Women’s number-one Hou Yifan is through to the final of the the 2025 Women’s Speed Chess Championship after beating GM Kateryna Lagno 12.5-8.5. Hou powered into a three-point lead after the five-minute section but then was caught as Lagno hit back to win the first three games of the three-minute section. Lagno was close to winning the next game as well, but Hou turned it around and went on a streak of six wins in seven games to wrap up a deserved match victory.
The second Semifinal will be on Thursday, August 21 at 8:30 a.m. ET / 14:30 CEST / 6 p.m. IST between Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun and IM Polina Shuvalova.
Women’s Speed Chess Championship Bracket
Hou won the first two sections and only allowed Lagno to hit back in bullet when it was too late to matter for the match outcome.
5+1: Hou 5-2 Lagno
As we reach the Semifinals of the Women’s Speed Chess Championship the time allocated for matches has grown, with 45/30/15 minutes for each segment changing to 75/50/25.
That gives the players longer to test each other out, and we got a cagey start to the match with two draws. In the second, Hou had winning chances but admitted she was struggling with time management and could easily have lost on time.
She did break through in game three, however, finishing with 30.Rf8+!, winning the black queen.
Both players are previous Women’s Speed Chess Champions, however, and it was clear we’d have a fighting match when Lagno struck back in the next game. 24…Rd8? was a rare outright blunder by Hou, allowing a winning blow.
Hou later said of the match:
She had a pretty good start and the critical moments are maybe the second half of the 5+1, where I managed to win a couple of games, and that gives a player a better mindset when you’re playing a match.
In fact Hou shrugged off that tough loss to win the next three games. The first saw a smooth conversion in a rook endgame despite a dangerous situation on the clock, while in the second Lagno went for a tempting but flawed sacrifice—if she’d swapped the move-order it was working in White’s favor!
In all the white games until she’d clinched the match Hou played 1.e4 and went for the Ruy Lopez, and her win in the final five-minute game was perhaps her best, featuring some fine moments.
That’s our Game of the Day, which has been analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao below.
3+1: Hou 4-3 Lagno
Lagno trailed by three points as the three-minute section began, but this would be the beginning of a comeback. Hou noted that time hadn’t been her only problem in the match, as she’d also had trouble in the openings. She commented:
I still remember clearly one of the games where she had very good preparation in this Bc4, and then some e5, some sacrifice. I felt that should be some theory, but I just forgot…
13.Bxe6! had indeed been seen in around 20 games.
By the time Hou replied with 13…0-0-0!? she was down to 38 seconds to her opponent’s two minutes and 41 seconds. It’s credit to Hou that she almost survived, but playing on one second eventually took its toll!
The clock also made all the difference in the next game, where Hou gained an advantage by the end but lost on time, before in the third three-minute game Lagno again emerged victorious, this time in wild complications. The score was level again!
“A few games I was very lucky, I just tried to survive somehow, especially with the black pieces,” said Hou, and specifically she was referring to the game that followed Lagno’s three-game winning streak. By move 27, Hou had a bad position and was down to 36 seconds, while her opponent had a full minute more. A fourth win in a row looked set to give Lagno the lead for the first time in the match, but one slip and Hou suddenly found another gear, playing brilliantly to turn things around.
A powerful win to regain the lead just when Hou Yifan looked on the verge of losing a 4th game in a row! https://t.co/Z0vWW8OI96 pic.twitter.com/QkZ17nL8TE
— chess24 (@chess24com) August 20, 2025
The next game was a time-scramble thriller where Hou emerged on top, then she won again in a game where she tortured Lagno with her knights, and the last three-minute game was the former Women’s World Champion’s smoothest win yet. From losing three-in-a-row she’d turned it around to win four-in-a-row and take a four-point lead into the bullet section.
1+1: Hou 3.5-3.5 Lagno
Although Lagno had 25 minutes to try and hit back again, it was clear that she would need to win early on in the one-minute section to have a chance. She was held to a draw in the first game, however, and then in the second a winning advantage suddenly vanished, before Hou landed a heavy blow to win the game and take a five-point lead.
Hou Yifan turns things around to win the 2nd 1-minute game and take a huge 5-point lead! https://t.co/9fJAxBDCpL#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/nrbfLkgBwO
— chess24 (@chess24com) August 20, 2025
Any comeback now was verging on the mathematically impossible, and the chance had certainly gone when Hou won the next game as well, after Lagno had missed some chances to fork pieces and pick up a win.
With the match decided, Hou could afford to switch her openings, though it wasn’t a wild success. After playing 1.d4 Hou blundered into mate-in-two on move 15…
Hou Yifan switched from 1.e4 to 1.d4 in Game 19 of the match… and blundered into mate-in-2, but it’s too late for Kateryna Lagno! https://t.co/0BPOYMyrFA#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/o8GI5zlo81
— chess24 (@chess24com) August 20, 2025
…while 1.c4 in the next white game saw Hou blunder a full piece on move 13.
That only made the final score a little more respectable, however, and earned Lagno some more dollars. Hou earned $4,000 and $2,381 by win percentage for $6,381 total, while Lagno bowed out of the competition with an additional $1,619 by win percentage.
Hou summed up with, “I feel like the match today somehow is better compared to my previous match, which contained a lot of ups and downs.” She added on that dramatic quarterfinal win over GM Divya Deshmukh:
That was very exciting, and I should also take this chance to congratulate Divya for winning the World Cup and she also had a great performance in our match. I felt like anyone can win in that match. I was just very lucky…
Hou now goes forward to Friday’s final as she bids to win the title she previously won in 2023. She may face the current Women’s World Champion and defending Women’s Speed Chess Champion Ju, but Shuvalova will have something to say about that! The second semifinal is on Thursday, August 21.
Don’t miss it!
The 2025 Women’s Speed Chess Championship, which takes place August 4-22, is a Chess.com event where some of the strongest female chess players in the world battle for a $75,000 prize fund. The main event sees 16 players compete in a single-elimination bracket in matches played at 5+1, 3+1, and 1+1 time controls.
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