Assaubayeva Beats Kosteniuk, Grabs Sole Lead
20-year-old IM Bibisara Assaubayeva found a brilliant endgame sequence to defeat GM Alexandra Kosteniuk and take the sole lead with just two rounds of the 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix to go. The remaining four games were drawn, though GM Mariya Muzychuk in particular missed a win against IM Lela Javakhishvili.
Round eight will start on Friday, August 23, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 4:30 p.m. IST.
Assaubayeva's crucial win was the only decisive game in round seven.
Round 7 Results
She's the only player to have won two games and has now taken the sole lead, but a four-player chasing pack is just half a point behind.
Standings After Round 7
Assaubayeva looked like a big favorite to score a win against Kosteniuk for much of their round-seven clash, but the surprise was that the decisive action ultimately came just when the whirlwind had abated and they'd reached a drawish-looking four vs. three endgame.
Assaubayeva played 37.g4 with 11 seconds to spare, and Kosteniuk's reply, 37...Nb4?, played with 13 seconds to spare, ended up losing the game.
After that the young Kazakh star played a forced sequence perfectly until 44.Nf6+! was the knockout blow.
You can't take the knight or the h-pawn runs, but if you don't then Ne8 and Nxg7 are unstoppable. Assaubayeva went on to win very smoothly.
That win not only gave Assaubayeva the sole lead, but puts a third and final grandmaster norm well within reach. She now needs to score 1.5/2 in her remaining two games against IM Stavroula Tsolakidou and GM Vaishali Rameshbabu.
The remaining games were all drawn, but only Vaishali vs. GM Anna Muzychuk was largely lifeless, with Vaishali perhaps happy to take a draw after two painful losses in a row.
Meanwhile Anna's sister Mariya had a clear winning chance, but only for one move—once again we could see chess as a tragedy of a single tempo.
Elsewhere nothing was quite so clear-cut, but the games were dramatic. Things have been going much better for IM Sara Khadem after her tough start, but she admitted her game against IM Alina Kashlinskaya had its ups and downs.
Alina is a very good player and today she surprised me first with the Benko, because she usually doesn’t play it, but then it happened that I prepared this line for another opponent during this tournament, so I just played it and she was surprised then. But then somehow I managed to give back my pawn and I don’t know why I did that, but then it was slightly worse, maybe even more than slightly, and I had to defend the whole game.
17.e5!?, which led to the white e and d-pawns falling, was one reason White ended up on the defensive, though no decisive mistakes were made.
Tsolakidou admitted she'd been surprised by co-leader GM Nana Dzagnidze's decision to defend against an attack by sacrificing an exchange, but 18...Rxh6!? was one of the computer's top choices in the position. When some more forceful moves followed, Dzagnidze held with ease.
Tsolakidou, who's made six draws in a row after her round-one win, was nevertheless satisfied. She commented: "Compared to my previous games, when I was only struggling to make a draw, it was an improvement!"
Going into the final two rounds Tsolakidou and Dzagnidze, like Mariya Muzychuk and Kashlinskaya, are just half a point behind Assaubayeva, so that there's everything to play for.
How to watch?
You can watch the broadcast on FIDE's YouTube channel. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and GM Valeriane Gaprindashvili.
The 2024 Tbilisi FIDE Women's Grand Prix is the first of six legs of the 2024-2025 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The 10-player round-robin runs August 15-24 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Players have 90 minutes per game, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move. The top prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with players also earning Grand Prix points. Each of the 20 players competes in three of the six events, with the top two overall qualifying for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament that decides the World Championship challenger.
Previous Coverage:
- Round 6: Kashlinskaya Beats Vaishali, Joins Leaders In Tbilisi
- Round 5: Sara Khadem, Nana Dzagnidze, Mariya Muzychuk All Score 1st Wins
- Round 4: Kosteniuk Joins Grand Prix Leaders
- Round 3: Vaishali Breaks The Deadlock In Tbilisi
- Round 2: Vaishali, Dzagnidze Miss Wins In Tbilisi
- Round 1: Assaubayeva, Tsolakidou Win As Muzychuk Sisters Improve On Nakamura-Vidit
- FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2024-2025: All The Info
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
