Congrats to former Women’s World Champion Tan Zhongyi, who is having herself quite the year. She won the Women’s Candidates in April, thereby qualifying for a Championship match against Ju Wenjun, and has now won the prestigious Cairns Cup while reaching a career high rating to boot. She led or co-led from start to finish, with only Alexandra Kosteniuk putting sustained pressure in the race for first until she (Kosteniuk) lost in the penultimate round. In the end, it was a comfortable tournament victory for Tan.
The race for second was far more dramatic, and could very easily have finished in a five way tie. Instead, Anna Muzychuk ground out a rook endgame win against the tournament’s youngest player, 14-year-old American IM Alice Lee, and finished in clear second.
(More here and here.) I’ve annotated a couple of (Anna) Muzychuk’s games: a crazy draw with Elizabeth Paehtz from round 6 that was probably mostly prep by both sides, along with Muzychuk’s instructive endgame win against Lee. Here a look here.
Next up: the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest, starting on Tuesday. (I’m not sure if that’s when play begins, or if that’s just the opening ceremony.) It’s insanely strong - here’s the field: Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Wesley So, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Bogdan-Daniel Deac. It should be great.
Predictions?