Match Report: WGM Dina Belenkaya vs WFM Lile Koridze

On Sunday, December 6th, Russian WGM Dina Belenkaya and Georgian WFM Lile Koridze met in a zero-increment blitz and bullet match. Scheduled for ten 3+0 and twenty 1+0 games, the match took off at 16:00 PM GMT+1 with a prize fund of 250 USD, which was promptly raised during the ensuing battle - thanks to the generosity of the Twitch viewers.

The battle started in a solid fashion, with a Rubinstein Variation of the Queen's Gambit. After swapping all Rooks, the young Georgian accepted an isolated d-pawn in exchange for the pair of Bishops but Belenkaya used a Knight blockade to win a pawn and was soon in an utterly dominant position. And then, this happened:

With material advantage, safer King and 53 seconds on the clock to the opponent's 39, Belenkaya played 41...Qxf2, missing 41...Ne2 with a mate to follow. The chaos ensued and after 42. Qc4 Qf4+ 43. Kg1 Qe3+ 44. Kh1 Qe1+ 45. Kh2 h5 46. Qc8+ Koridze was suddenly up on the clock and starting a counterattack: 46...Kh7 47. Qg8+ Kg6 48. Qf7+ Kg5?? (48... Kh6 guarantees, at the very least, a draw) 49. Qxg7+ Kf4 50. Qh6#

Instantly put in an aggressive mood, the Russian WGM struck back in a Closed Sicilian in which she has refused to castle altogether. As it often happens without increments, the players have suffered mutual onsets of chess blindness, resulting in some hilarity:

White played 28. Nxe4?? which could've and should've been punished with 28...f5! but instead... 28...Bxg4 29. Qxg4 Qd7? (29...f5 was still there) 30. Bh6+ Ke8 31. Qxd7+ Kxd7 32. Bg5 Ke6 33. Ke2 f6 34. Bxf6 and Belenkaya secured a winning advantage. Disheartened, Koridze eventually blundered a Knight and resigned by move 43.

Game three featured a rather exotic variation of Queen's Gambit Accepted: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nc3 a6 4. a4 Nc6, an opening that would be explored a couple more times on the course of the match. Nevertheless: once again, it all came down to another moment of sheer insanity:

14...Ng4?? 15. Bxg4 Bxg4 16. Rde1?? and on her stream, Koridze instantly highlighted the missed win of a full piece. It was a truly bizarre case of missing a sideways capture and Belenkaya soon picked up a couple of pawns, simplified and then scored another point.

Both sides somewhat redeemed themselves in a hard-fought fourth game. Belenkaya played ultra-aggressively in the Closed Sicilian for the second time but her brute-force approach backfired and she ended up with a fatally passive light-squared Bishop, a broken pawn structure and a lonely Queen being overwhelmed by two Black Rooks:

Here, with worse pieces, a weakness on h4 and a 40 second deficit on the clock, the Russian WGM battled hard and nearly staged a comeback. In the next 20 moves, she'd manage to trade her Bishop and h-pawn for one of Black's Rooks and activate her Queen with several checks... only to fall victim to a one-move Queen loss by the move 56!

Having tied the match, Koridze soon covered herself in attacking glory in the following contest, where her marvelous Bishops easily compensated for a weakness on d4:

18. Qf5! threatens 19. Bxf6 Qxf6 20. Qxf6 Qxh5. The Bishop on h5 has no safe haven so Black was forced to play 19...g5 - but after 19. Bxg5 hxg5 20. Qxg5+ Kh7 21. Bc2+ Bg6 22. Bxg6+ fxg6 23. Qxg6+ Kh8 24. Re3 White already had three pawns for a piece and a gargantuan attack. In time pressure, Koridze took a pragmatic decision to pick up more material instead of playing for the mate and she converted a point in 56 moves.

Belenkaya responded to that disaster strongly in the sixth game. In a 4. Qxd4 Sicilian, she quickly grabbed a space advantage along with a strong Bishop pair. After Koridze blocked a passed b-pawn with a Queen instead of the Knight, it seemed that White will coast to a routine victory - until this happened:

40. Bg8 almost "plays itself" - but in the game, 40. Bc5?? Nxc5 dropped a piece. Despite Belenkaya's best efforts, Black preserved her g-pawn, patiently maneuvered to pick up all White pawns and won in 71 moves.

Game seven followed a similar pattern. WGM was better, then much better, then winning, then back to just better after needlessly dropping a pawn. Given the opportunity, White pushed her c-pawn up the board and secured a hard-fought draw:

With 18 seconds left, Black premoved 55...g3 and after 56. Rxf6+ a draw happened just four moves later. "Luckily" for her, everything draws here: 55...f5 56. Rg6 g3 57. Kd6 f4 58. Kd5 Kf2 59. Ke4 liquidates both pawns at the cost of a Rook.

Things finally turned around in the game eight. Koridze made a couple of opening mistakes, dropped a d-pawn for no compensation and soon had to part with a Knight to release the bind caused by the White pawn chain. By the move 43. White had a mate on board - and it all started with this:

Black thought that the d-pawn is doomed and played 14...Rfd8? - missing that 14...Nc5! allows her to either trade d6 for b3 or to simply preserve d6 after all.

The next game, Belenkaya has finally managed to win with her Queen's Gambit Accepted. By choosing 8. Ng5?, White went too far too early, soon lost a pawn and King safety with it. The ending was just as painful as the previous events of the game:

Two pawns down and gravely weakened on the Kingside, White is very much losing. But by picking 27. Qe2?? Bxe2 Koridze didn't help her cause...

The final game of a blitz portion was a massive disappointment for the Georgian lady. By move 18th, she has blundered a pawn and an Exchange. She'd manage to stage a bit of a fight back in the next few moves - but only to walk into this:

27...Qxb4?? 28. Rb5 Qa4 29. Ra1 and Black conceded, as her Queen is trapped.

The bullet segment of the match opened with... a misclick from Koridze, who played 1. d3 instead of her usual 1. d4. Clearly shaken by such misfortune, she'd drop a pawn, then a piece, then a game. Or so we thought...

With five seconds left to White's four, instead of delivering a mate in one (49...Qf4#), Black played 49...h4, stalemate!

Koridze's vastly superior speed shone through in the next three bullet games - all won by her on time. The two final positions she had with Black illustrate well what 1+0 time control is all about:

Game five saw Belenkaya blunder a Bishop and later, a full Queen in what looked like a drawish endgame. Encouraged by her winning streak, Koridze would offer Exchange sacrifices in the following two games, winning both of those in a sharp fashion. After that, Dina tried to return the favor by sacrificing a central pawn for few tempi in another Closed Sicilian - but Koridze calmly defended and brought the overall score to 13-6 in her favor:

61...Re1+ 62. Kd3 Re3+ and... White lost on time.

The ninth bullet game sort of explains Belenkaya's state of mind at this point:
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nc3 a6 4. e3 Nc6 5. Bxc4 b5 6. Bd5 Bb7

7. Qf3 Qd7 8. Qxf7+ Kd8 9. Qxf8+ Qe8 10. Qxg7 and White won in just 21 moves.

The dire consequences of a tilt continued. In game ten, the Russian WGM blundered an Exchange to a Knight fork. Game eleven followed, and this time, despite having a pawn in her pocket, she walked into a skewer and chose to part with a Queen instead of just losing another Exchange:

20...Qd4?? (20...Qe6 or 20...Qc5 should be okay) 21. Rd1 Ng4?? (21...Qxc4 22. Rxd8+ Bf8 is miserable but forced) 22. Rxd4 Bxd4 23. h3 and White won in 32 moves.

With a bullet adoption being a reality now, Koridze has sealed an entire match immediately afterwards - and once again, by flagging her more experienced opponent. Thirteenth game was the same story: Belenkaya played strongly and enjoyed good position right until her time ran out - once again showing how unforgiving 1+0 can be. In a call that ensued, the Russian admitted to be out of practice in no-increment bullet and conceded the match.

Congratulations to WFM Lile Koridze! 12.5 - 0.5 win in bullet and 17 - 6 overall victory is a convincing success against a formidable opponent.

Rewatch the match from WFM Koridze's perspective.
Rewatch the match from WGM Belenkaya's perspective.