Women's World Championship: Tie-breaker needed

Tie-breaks will be needed to determine the next Women's World Champion. Antoaneta Stefanova won the fourth game to tie the score at 2-2 each. Anna Ushenina , needing just a draw to take the match, appeared to choke at this crucial stage. Her 21...Rc8, 22...Rc7 were just too slow and passive. White just got a winning position within a few moves. The end is quite interesting as after 33. Nxh6+ mate is unavoidable.

Tomorrow they will play two 25 minutes with 10 seconds increment games. If they are still tied then two 10 minutes and 10 seconds increment. Next comes blitz with 3 minutes and 10 seconds increment. If after all that the match is still not decided, an armageddon game will definitely decide the champion.

Women's World Championship: Anna Ushenina leads

Anna Ushenina won the third game of the Women's Championship against Bulgarian Stefanova to take a one game lead. The first two games were drawn. This gives Ushenina a 2.5-1.5 lead. As this is a four game match, Stefanova needs to win the next game to tie the match and go into the tie-breaks. Even a draw will give Anna Ushenina the title.

Ushenina's sharp tactics in the third game netted her material advantage. Black's pieces were badly placed and despite some a gallant effort from Black to complicate , white ended up with two rooks and a couple of passed pawns for three minor pieces, there was never any doubt as to the result.

I like to watch Anna Ushenina in the live videos. She has an expressive face and her various nose wrinkling , lips twitching and grimaces are part of the fun watching the match!

Acknowledgement from MCF

I have received acknowledgement from MCF Vice President, Haslindah Ruslan , that the matter I raised here will be discussed at the MCF council meeting scheduled for 2nd December, 2012.

I'll reserve further comment till we see what will be the results of this meeting.

Women's World Championship, Round 4 tie-breaks

It was a heartbreaking day for Chinese player Zhao Xue and French player Marie Sebag. They were both so close to qualifying for the semi-finals yesterday but ended up being eliminated today in the tie-breaks. Both lost their first game and had to go all out in the second.

Harika Donavalli managed to draw the second game to win the match 1.5-0.5 while Sebag even lost the second game to go 0-2 against Antoaneta Stefanova. So Harika  and Antoaneta are through to the final.

Huang Qian drew both games with Ju WenJun so they go into the ten minute (plus 10 seconds) tie-breaker. Ju Wenjun won 1.5-0.5 to eliminate Huang Qian.

Ju Wenjun, Harika Donavalli and Antoaneta Stefanova joins Anna Ushenina in the semi-finals.

Open Letter to MCF

The below letter has been sent by email to various members of the Malaysian Chess Federation. I may have missed some as I do not know all their email addresses. The letter is reproduced here.

___________________________________________________________________

Dear Members of the Malaysian Chess Federation,

 I refer to this blog site ( http://firstgm.blogspot.com/)  by an individual named Raymond Siew. This person who is a non-chess player is the father of chess player Mark Siew. On his blog he has made many personal attacks against me which are totally fabricated and un-supported by any facts. I have challenged him to provide proof for his wild accusations but he has ignored this. In any case,  I feel this is my personal battle and I will deal with it in my own way.

Women's World Championship, Round 4

This tournament has been quietly going on without much publicity but we are now at the quarter-final stage. Only one player is through to the semis and that is Anna Ushenina of Ukraine who beat Russia's Nadezha Kosintseva convincingly with one win and one draw.

Huang Qian had an extra pawn against compatriot Ju WenJun in the first game but could not convert. In the second and with the white pieces she surprisingly offered a draw quite early. So the two Chinese goes into the tie-breaks tomorrow.

There were some surprising turn of events in the other two matches. Both Marie Sebag and Chinese Zhao Xue will be very disappointed after throwing away their chances to win their matches.

French woman Marie Sebag had beaten Antoaneta Stefanova in the first game and in the second looked set to draw and win the match. The latter had to avoid three-fold repetition which would have eliminated her. But her king was left vulnerable in the centre. Sebag made some inaccurate moves and even got into a lost ending.

Stefanova - Shebag

Black can draw with  33... Rd7  since 34. Qg3 Bd2+ 35. Kd1 Qh1 wins for black. White can try 34. Qc8+ Kh7 but the white king is totally vulnerable in the centre. After 35. fxe3 Qh4+ black gets the draw she needs to advance to the next stage.

Instead black allowed the king to escape with 33....Bd2+ 34. Kd1 Rc8 35 Qb7 Bf4 36. Kc2 and white even won.


The first game between Zhao Xue and India's Harika Dronavalli was drawn. In the second, the Chinese had a winning position but time trouble crept in.

Zhao Xue-Harika Dronavalli

White has just played 60. Bh6 in a desperate attempt to create some threats. Black can now safely play 60...Ncxe4 keeping everything under control (61. Bf8 can be answered with 61...g5). Instead nerves starts to affect her.

60... Ng8!? 61. Bg5 Qc6 62. Nf3 Qxe4 63. Qd2 Qd3 64. Qa2 Qb3 65. Qd2 e4 66. Qd8




A last desperate move. 

66....exf3 ??

I was shocked that Zhao Xue played this quite quickly even though she had around 2 minutes on the clock. She had missed the perpetual!

67. Qc7+

You could see Zhao Xue pause after this move, realizing what she had done.

67. Qc7+

Kh8 68. Qe5+ Kh7 69. Qc7+ Kh8 70. Qe5+ Kh7 1/2-1/2


So tomorrow there will be three matches in the tie-breaks.