Women’s Candidates: Goryachkina safely keeps the balance

Chess history in the making

The Ruy Lopez and the Queen’s Gambit are considered the openings of the world champions, since almost all world champions often employed these classical systems. Tan Zhongyi and Aleksandra Goryachkina followed in the footsteps of the best players in chess history and played the Queen’s Gambit twice in the first two games. 

A Complete Black Repertoire against 1.d4

Besides covering all the critical lines after 1.d4 & 2.c4, popular systems such as the Trompovsky, London/Jobava System, Torre Attack, Colle System and Veresov are dealt with as well.

In the first game, Tan gained an advantage with Black, but it was not enough for her to get ahead on the scoreboard. In the second game, with the colours reversed, another Queen’s Gambit Declined appeared on the board.

Goryachkina opted for the Slav as a defence, but after the exchange on d5, the typical Carlsbad structure arose through a different move order.

With 11...Bd6, combined with a pawn sacrifice played once before in the game Steiner vs. Denker from 1946, Goryachkina deviated from the usual paths. Tan rejected the pawn sacrifice, but did not gain any advantage afterwards.

Tan Zhongyi | Photo: Timur Sattarov/ FIDE

Thursday is a rest day. The match continues on Friday and Saturday with games three and four. In the event of a tie, there will be a playoff on Sunday.

All games - Pool B

Master Class Vol.6: Anatoly Karpov

On this DVD a team of experts looks closely at the secrets of Karpov's games. In more than 7 hours of video, the authors examine four essential aspects of Karpov's superb play.

Links

• FIDE’s official website
• Lei Tingjie advances to Women’s Candidates final
• All ChessBase reports on the 2019 Women’s Candidates
• All ChessBase reports on the 2020 Women’s World Championship match