Women's Candidates, Round 1: Four Draws

Not all draws are created equal, however.

The first game to finish, unsurprisingly, was Muzychuk vs. Muzychuk. The game finished in a repetition after just 20 moves, none of which taxed the sisters at all. We'll see if game 2 will be an automatic draw as well, or if circumstances will dictate a real game. (There is a third possibility: a fake game with a decisive result. I don't believe that will happen.)

There's no reason to believe that Nana Dzagnidze and Tan Zhongyi went into their game with anything like the Muzychuk mindset; nevertheless, that turned out to be a placid Petroff drawn in 32 moves, again by repetition, with neither player suffering at all.

The other two games were far hairier. Former women's champion Alexandra Kosteniuk faced the youngster and slight outsider Aleksandra Goryachkina. Goryachkina, just 20 years old and participating thanks to Hou Yifan turning down her invitation, was somewhat worse for stretches of the first 38 moves or so, though generally enjoying equality. But just before the time control Kosteniuk started making mistakes, and soon found herself with a lost position. Fortunately for the ex-champ, Goryachkina's 48th and especially 49th moves were erroneous, and Kosteniuk survived. Drawn in 61 moves.

Finally, Valentina Gunina and Kateryna Lagno played the game of the round, a 60-move slugfest that went back and forth. With White in a Ruy, Gunina was better out of the opening and then winning. Her plan with 18.exd5 (rather than 18.cxd5) followed by 19.c5 wasn't so good, and step by step Lagno equalized. Gunina was still doing alright, but she took far too long to activate her knight, caught out of play on h2. When the time control finished Black was up a pawn with a dominating position, but anyone who has followed Gunina even a little knows that she's tactically sharp and a real trickster. Lagno either missed or underestimated Gunina's 46.Ra1!!, a nice shot that saved the game. Lagno gave it the old college try, but the game could not be won.

The games are here, with my brief comments to the end of Gunina-Lagno.