Norway Chess: ‘Nightmare’ avoided as Bibisara Assaubayeva clinches title on debut

OSLO: It was a dream that did not come true. For Bibisara Assaubayeva, it was just as well.

“I was a bit nervous. I had a dream last night that I forgot all my openings,” the 22-year-old Grandmaster recalled her feelings as she went into her ninth and penultimate game against Ukraine’s Anna Muzychuk in the Norway Chess meet on Thursday. As it turned out, “everything ended well.”




Bibisara needed a draw in the classical section against Muzychuk, and she achieved just that to dethrone the latter and claim the women’s title on her debut. With one round to go on Friday, the Kazakh has notched up a 3-0 record in the classical section. Yet, another debutant, Divya Deshmukh, could have won it too.

The Indian’s eighth-round clash against Bibisara went a long way in deciding who collected the top prize of 700,000 Kroner.

Divya, playing white, had the initiative against the three-time world blitz champion but could not build on it due to lack of time. With a unique time control (two hours at the start for each player with increment of only 10 seconds from the 41st move), managing time has been a critical factor in this tournament. Divya missed a couple of pawn pushes and came up with an erroneous knight move at a critical phase in the middle game. The advantage of about +1.5 minutes evaporated in no time as the Kazakh came up with a thrilling counter attack.

(The journalist is in Oslo on the invitation of Norway Chess)