2010 Women’s Chess Championship: Round #1

In the first round of a two-game match, upsets are likely to occur. However, in the Women’s World Chess Championship, there were no major upsets and the top seeds rolled to easy victories. Pogonina-Kovanova was decided in 15 moves apparently a cell phone violation. Defending champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, Koneru Humpy and Hou Yifan all crushed their opponents.

Hou played against the main line Caro-Kann and sacrificed a piece leading to a full-fledged kingside attack against Carla Heredia-Serrano from Ecuador. Hou said after the game that the sacrifice was not very clear but her opponent was in time pressure and such positions are hard to defend. The attack came crashing through and the Chinese phenom had won her first game.

There were a couple of forfeits as Arianna Caoli and Iweta Rajlich did not show up for the first round. According to a report on Europe-Echecs.com, Rajlich stated that her flight to Istanbul was canceled due to harsh winter which meant she would have to take a 10-hour bus ride to Kiev. When her five-month old baby had fallen ill, she could not make such a trip with an infant. So her opponent Jovanka Houska will advance to the second round.

The second game will take place tomorrow and the winner of the matches will move on to the round of 32.