Humpy Lets Tan Zhongyi Escape; Lagno Leads Monaco Grand Prix
GM Kateryna Lagno continues to lead the 2025 Monaco FIDE Women's Grand Prix before the rest day after all games were drawn in round five. GM Koneru Humpy let a big chance slip in a long game against GM Tan Zhongyi, while GM Aleksandra Goryachkina could also have hoped for more when she made a 33-move draw by repetition against GM Harika Dronavalli.
Round six starts on Monday, February 24, at 3 a.m. ET / 15:00 CET / 1:30 p.m. IST.
Monaco FIDE Women's Grand Prix Round 5 Results
Monaco FIDE Women's Grand Prix Standings After Round 5
The final round before a rest day often sees the participants playing more conservatively than usual, with tiredness creeping in and no one wanting the negative emotions of a loss to deal with on their free day.
IM Sara Khadem went for a well-known Queen's Gambit Declined line where Black accepts a ruined pawn structure in exchange for strong drawish tendencies. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk made no headway, and a draw was reached in 27 moves and around two hours of play.
Leader Lagno grabbed two pawns against IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul on the black side of a Caro-Kann, before her opponent was a pawn up by the end of the game, but the balance was never seriously upset at any moment.
GM Elisabeth Paehtz couldn't be accused of playing for a draw when she went for GM Bobby Fischer's favorite 6.Bc4 Najdorf Sicilian and pushed 7.f4 a move later. It seemed to work perfectly as she gained a big space advantage and positional domination, but after two inaccuracies IM Bibisara Assaubayeva had suddenly equalized fully.
Goryachkina signaled her willingness to take a draw by playing the super-solid Berlin Defense against Harika, and she did make a draw, though at the end it seems Black could have hoped for more.
The closest we came to a decisive result, however, was in the clash between Tan and Humpy. The Indian star would have been winning if she'd found 27...g6! but revealed afterward that she'd missed a line involving a temporary piece sacrifice.
Tan continues to look rusty just over a month before she begins a world championship match against GM Ju Wenjun, but after 27...Ng4?! in the game she was the player who was pressing, with Humpy admitting, "I felt I was in trouble." In the end both players handled the final stages well as we got a 69-move draw.
Sunday is a rest day before the second half of the event begins on Monday with the heavyweight clashes Goryachkina-Humpy and Lagno-Kosteniuk.
Round 6 Pairings
How to watch?
You can watch the broadcast on FIDE's YouTube channel. The games can also be checked out on our dedicated 2025 Monaco FIDE Women's Grand Prix events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by IM Almira Skripchenko and GM Alojzije Jankovic.
The 2025 Monaco FIDE Women's Grand Prix is the third of six legs of the 2024-2025 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The 10-player round-robin runs February 18-27 in Monaco. Players have 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move. The top prize is €18,000 (~$20,000), with players also earning Grand Prix points. Each of the 20+ players competes in three events; the top two qualify for the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament that decides the World Championship challenger.
Previous Coverage:
- Round 4: Spectacular Win Gives Lagno Sole Lead
- Round 3: Kosteniuk Beats Top Seed Tan Zhongyi
- Round 2: Khadem Pounces On Blunder To Beat Harika
- Round 1: Humpy, Lagno Beat Compatriots As Monaco Grand Prix Begins
- Goryachkina Wins Shymkent FIDE Women's Grand Prix
- Kashlinskaya Wins Tbilisi Grand Prix, Earns 2nd GM Norm
- FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2024-2025: All The Info
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
