A Heartbreaking Finale to the European Women's Championship
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 8:21PM
Dennis Monokroussos in 2012 European Women's Championship, A. Muzychuk, Gunina

Anna Muzychuk entered the last round of the European Women's Championship with a full point lead over her closest rivals on the strength of her win with Black against Viktorija Cmilyte in the previous round. A bit of bad luck was getting Black once again in the final round (a bit odd in the normal course of things, as not only normal color alternation but the rule that the higher-rated player/higher score-group player gets the color she's due would almost always guarantee her the white pieces). So that was one bit of good luck for her opponent, Valentina Gunina.

The second and bigger piece of luck came in the game. After 37.Rc1-d1, this position arose:

White is better, but 37...Rxh2 38.Rxd5 Rxh5 gives Black very good drawing chances. Another reasonable try is 37...Rb3+ 38.Kd4 and now 38...Be6. Unfortunately, Muzychuk came up with 37...Be6??, and in that way lost the European Women's Championship title. Gunina played 38.Rd8+ and Black resigned, as 38...Ke7 39.Nc6 is mate. (You can replay the whole game, with comments on the ending, here.) Gunina, Tatiana Kosintseva and Muzychuk all finished with 8.5/11 and won the medals in that order.

Very, very painful!

Article originally appeared on The Chess Mind (http://www.thechessmind.net/).
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