Lichess is offering a dwell stream for on daily basis of the Ladies’s World Championship. Ensure that to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube channels for dwell stream protection with our hosts GM Toms Kantāns and WIM Jesse February, joined by a rotating panel of friends. Sport 9 begins at 07:00 UTC on Wednesday, April sixteenth.
Moreover, we’ll cowl each sport in our weblog, with annotations by WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea for video games 1-6 and WGM Petra Papp for video games 7-12.
The annotations by WGM Petra Papp for Sport 8 might be discovered right here.
Lichess has additionally run participant profiles on GM Ju Wenjun and GM Tan Zhongyi, and revealed a Match Preview forward of the match.
Schedule
Movies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o2J5wMTYHs
Annotations by WGM Petra Papp
https://lichess.org/examine/5bQdsZ7u/bk1WsNet#0
Match Rating
Recap
For the primary time within the match, GM Tan Zhongyi eschewed her English Opening in favor of 1. e4. Dealing with a three-game deficit and together with her again in opposition to the wall, Tan’s extra dynamic selection made quite a lot of sense. Tan began off with the Vienna Sport, however the place shortly transposed right into a line that would come up out of the Italian Sport — extra exactly, the 4 Knights Sport.
https://lichess.org/examine/embed/tODpP4SE/0tme9iKc#10
The handshake
Picture: Anna Shtourman / FIDE
GM Ju Wenjun then saddled White with doubled c-pawns, shedding the bishop pair within the course of, which she shortly recovered by going Na5-Nxb3.
https://lichess.org/examine/embed/tODpP4SE/0tme9iKc#23
Ju may be very near defending her fifth Ladies’s World Championship title.
Picture: Anna Shtourman / FIDE
The subsequent few strikes noticed some maneuvering play which didn’t change the analysis of the place considerably. Tan introduced her main items to the d- and e-files, whereas Ju relocated her knight and made plans to develop her light-squared bishop by additionally gaining house on the queenside.
https://lichess.org/examine/embed/tODpP4SE/0tme9iKc#34
Tan arrives to the taking part in corridor.
Picture: Anna Shtourman / FIDE
As Tan pushed her b-pawn with 18. b4 and maneuvered her knight to the queenside, Ju’s place began wanting significantly better because the f5 pawn break was looming and appeared fairly harmful.
https://lichess.org/examine/embed/tODpP4SE/0tme9iKc#42
The Vienna Sport!
Picture: Anna Shtourman / FIDE
After some extra logical creating strikes, f5 got here like a whirlwind and threatened not simply to resolve Black’s issues within the place, but additionally create ones for White.
https://lichess.org/examine/embed/tODpP4SE/0tme9iKc#48
A distinct perspective
Picture: Anna Shtourman / FIDE
Sadly for Tan, she didn’t correctly react to 24…f5 with 25. exf5, as an alternative selecting a worse choice, 25. Qd4. With 28. c4?, Tan missed Ju’s highly effective retort, 28…e3!, attacking White’s weak c2 pawn.
https://lichess.org/examine/embed/tODpP4SE/0tme9iKc#56
Tan confronted very exact play from Ju right now.
Picture: Anna Shtourman / FIDE
From that time ahead, Tan maybe may have defended higher, however her place didn’t look nice in any respect. Her final probability to pose Ju extra issues was on transfer 36, when she may have declined the queen commerce with 36. Ne7 and created extra sensible issues for Ju to resolve. With Ju’s c-pawn operating down the board, 36. Ne7 would have in all probability led to a piece-down endgame the place Tan had probabilities to carry as a consequence of her energetic queen. As a substitute, she went for the queen commerce, whereafter Ju transformed flawlessly within the ensuing bishop vs. knight endgame.
https://lichess.org/examine/embed/tODpP4SE/0tme9iKc#70
Ju wants only one draw out of the remaining 4 video games to defend her title.
Picture: Anna Shtourman / FIDE
