Kosteniuk clearly dominates after scoring 1.5 points against the two Ukrainians

Alexandra Kosteniuk is launching, two months after her 39th birthday, towards a success comparable to those she signed in her time as world champion (2008-2010).

The Russian, with the International Chess Federation (FIDE) flag as she hopes to play soon with the Swiss, today defeated the Ukrainian Anna Muzychuk after drawing yesterday with her sister Mariya, and leads the Women's Grand Prix in Munich with 1.5 points more than Indian Humpy Koneru.

However, her schedule for the last three rounds is very tough in theory.

The special situation of Kosteniuk, with dual nationality since 2009 (she was absolute champion of Switzerland in 2013), takes away a lot of iron from her confrontations with the Ukrainian sisters (residents in Valencia), with whom she also maintains more than correct personal relationships.

In any case, both games have been very tough fights: Kosteniuk came close to defeat yesterday before drawing with fellow former champion Mariya Muzychuk and she needed five hours of demanding technical work today to defeat Anna.

Kosteniuk has gained 22.2 Elo points in this tournament so far, he has risen to 7th place in the world and can rise to 6th if he wins one and draws the other two games that remain.

However, that objective is far from easy because on Saturday he will face the 3rd place, the Georgian Nana Dzagnidze, with the black pieces;

on Sunday, with white, to the 2nd, Koneru, and on Monday, again with black, to the emerging Chinese Jiner Zhu, 20 years old, irregular but with enormous talent.

Despite the fact that all the games in the 6th round ended in a draw, as did all but one in the 7th, the level of combativeness is very high, as well as the number of interesting games due to their educational value or beauty.

The negative surprise of the tournament is the weak performance of the Kazakh Zhansaya Abdumalik, 23, who explained it this way to EL PAÍS on Tuesday in Munich: “I am a councilor for the Almaty City Council, and I also preside over the local chess federation.

Almost every day I have to attend to some urgent matter, in addition to preparing the games and playing them.

So it's very difficult to do well."

Sixth round:

Wagner – Koneru, draw;

Zhu – Dzagnidze, draw;

Kashlinskaya – A. Muzychuk, draws;

Paethz – M. Muzychuk, draws;

Kosteniuk – Abdumalik, draw;

Tan – Harika, tables.

Round seven:

Harika – Wagner, draw;

Abdumalik – Tan, tables;

M. Muzychuk – Kosteniuk, draws;

A. Muzychuk – E. Paethz, draws;

Dzagnidze – Kashlinskaya, 1-0;

Koneru-Zhu, draw.

Round eight:

Wagner – Zhu, 0-1;

Kashlinskaya – Koneru, 0-1;

Paethz-Dzagnidze, 1-0;

Kosteniuk – A. Muzychuk, 1-0;

Tan – M. Muzychuk, boards;

Harika – Abdumalik, draw.

Classification:

1st Kosteniuk 6.5 points;

2nd Koneru 5;

3rd-4th Paehtz and Dzagnidze 4.5;

5th-8th Harika, M. Muzychuk, Tan and Zhu 4;

9th A. Muzychuk 3.5;

10th-11th Kashlínskaya and Abdumalik 3;

12th Wagner 2.

Ninth round (Saturday, 3:00 p.m.):

Abdumalik – Wagner;

M. Muzychuk-Harika;

A. Muzychuk–Z. Tan;

Dzagnidze–Kosteniuk;

Koneru–Paethz;

Zhu-Kashlinskaya.

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