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Last update: Wednesday March 15, 2006 16:15
Jovanka Houska continued her second-round challenge yesterday against higher-rated Kinyang Qin of China. With the white pieces, she opened with the Scotch and a long, hard-fought game ended in a draw, which left both players with a score of 1.
After a break, they resumed their battle with two rapidplay games. In the first, Jovanka with black returned to her favourite Caro-Kann Defence to e4 and achieved a comfortable draw. Opening the second game with white, she played the Scotch again but this time her opponent played an improvement which led to a tough struggle and eventual defeat for Jovanka.
Leading English grandmaster John Emms, who coached her prior to the championship, comments, “Jovanka can be very happy with her performance. She played six games against opponents rated considerably higher than her and more than held her own. And, of course, beating a European champion so convincingly will give her a lot of confidence for the future”.
The knock-out formula has led to more upsets in round 2. Highest-rated player Humpy Koneru of India (2537) and two European Women’s Champions, Bulgarian Antoaneta Stefanova (2499) and Sweden’s Pia Cramling (2515) have all gone home. The only American representative, Irina Krush (2477), lost to Russian Tatiana Kosintseva (2479), and British Ladies’ Champion Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant of Georgia (2426) lost to fellow Georgian, Maia Chiburdanidze (2511).
While the final sixteen also include Alisa Galliamova and Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia, plus Marie Sebag of France, all eyes are on the extraordinary progress of twelve-year old Yifan Hou of China, rated 2269.
Susan McFarland