When Divya trapped her opponent's Queen! | Divya vs Gulrukh | Women's Chess Olympiad

Welcome everyone to the 9th round of the FIDE Chess Olympiad 2026. We see the Indian women's team entering in and the coach of the Indian team, Grandmaster Swayams Mishra, has some words of encouragement for Divya Deshmukh before the game. Divya is playing Tokhirjanova Gulrukbegim and she has the black pieces. Let's look at the initial moves. Pawn to e4 by Gulruk Begim. Divya goes for the Caro-Kann. Knight to f3, d5, and then the trendy line with d3. Divya plays her queen to c7 in order to push the pawn to e5. Pawn takes pawn, pawn takes pawn, and c4 immediately striking the center. Knight comes out to f6, knight to c3. And now she takes on c4, dc4, and a6. Gulruk Begim plays her pawn to g3, and this is the live board position that we have. Let's see what Divya plays next. The position is very open, an important move here to be played by black. Black plays pawn to e5, opening up the bishop. Planning to bring the knight in the center. The bishop could come out as well. Bishop comes to g2. Now this is a pawn sack. You take on c4, I take on e5. So that shouldn't work. Bishop to b4 played by Divya immediately, pinning the knight on c3. Queen to b3 attacking the bishop. And the bishop goes back to d6. Now the bishop protects the pawn, but Gulruk Begim already is seriously better because Divya kind of, you know, wasted a move. Bishop b4, bishop d6. White quickly castles, black castles as well, and I think a good move is rook a to c1. She plays knight to d2, and one of her ideas is knight e4. h6 played, and Gulruk Begim brings her bishop back to e3. We have bishop to c5 offering a trade. I think the best move is to jump with the knight to d5. She goes knight a4 attacking the bishop. And now Divya is doing very well. Bishop takes e3, she's finally kind of equalized the position. Queen e3, white still slightly better because look at the active pieces. Rook to b8, and now c5, clamping down on the position and maybe wanting to get the knight in. Divya goes Queen a5, attacking the knight. If the knight moves, c5 pawn falls. So pawn to b3 played, and now Knight g4. Divya starting to play energetic chess. Queen to d3, but doesn't that drop the pawn here? She takes on c5, and Gulruk Begim has a very interesting idea here. She goes queen d6. Now the rook is hanging and the knight is hanging. The only move here is very cool bishop e6, because if you take on c5, which she does, knight takes c5. By the way, if queen takes c5, d2 is hanging. So knight takes on c5, rook ad8, and queen e7. So you have no time to take on d2 because e6 is hanging. Divya finds Rook fe8 as well. Here there is a crazy line— knight takes, rook takes, knight c4, queen moves, and knight takes d8 with a very interesting position. But instead, Gulruk Begim takes on b7 here. Knight takes on b7, and Divya simply chops off the knight. Now if you were to take knight takes d8, the queen is hanging. So you need to first save the queen. Queen a3 played, and rook comes to d4. The knight should come back quickly, but instead she goes h3, allowing a very powerful move, knight e3, fe, queen e3 check. That's a very complicated kind of a line. Bishop d5 with rook d2 coming in. Like, for example, if you take here, I take back, and there's just no way to stop rook d2. Divya misses it and comes back Knight f6. Gulruk Begim is back in the game. Queen a5 is the best move. Thinking here, and she goes and takes the pawn. This is not the best move because now e4, e3 is a threat. Divya pushes forward e4, good move. Rook e1 played in order to stop e3, but it's a mistake because bishop comes to d5 threatening e3 with the rook. And look at Gulrukpey game there. She knows she could be in trouble if Divya finds bishop to d5. And Divya plays it. Great move. e3 is a threat, so she physically stops it with the rook. Rook to e3. But here's the point— queen b4 traps the knight. If knight a5, there is rook a8. If knight d6, there's still rook a8. Queen a7 played. Very smart move. Rook d2. Because if you played bishop b7, a3, and the queen is overloaded. So that's the reason why she plays rook d2, knight to a5, and Divya gets her rook to a8. And Gulruk Begim is simply losing a piece. a3, queen takes a5, and that was a big miss there by Begim. She is lost. She's a piece down. She has 2 queenside pawns. But I think they are not going to be very helpful.

b4.

Vivian brings her rook back. The first order of play is to try and control these 2 pawns. So knight d7, she's bringing her knight in. Pawn to a4. Rook to d4 and bishop to b5. She gets her knight to b6, and now a5 played. But rook takes b4, you can't take the knight because rook on a1 is hanging. So one pawn bites the dust. Bishop f1. And knight to c4. I think one of the reasons why Gulruk Begim is still playing this position is because, you know, it's a team tournament. You don't want to resign. Rook takes a5, and she takes on a5. Notice if you play here, I have bishop takes c4, and after rook takes a5, Rook b1, which was a nice little trap. So rook takes a5, rook takes, knight takes, rook to c5, double attack. But bishop c4 played. Bishop to g2 and knight b3 check. King goes to h7. She takes on e4 with a check. G6, and now it's a clean piece up. I don't see any compensation here, and Gulruk Begim is going to try and make Divya prove her extra piece. And I think for all the beginners who are watching this. It's a good lesson on how to convert extra material. First, you try to locate— first, you try to centralize your pieces, you know, get them to good squares. Like, for example, you brought your king out, bishop on e6, knight c5, rook b4. Now knight to e4. Now you locate a weakness in the position, that's the f2 pawn, and you try to attack it. Knight to f6, rook d2. And Divya is like, you know, I used to do this when I was in Interschool tournaments that my opponent would continue playing. Rook e2, bishop to d5, and rook to e5 played. She plays bishop to c6, so if you take, I take back with the bishop. But trades happen. Rooks are also off the board. Divya takes here, and now one of the most important things is to get your king into the game. I think that would be a very important thing. But Divya goes bishop c4, king g3. Bd5, offering a trade. You have to avoid it. As many pieces get traded, the chances of black increase. So Bc6, and now one plan can be g5, Nd5, Nf4. So she plays h4, and Divya goes g5. Takes, takes back, and bishop to f1. You can see Divya's expressions are like, okay. Knight to d5. But there's also something to be said about Gulruk Begim's strategy, because the thing is, in team tournaments, whenever a player is on the board and still playing, the— your teammates feel like, okay, the game is going on. Maybe they can't see the position, maybe they are just noticing Gulruk Begim fighting. They are happy with it that she's still there. Bf1. You could see how the knight got itself a very good square on f4. Ke3, Ke5, Bb5, f6, putting everything on dark squares. And I think the next plan is Knight g6 to h4 and just attack this pawn. It's always the same in chess— locate a weakness, gang up on it.

Bishop e2.

And I think Divya has found a way to win, which is to sacrifice on f3 both her pieces and then win the king and pawn endgame. So you can take on f3, take on f3, take on f3, king f3, king d4, king g3, king e4, and then you will win the g4 pawn and black will have 2 extra pawns. So takes, take. Well, what I liked is the, the middle game portion where You know, opening went really Gulruk Begim's way. She got a huge advantage, and from there, the way she landed up in this position, she would be quite unhappy with herself the way she reached here. King f2, King e4, King to g3. King comes up to e3 and king g2. The game is over with king f4. g pawn is hanging. If you go king h3, I have king f3. Gulruk Begim does play king h3. King comes to f3 and it's time to resign. She does resign. Divya Deshmukh wins. And with this, India beats Uzbekistan 3-1 and also keep their chances alive for a gold medal. How? China is 2 points ahead, and in the next round they will play Chinese team. And if India manages to win, then this would be a huge victory and India could get the gold medal. So everything to play for in the 10th round. But for now, I hope you enjoyed this game. Great play by Divya Deshmukh being alert. Or trapping the knight on b7 with queen b4 move, and also these e4, e3 tricks. This is Sagar Shah signing off. Bye-bye.

Thank you. You are my role model. Bishop d5, Queen b4 was amazing fight.

You won your game. Congratulations, dear. Kom chen. Thank you. If you want to go here. You're at season all the way. That's morning. Yes.

चैट को पूछ लो तुम्हारे। तू एच थ्रीला नाइंटी थ्री बगितला होता है? कार इजेक्ट के लिए? हाँ, नाइंटी थ्री विनिंग होता है, थोड़ा सा कॉम्प्लिकेटेड होता है अंदर पर सर्जरी सर्जरी but later you played amazing चल तो इसलिए वो साथ में लाना पड़ेगा इधर आपको आंसर मिलने के लिए नहीं ये उसने खेला अच्छा ना move अच्छा था thank you दिव्या congratulations thank you अमृतदास question पूछ मेरे को बोला मैं तेरे को तू मराठी मराठी बोला करके मैं मराठी अब उसने क्या बोला वो अभी तू हाँ वो इतना समझ गया कि जब लेकिन आपका कैमरा टेढ़ा है हमलोग का हाँ समझ गई वो अभी वो कर देंगे एंड में एडिट में क्या हो जाएगा अभी