Astana FIDE Women's Grand Prix Sat 17th Sep to Fri 30th Sep 2022

[Mick Norris]

Website

TWIC

The city in which the event is being held was renamed from Astana to Nur-Sultan in 2019 but yesterday a decree was signed to restore the city to the name of Astana, so I went with that. This is the first of four Women's Grand Prix events as part of the FIDE Women's World Championship cycle, three are next year. There are 16 players in the series, each play 3 of the 4 events. Players: Aleksandra Goryachkina, Polina Shuvalova, Kateryna Lagno, R Vaishali, Alina Kashlinskaya, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Zhansaya Abdumalik, Zhongyi Tan, Jiner Zhu, Dinara Wagner and Elisabeth Paehtz.

[LawrenceCooper]

Website

TWIC

The city in which the event is being held was renamed from Astana to Nur-Sultan in 2019 but yesterday a decree was signed to restore the city to the name of Astana, so I went with that. This is the first of four Women's Grand Prix events as part of the FIDE Women's World Championship cycle, three are next year. There are 16 players in the series, each play 3 of the 4 events. Players: Aleksandra Goryachkina, Polina Shuvalova, Kateryna Lagno, R Vaishali, Alina Kashlinskaya, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Zhansaya Abdumalik, Zhongyi Tan, Jiner Zhu, Dinara Wagner and Elisabeth Paehtz.

Three rounds completed and Kosteniuk is still waiting for Turkish Airlines to locate her luggage.

[Mick Norris]

TWIC

Lagno half a point clear of Goryachkina with 2 rounds to play

[Paul Cooksey]

Probably should note that this event suffering a controversy too.

Smirin made some sexist remarks about women chess, while commentating on a womens event. Fiona Steil-Antoni handled as professionally as she could, but good grief. Sutovsky has said there will be an on air apology, but most twitter responses saying Smirin should be removed.

Hikaru has a video of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiy5qkFa-Ms

[Mick Norris]

That's depressing (I haven't watched the video) in relation to Smirin and Sutovsky's response

(As I have noted with Universities improving access for black students, they are generally happy to talk about it, some have programs to help, but only the ones who are actually serious have programs that will actually make a difference in practice; chess and sexism doesn't seem to have moved past the first of these steps)

[NickFaulks]

Hikaru has a video of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiy5qkFa-Ms

It would be nice to be able to hear what Smirin said without Naka's rubbish all over it, but he seems to be saying that either women have the same chess ability as men or they don't, and if they do, then he doesn't see why there should be separate tournaments for women. An unhelpful comment, particularly in the context of this event. I'm pretty sure he has form here - I can't give examples, but for some reason I already thought he was a surprising choice for this job.

[Leonard Barden]

Smirin has been sacked.....
https://twitter.com/EmilSutovsky/status ... gr%5Etweet

[LawrenceCooper]

Hikaru has a video of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiy5qkFa-Ms

It would be nice to be able to hear what Smirin said without Naka's rubbish all over it, but he seems to be saying that either women have the same chess ability as men or they don't, and if they do, then he doesn't see why there should be separate tournaments for women. An unhelpful comment, particularly in the context of this event. I'm pretty sure he has form here - I can't give examples, but for some reason I already thought he was a surprising choice for this job.

https://twitter.com/Gulruhbegim/status/ ... 7562719233
https://twitter.com/Gulruhbegim/status/ ... 4443348993

You could tune in to any of the rounds from one to nine though to hear similar remarks.

[Chris Goodall]

That's depressing (I haven't watched the video) in relation to Smirin and Sutovsky's response

(As I have noted with Universities improving access for black students, they are generally happy to talk about it, some have programs to help, but only the ones who are actually serious have programs that will actually make a difference in practice; chess and sexism doesn't seem to have moved past the first of these steps)

The university equivalent of the Women's Grand Prix would be an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Is it not considered a good thing that we didn't have those in the UK?

The raising performance vs. lowering the bar debate is endless and both camps accuse the other of racism, or sexism in the case of chess. There is no uncontroversial approach here.

[LawrenceCooper]

On a lighter note, Kosteniuk-Lagno reproduced a repetition that I had in a game from the Sandwell Open in 1990!

[Roger de Coverly]

As reported by the BBC and elsewhere
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-63062092

[Mick Norris]

TWIC has the final table and all the round results

I watched a little of Goryachkina's game earlier today, which was a bit of a rollercoaster that she might well ahve lost rather than drawn; she ends up half a point behind Lagno; neither play in leg 2

2nd leg – from 1 to 14 February 2023 in Munich, Germany; 3rd leg – second half of March 2023 in India (place and exact dates TBD); 4th leg – May-June 2023 in Bydgoscz, Poland (exact dates TBD) according to FIDE, who add:
The two players who score the most number of cumulative points in WGP Series shall qualify to the FIDE Women Candidates Tournament 2023-24. Should one of these two players be the current Women’s World Champion, or has already qualified to the FIDE Women Candidates Tournament 2023-24 at the end of the WGP Series, her qualification spot goes to the highest placed player in the WGP Series final standings who is not the current Women World Champion and not qualified to the FIDE Women Candidates Tournament 2023-24 at the end of WGP Series.

Website and player allocation to each event

[Mick Norris]

Offical report

Zhu Jiner and Dinara Wagner achieve IM norms

Although she is WGM, Zhu Jiner has already made her three IM norms but has decided not to request the title: she is going straight for the GM title. She already has two GM norms and has crossed the 2500 barrier.

Lagno takes home the €15,000 first prize in addition to 160 WGP points. The next WGP tournament will be held in Munich, Germany, from February 1-14, 2023.

Kramnik has said several times that if you think more than 18 minutes, you are bound to make a mistake.

It doesn't usually take me that long

Wiki has a full summary of the GP and the standings, and who plays which event