Goryachkina, a chess player from Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, spoke about her struggle for the World Cup and plans for the future

On August 25, Yamal chess player Alexandra Goryachkina gave a press conference at the Polar Chess School of Anatoly Karpov. She told how she managed to win the World Cup, how she prepared for the decisive battle, and what she intends to do in the near future. Details are in our material.

“The World Cup is a knockout tournament, there is no easy victory here. You always play to the end, you play right through, but no one wants to fly out. Before I watched the games, I thought that I played better and had more control over the situation. But, looking, I realized that it was a struggle of nerves. The final was hard against the Bulgarian chess player, she played very well, was the opening of the tournament and created good problems in the final. Previously, I played a classical game with her and an online game at the online Olympiad, it seemed to me that I was playing stronger, but she has become very stronger lately, ”said Alexandra Goryachkina.

The second game of the World Cup final, which eventually ended in a draw, was quite tense – the Yamal chess player admitted that her opponent seriously outplayed her, but after adding time, she began to play uncertainly. Goryachkina felt this and began to actively resist, forcing Nurgyul Salimova to defend herself at the end of the game. Alexandra Goryachkina said that her opponent was lucky that she did not lose.

When asked about how she prepared for the decisive fight, the athlete from the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District answered that she had two days off, she tried to both prepare and rest – to restore her strength. Rest for a girl is a walk, a dream, a quiet pastime.

“As a child, I trained for six hours every day, now it happens that I sit all day long, and sometimes I don’t at all. In the final tie-break at the World Cup, I didn’t feel very well, so I was just glad that the tournament was over. At the moment, this is not my biggest victory, but if I had won such a tournament five years ago, I would have been a world champion. During the tournament I do not go online and do not read anything, I am in a vacuum, but when I come home I feel the support of the Yamal people. By the way, in Azerbaijan, where the World Cup was held, I was very well supported, the locals cheered for me, I did not expect,” said Goryachkina.

She added that before the World Chess Cup final she had been playing for more than two weeks and was tired, so she made the final moves almost without emotion. A girl usually enters a tournament with the thought “come what may”.

“Now I am urgently trying to get a visa to England, because I have already agreed to the tournament. But a visa is a complicated matter, I’m not sure that I will have time to get it. At the end of the year there will be world championships in rapid chess and blitz. In September, I will not participate in the superfinal of the Russian Championship – perhaps I am too tired, and these are intense competitions. During the tournament, my father helped me, but I did a lot of chess work myself. I am flattered that world grandmasters celebrate my strong game, ”said the Yamal athlete.

Recall that in the final of the World Chess Cup Alexandra Goryachkina fought for victory with Nurgyul Salimova from Bulgaria. First And second the games ended in a draw, and the fate of the World Cup was determined by a tie-break in which Goryachkina won.