WWCC R05: Draw, Hou Yifan remains in the lead

The FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship Match between the current World Champion Hou Yifan of China and her challenger, Koneru Humpy of India, is being staged in the Triana International Hotel from November 14 to 30. The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. The winner of the ten-game match is the first player to reach 5.5 points or more. The prize fund is 200,000 Euro, with 60% going to the winner. The games start at 15:00h local time, which is also Central European Time = 17:00 Moscow, 19:30 New Delhi, 22:00h Beijing and 09:00 New York. You can find the starting time for other locations here.

Game five

In the fifth game of the match World Champion Hou Yifan had the white pieces, as in the previous game. The players continued with the same line they already played in the fourth game. White deviated first, choosing 12.cxd4 (in the previous game Hou Yifan had preferred 12.Nb3). “White did not manage to get any advantage today”, said the Chinese at the post-game press conference, “the game was equal and normal. I played by my home preparation until around the 16th move”. Humpy Koneru's comment on the game: “I did not expect her to play the variation with the queen exchange. I just kept on playing normally. I think we did not play anything new in this line”.

A quick prayer before the start of the game? Well, it did not help too much today...

The start of the Open Ruy Lopez they had already tried in the previous game

What does Hou Yifan keep in the little silver pot she always brings to her games? In an extraordinary feat of investigative journalism Frederic Friedel was able to solve the mystery: it is longans, wolfberries (or medlar) and raisins, all soaking in tea. He even tried some himself, saying the taste was "interesting". Unfortunately these condiments had no effect on his rather dismal playing strength.

Score

Remaining schedule

Photos and news from Tirana by WGMs Anastasiya Karlovich
and Anna Burtasova, with kind permission of FIDE

Links Official tournament site All ChessBase reports All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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