GM Hou Yifan narrowly defeated GM Valentina Gunina in the semifinals of the FIDE Chess.com 2022 Women’s Speed Chess Championship. The top-rated female player reached the final again and will defend her WSCC-2021 title against Kateryna Lagno.

It all started as one-way traffic with Gunina stringing six victories and taking the first segment, 6.5-1.5, but Hou staged an impressive comeback in the 3+1 stage (6.5-2.5) and nearly levelled the score.

It all came down to a tense 1+1 showdown in which Hou Yifan finally grabbed the lead. Trailing by one point with just about three minutes left on the match clock, Valentina pushed hard with white pieces but made a terrible blunder, and it was all over.

“To be honest, I really had no idea what was going on in the match because I had a very poor start. I missed a couple of very good positions, so I thought: it’s not a match. It’s Valentina’s day. I tried to fight back in the segment of 3+1 while I just decided to play something random, and somehow it worked… I felt like I was very lucky to win a match that way. It shouldn’t be like this,” said Hou Yifan in a short interview after the match.

The FIDE Chess.com 2022 Women’s Speed Chess Championship is an online event where titled women players will play a series of blitz and bullet matches for a share of the $70,000 prize fund.

To follow the FIDE Chess.com Women’s Speed Chess Championship, watch a live broadcast of the event with expert commentary on Chess.com/TV and Chess.com Twitch Channel. 

More info and a full schedule of the FIDE Chess.com Women’s Speed Chess Championship can be found here.