qb6! 16.exd5, Caruana had to plunge into very unclear lines starting with 16...Nxd5 (or 16...Bxd5). After 16...exd5, played in the game, neither player got a real chance.

Most other games on the top boards ended in draws, although the encounters were far from friendly. 

 "You could make a $100 million Netflix show out of that game alone," said Gustafsson about the GM Alireza Firouzja vs. Hans Niemann encounter.

To say nothing of the strange but sound opening moves by both players, the game reached "bonkers" territory when Niemann traded two pieces for a rook and a pawn, similar to what we might see in the Ruy Lopez Dilworth Variation.

By move 26, both players were under two minutes each. And, in this time scramble, Niemann had two chances to win the game—both missed. 27...Rfe8! was the more findable move, according to the commentators, and 33....a3!! was an understandable miss.

Nakamura, in his recap, admitted that he also thought 27...Re2? looked the most natural when watching the game live—the move that missed the first win. He called the second move, 33...a3!!, "another insane move." The fireworks ended in peace, a draw.

"I was sure here I would lose!" said Firouzja. Niemann said of the 33...a3!! move: "I saw this idea, but it was scary." You can watch both players analyze the game below:

Other Achievements And Upsets   

IM Ramazan Zhalmakhanov attracted some attention in the first three rounds when he beat two 2650+ grandmasters and then drew Firouzja. His remarkable run continues into round six, after he drew with GM Sam Sevian. His published rating is 2447, but his performance rating so far is a jaw-dropping 2846. 

Kazakh IM Ramazan Zhalmakhanov is certainly in the running for the world's strongest IM!#FIDEGrandSwiss pic.twitter.com/8EU0gctwPu

— chess24.com (@chess24com) October 29, 2023

Players on the come-up after Sunday are GM Sam Shankland, who defeated GM Aryan Tari; GM Nodirbek Yakubboev, who beat GM Nils Grandelius; and GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek, who served GM Marc'Andria Maurizzi's second consecutive loss. They are all on a +2 score. 

Upsets on Sunday include GM Narayanan Sunilduth Lyna's victory over GM Gukesh Dommaraju, who took a gamble with the King's Indian Defense and lost a one-sided game. GM Ivan Saric, who lost to Caruana in the first round, also sits on 3/5 after beating GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a Sicilian Najdorf. 

Narayanan, who recovered in this round from Saturday's loss, had also beaten Gukesh exactly two weeks ago in the Qatar Masters. He said: "Somehow he defended well, and he was close to making a draw [in the previous game], but in a marathon game I won somehow. I was lucky there, but here it was more or less a one-sided game" after Gukesh played too riskily.

Lastly, IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux outplayed legendary GM Vasyl Ivanchuk in an opposite-color bishop endgame with rooks on. 

On Monday, we can look forward to watching Esipenko-Nakamura on board one, GM Yu Yangyi-Arjun on board two, and Caruana-GM Evgeniy Najer on board three. 

 Round 5 Standings | Top 20 

(Full results here.)

The 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss (FGS) is one of the events of the FIDE World Championship cycle with the top two players qualifying for the 2024 Candidates Tournament. The FGS started on October 25 at 9:30 a.m. ET/15:30 CEST/19:00 IST and features a $460,000 prize fund.

The 2023 FIDE Women's Grand Swiss (FWGS) features a $140,000 prize fund and runs concurrently. The top two players qualify for the 2024 Women's Candidates Tournament.

Previous Coverage:

• Esipenko Leads In Open, 4-Way Tie In Women's
• Vaishali Plays Brilliancy As Anna Muzychuk, Tan Take Lead
• Caruana Beats Niemann, Returns To 2800 Club
• Caruana Leads Pack Of 32 Winners
• FIDE Grand Swiss 2023: Who Will Qualify For A Shot At World Title?