Surprise! Zatonskih Leads Cairns Cup At Halfway Point

We told you that no lead was safe! Heading into the rest day of the Saint Louis Chess Club’s Cairns Cup, the standings after five (or four — more on that in a minute) rounds only loosely resemble the standings from just two rounds prior.

At the time, the story was about GM Alexandra Kosteniuk’s hot start and the two Americans joining her at the top. Despite being the two lowest rated players in the field, GM Irina Krush had matched Kosteniuk’s 2½/3 start and IM Anna Zatonskih was the only other player with a positive score.

But now? Things look different.

Zatonskih — the lowest rated player by over 100 points! —leads the event with 3½/5, and Georgian GM Bella Khotenashvili has joined Krush on a “+1” score.

Don't call it an upset! IM Zatonskih is in top form in St Louis (courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

Khotenashvili’s comeback is especially remarkable considering what happened in her first game.

This is not the first time a strong player blundered a piece on the ninth move in a Saint Louis Chess Club-hosted event, and perhaps Khotenashvili will follow WGM Jennifer Yu’s trajectory of making a stellar comeback.

For today’s annotations, we are thrilled to have IM Nazi Paikidze, who has been commenting live on each round of the event alongside GM Yasser Seirawan and IM Almira Skripchenko. Paikidze has been following these games very closely, to say the least, and has selected some truly outstanding variations for us today. Before getting to the games, though, the entire tournament suffered a major loss after the fourth round.

#CairnsCup @jsztaray @ChrisBirdIA @humpy_koneru pic.twitter.com/9F9mHwXVwo
— Saint Louis Chess Club (@STLChessClub) June 7, 2023

GM Humpy Koneru made the difficult choice to withdraw due to health reasons. Since she made this decision before half the games had been played, this meant that her four completed games would not count towards the tournament standings (although they will count for rating).

This erased draws with Krush and GM Harika Dronavalli but, more significantly, it also took wins off the scoreboard for Kosteniuk and GM Nana Dzagnidze, who defeated Koneru earlier that day to (briefly) join the pack on 2½/4 before the game was nullified.

The impact could be minimized if Kosteniuk and Krush kept winning, but that would be too easy. That same day, Zatonskih upset the second-seeded Kosteniuk on the black side of a French defense. Indeed, Zatonskih essentially controlled the game start-to-finish, and she took the sole lead in the process.

Kosteniuk’s loss looked like it would mean Zatonskih would join Krush atop the standings, but Khotenashvili had something to say about that.

GM Bella Khotenashvili took down GM Irina Krush in their fourth round encounter (photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

Essaying the London System, Khotenashvili conducted one of the most complicated, tense attacking games of the entire tournament:

Things quieted down for round five, which made sense as the players were likely ready for a day off after putting up a 65% rate of decisive games in the first four rounds (including Humpy’s games). Three of the four games were drawn, and the fourth was a match between two players from the same country.

Georgia was on everyone's mind during Khotenashvili's crucial fifth-round victory over Dzagnidze (photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

But that’s not how Georgians play chess! Khotenashvili defeated Dzagnidze in a thrilling game to join Krush in second place (with a 3/5 score for Khotenashvili and a 2½/4 score for Krush).

With four rounds to go, the tournament is still wide open. Unless, of course, Zatonskih continues her improbable hot streak. Regardless, be sure to follow our coverage next week.