GM Alexandra Kosteniuk won a sharp battle in round three of the 2025 Monaco FIDE Women’s Grand Prix to knock GM Tan Zhongyi down to world number-four. The other win was a 5.5-hour marathon that saw GM Aleksandra Goryachkina return to 50 percent by beating GM Bibisara Assaubayeva in 94 moves. The four leaders remain GM Kateryna Lagno, GM Koneru Humpy, IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul, and IM Sara Khadem, who all made draws to reach 2/3. Â
Round four starts on Friday, February 21, at 3 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 1:30 p.m. IST.
Monaco FIDE Women’s Grand Prix Round 3 Results
Monaco FIDE Women’s Grand Prix Standings After Round 3
The three draws in round three were relatively quiet. GM Harika Dronavalli stopped the bleeding by playing a solid game with the white pieces against GM Kateryna Lagno, a good result to get off the mark after her painful blunder the day before. Â
GM Elisabeth Paehtz vs. Khadem was an Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez where queens were swapped off by move eight, and though it seems both players had fleeting changes to gain a significant advantage, the encounter soon fizzled out into a 40-move draw.
In the day’s clash of the leaders, Munguntuul would have been close to winning if she’d played 14.Ng5!, but after spending 17 minutes she opted for 14.Be2 instead. From there on Humpy was able to defend without too much trouble.
The two decisive games didn’t change the standings at the very top, but they could both be hugely significant for the ultimate winner of the tournament.
Kosteniuk 1-0 Tan Zhongyi
This meeting of former women’s world champions promised fireworks when the Grunfeld Defense with 5.h4 appeared on the board, and it didn’t disappoint. Initially Tan seemed to go astray, but later she was on the point of taking over. 17…Rf5! would have been strong, but, as a day earlier, in the space of three moves she’d ruined a good position.
In that game against Munguntuul it meant settling for a draw from a winning position, while this time Kosteniuk went on to score a convincing win, wrapped up with a stylish queen sac followed by promoting to a knight!Â
That result saw Tan slip below her compatriot GM Lei Tingjie to world number-four, with Goryachkina within range to overtake the women’s world championship challenger when they meet in round four.
Goryachkina goes into that round-four clash after getting back in business with a hard-fought win.
Assaubayeva 0-1 GoryachkinaÂ
At a time when we’re used to super-tournaments being dominated by teenagers, the average age of the field in Monaco is a high 33. This game was the meeting of the two youngest players—20-year-old Assaubayeva and 26-year-old Goryachkina.
The players could be seen mentioning an issue with the clock to the arbiters at the start of the game, and while it seemed to be fixed, as the time control approached Goryachkina was given an extra 30 minutes on her clock on move 39 instead of move 40. If she’d dipped below 30 minutes when making her 40th move we might have landed ourselves in a real controversy, but instead she played 40…Nc5 with five minutes to spare.
Goryachkina is trying to explain to the arbiter that 30 minutes was added to her clock before she’d made her 40th move! https://t.co/aqsCnPrjMK pic.twitter.com/vFI9EwUm5w
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 20, 2025
40…g5! was already possible, and although Goryachkina had taken over by this point it remained to be seen if she could find a breakthrough to claim victory. There were swings, even right toward the end, but the former world championship challenger did eventually get the job done—in 5.5 hours and 94 moves.
That win saw Goryachkina join Paehtz and Kosteniuk on 50 percent, half a point behind the leaders with six rounds to go.
Round 4 Pairings
How to watch?
The 2025 Monaco FIDE Women’s Grand Prix is the third of six legs of the 2024-2025 FIDE Women’s Grand Prix. The 10-player round-robin runs February 18-27 in Monaco. Players have 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move. The top prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with players also earning Grand Prix points. Each of the 20+ players competes in three events; the top two qualify for the 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament that decides the World Championship challenger.
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