GM Lei Tingjie joined GMs Kateryna Lagno, Hou Yifan, and Harika Dronavalli in the semifinals of the FIDE Chess.com Women’s Speed Chess Championship. Lei beat former women’s world champion GM Antoaneta Stefanova 11-9 in their quarterfinal on Monday.

Stefanova earned $2,000 for finishing in fifth-eighth place. In the semifinals, Lei will now face her famous compatriot Hou. The first semifinal will be played between GM Kateryna Lagno and GM Harika Dronavalli on Thursday, July 1 at 7 a.m. Pacific / 16:00 Central Europe.

The live broadcast of the match.

It was the closest of the four quarterfinals and a match that was decided in the very last game. Lei was 10-9 up when Stefanova missed a chance to level the score and force a tiebreak. 

The Bulgarian lady had started well, winning the 5|1 segment convincingly: a 5-2 score with just one loss. Lei couldn’t find a good answer to Stefanova’s irregular Ruy Lopez with …Bc5 and …Nge7.

Stefanova’s win in the last five-minute game was especially cruel:

“I was quite disappointed after the 5|1 and then I just told myself, OK, the game has just started, 3|1 is a new game,” said Lei. Her pep talk worked, as she won the 3|1 segment 4-2. A key game was the following, as Stefanova was first lost, then winning and then lost again:

This meant that Lei was just one point behind going into the bullet, where she leveled the score in the second game and soon won two more games to take a strong lead. Stefanova came back and kept hopes alive, but the final game also ended in Lei’s favor:

“I think I just got very tired very quickly,” said Stefanova. “I became a bit slow and I made too many mistakes. But also Lei used all her chances.”

All games

The FIDE Chess.com 2021 Women’s Speed Chess Championship is an online competition for titled female players. The qualifiers for the event were held May 28-June 6, while the main event runs June 10-July 3. Players battle for their shares of a total prize fund of $66,000.

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