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Alice Lee, Vaishali Win Thrillers To Reach Quarterfinals
Alice Lee and Vaishali are through to the WSCC Quarterfinals. Photos: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Alice Lee, Vaishali Win Thrillers To Reach Quarterfinals

Colin_McGourty
Colin_McGourty
| 16 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Vaishali Rameshbabu beat IM Eline Roebers 7.5-6.5 in a 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship Round-of-16 match that went right down to the wire, but that turned out to be nothing compared to the day's late action. 14-year-old IM Alice Lee pulled off a stunning comeback to beat IM Sara Khadem 10-9 in an armageddon showdown. 

The next Round-of-16 matches take place on Friday, August 30, with GM Alexandra Kosteniuk vs. IM Mai Narva starting at 7:30 a.m. ET / 13.30 CEST / 5 p.m. IST, before GM Valentina Gunina vs.  IM Divya Deshmukh follows.

Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship Bracket 

The storyline seemed to be the same for both Women's Speed Chess matches on Wednesday—the older, more experienced player dictated play while the teenage star showed incredible fighting spirit to stay in contention while never leading the match. As we'll see, however, the outcomes were different!  

Vaishali Rameshbabu 7.5-6.5 Eline Roebers

23-year-old Indian star Vaishali is through to a Quarterfinal against either Kosteniuk or Narva after beating 18-year-old Dutch talent Roebers by a single point.

5+1: Vaishali 3-2 Roebers

Vaishali said afterward: 

I thought I was outplaying her in most of the games, but somehow I was unable to convert it to the win—I was missing some things. I’m very happy that I managed to win. 

In the five-minute section, Vaishali was held to draws with White in games one and three, but with Black she picked up two 21-move victories. Roebers' approach to king safety was optimistic, to say the least, with 16...Ke2? ending badly...

...as did 17.Bf1? which was hit by 17...Nc4!.   

It would be a pattern of the match, however, that just when Vaishali threatened to pull clear she'd be dragged back into a fight. A drawish final 5+1 game ended in a win for Roebers when Vaishali blundered a key pawn. 

3+1: Vaishali 2.5-1.5 Roebers 

Vaishali said she was most comfortable in the 3+1 section since it's a format she's used to from Titled Tuesday, and she threatened to break clear. The first game featured a sparkling attack and then a spectacular checkmate that chess legend GM Judit Polgar enjoyed!  

In the next game Roebers blundered away a queen, fought back to an equal position, then blundered away a rook to lose, so that she was trailing by three points. It could have been four in the next game, but instead Vaishali lost on time in an equal position and the gap was cut to two. 

In the final three-minute game Vaishali looked absolutely certain to win, but she missed forced wins, including mate-in-three...

43.Rxg7+!, 44.Qg6+, and 45.Qh7# was the way, but 43.Qe5 was played.

...swapped off queens, and saw the win slip from her fingers. That meant she took a two-point lead into the bullet section.

1+1: Vaishali 2-3 Roebers

Three games into the bullet, and the scores were level. Roebers had won one fine game, and then accepted a gift as Vaishali inexplicably blundered a full rook in a game she'd been dominating.

Such blows can be hard to take, but Vaishali noted an advantage of the Speed Chess format: "One of the things is there is no time to regret—you just start playing the next game, so I just kept playing."

There is no time to regret.

—Vaishali Rameshbabu

Vaishali hit straight back to score one of her most convincing wins, leaving Roebers in a must-win position in the final game. It was a nail-biter, but Vaishali held on to make a draw and clinch a spot in the Quarterfinals.

Vaishali shared the secret of her win: "Just before the match I was doing some Puzzle Rush and playing some online games—I think it helped."

The day's second match would follow a similar trajectory... until an incredible finish.

Alice Lee 10-9 Sara Khadem

14-year-old Lee described her match against Khadem:

This match I was actually behind for most of it, so I wasn’t really thinking too much about the result and I’m just happy that I was able to put up a fight. That was my main goal for this match. But to be able to win is also really great for me. 

Lee wouldn't lead the match at any stage... until it was over.

5+1: Lee 2-2 Khadem

Khadem missed wins in the first game, punished her opponent for overpushing in the second, but then Lee struck back to level the scores in game three. The most remarkable game of the five-minute section was the last, with Lee commenting: "I was down a piece and a pawn but I was able to save that game, so that was nice!" Even when she blundered the piece, she didn't get upset and even seemed to smile wryly. 

That attitude helped her draw that game, and later win the match.

3+1: Lee 1.5-3.5 Khadem

First, however, there was suffering ahead in the three-minute section. Lee had been pushing for a win in the first game with an extra pawn, until disaster struck when she went for 48.f3??.

"After that I feel like I was a bit toasted for the rest of the three-minute match," said Lee, and wins in games three and four meant Khadem had taken a three-point lead.

It looked set to be four—an almost unbridgeable gap in 15 minutes of 1+1 games—until a dramatic turnaround around in the final game. Let's join it at the moment when Khadem is clearly winning after 39...Qb1!.

That was a huge blow for Khadem, and Lee called it "critical overall."


1+1: Lee 3.5-1.5 Khadem

Lee said that bullet was her strongest area and revealed, "mainly my preparation for this match was just playing bullet and making sure that my mouse was working!" Her confidence showed as she took just two games to level the scores, helped by a huge rook blunder by Khadem in the second.

As with Vaishali, however, Khadem didn't get swept away by the momentum of her young opponent but hit straight back to regain the lead. That was followed by a game of incredible drama, where Khadem was completely winning with the black pieces while the match clock was down to just over a minute. "I knew if I resigned I’d be down two points and I wouldn’t be able to come back," said Lee, and her persistence in a seemingly hopeless cause paid off.

That meant Lee got a final chance, and she seized it, winning on demand to force tiebreaks.

Tiebreaks: Lee 3-2 Khadem

The tiebreaks were that players would play another four 1+1 games, with no match clock to worry about. Khadem must have been shaken, but after a draw in the first tiebreak game she once again found the strength to score a battling win and regain the lead.

By now, however, it was no surprise what followed—a convincing win by Lee to level the scores again. Polgar would later comment of how the match went:

You could see also that Sara had the pressure, that she was the person who was expected to win the match without any too big difficulties. Of course she understood that blitz is blitz, anything can happen, but still, she’s generally speaking a better, more rounded player, but Alice with her freshness, very motivated, very tactical attitude, the way she played, she didn’t care, she was just playing it out and fought until the very, very, very end, and I think she never gave up.

The final tiebreak game was very tight and ended drawn, so that after nine one-minute games the winner would be decided in a single armageddon game. The player with White would get five minutes and have to win, while the players bid to decide who would get Black and only need to draw. It was Lee who bid 30 seconds less than her opponent.

Lee confessed she hadn't been thrilled by her position, but: "I was able to make it complicated, so she was thinking more, and eventually she blundered."

White was already on the ropes when Lee found a nice check to win the queen and end the contest!

That heroic win fittingly earns Lee a clash with none other than Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun. Lee revealed she'd played, and lost, one game against Ju in the Pro Chess League, but she's looking forward to the rematch.

Meanwhile, the Round-of-16 matches continue this Friday with another double-header that includes Kosteniuk vs. Narva, the winner of which will play Vaishali next.

Don't miss it!

How to watch?

You can watch the broadcast on Twitch and YouTube. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated events page. 

The live broadcast was hosted by GM Judit Polgar and IM Jovanka Houska.

The Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship is a Chess.com event where some of the strongest female chess players in the world battle for a $75,000 prize fund. The main event sees 16 players compete in a single-elimination bracket in matches played at 5+1, 3+1, and 1+1 time controls. Four places go to the winners of four Play-ins held on August 12-16 and open to all female titled players. In each Play-in the top four players in a Swiss qualify to compete in a knockout. 

Previous coverage:

Colin_McGourty
Colin McGourty

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.

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