Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Thunder On A Blue Sky
The FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2024/25 consisted of six tournaments played according to the round-robin system. The time control was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, plus 30 minutes from move 40. There was 30-second increment from move 1. In each tournament 10 players took part. The second leg of the Grand Prix took place in Shymkent, Kazakhstan from October 30 to November 8. The Grand Prix granted the top two finishers spots in the FIDE Women Candidates Tournament 2026. Therefore, players who wanted to classify for the Candidates needed to perform well in the Grand Prix.
One of the participants in Shymkent was German GM Elisabeth Paethz. Despite being one of the veternas, she lost in first round against Chinese GM Tan Zhongyi and in round two came with a clear focus on victory.
Her rival in round two was Mongolian IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul, who also lost the first round.
Munguntuul, a 37-year-old mother-of-three played her first Grand Prix in 12 years.
The game started as a Caro-Kann Defense. It’s worth mentioning that Paethz and Munguntuul had already faced each other one month ago playing the same opening in the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.
A sign that the game was going to take an aggressive direction was that the players chose opposite castle. Then Paehtz started a quick and promising kingside attack. But the game ended abruptly in move 17.
Replay the moves of this game and enjoy the devastating move uncorked by the Mongolian player.
I wonder why Paehtz was not aware of Black’s 17 move? I don’t know the answer. Only can imagine three possible scenarios: a) Either GMs didn’t know all the nuisances from the theory of lines they use to play, or b) sometimes they overlooked subtle moves, or c) probably Paehtz underestimated her under-rated opponent.
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