11/23/2018 – The champion kept her title. Ju Wenjun defeated Kateryna Lagno 3:1 in the tiebreaks of the 2018 Women's World Championship final match by winning both 10+10 games after drawing the first two rapid encounters. This was the first time since 2000 that a player defended her title in a knockout tournament. With another championship cycle over — the second one this year — the next one is expected to include a Candidates Tournament. | Photos: Official site
Chess Festival Prague 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Giri, Gurel, Navara and others. ‘Special’: 27 highly entertaining miniatures. Opening videos by Werle, King and Ris. 10 opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more. ChessBase Magazine offers first-class training material for club players and professionals! World-class players analyse their brilliant games and explain the ideas behind the moves. Opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in tactics, strategy and endgames show you the tricks and techniques you need to be a successful tournament player! Available as a direct download (incl. booklet as pdf file) or booklet with download key by post. Included in delivery: ChessBase Magazine #225 as “ChessBase Book” for iPad, tablet, Mac etc.!
Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Dominate the Open Catalan: Unlock key strategies and dynamic plans for a lifetime repertoire!
€49.90
"My lucky place"
Khanty-Mansiysk is a well-known place for anyone who has followed chess in the last ten years or so. For Ju Wenjun, however, this is more than simply a nice "chess city". During the press conference that followed her victory over Lagno, she called the Russian city her "lucky place", as she had qualified to face Tan Zhongyi in the previous World Championship match after winning the final stage of the 2015-16 Grand Prix precisely in that Siberian location.
The second highest rated woman player in the world achieved a historic feat during the last three weeks, as she became the first player since Xie Jun in 2000 to defend her title in the ever-gruelling knockout format. She played 18 games and finished with 9 wins, 8 draws and a single loss. She arrived as the favourite by rating and ratified her status as the strongest active woman player in the world — given the fact that Hou Yifan has not been playing often lately, after she began her studies in Oxford.
Ju Wenjun also revealed that she will take some time to rest from chess, as she is quite tired after the long tournament. Her amazing run in Khanty-Mansiysk netted her 7.4 rating points — she has now a 2575 rating, 29 points shy from her highest-ever mark of 2604.
In computer chess there is no getting past Komodo, a two-time ICGA Computer World Chess Champion. Find out how Komodo can take your game to the next level!
Cold weather does not seem to affect Ju Wenjun negatively
Opposite-coloured bishops
The defending champion began the tiebreaks with the white pieces and, as she would keep doing throughout the day, chose a solid system from the get go. Lagno responded accordingly and, after the queens were exchanged on move 36, the players delved into an opposite-coloured bishops endgame with rooks and seven pawns per side on the board. A long manoeuvring battle followed, but none of the contenders created enough imbalances and the draw was signed on move 68.
A similar story took place during game two. In that encounter, in fact, the players reached an endgame with, again, opposite-coloured bishops by move 35. The absence of rooks and the fact that there were four — and not seven — pawns per side sped up the conclusion: the game was drawn after 51 moves.
Three long weeks of chess are about to finish
The regulations stipulated that the players now had to accelerate the pace to a 10+10 time control. Lagno started with White this time. It looked like the players were following a well-defined script: a quiet game did not take long to reach an endgame. However, just when the commentators from the official site — Alexander Morozevich and Alexandra Kosteniuk — were joking about the fact that they were about to go into yet another opposite-coloured bishops position, a critical decision determined the outcome of the match:
In chess, the technique of exchanging pieces is the ultimate knowledge. The biggest specialists of this were such greats as Akiba Rubinstein and Vasily Smyslov. The exchange bishop for knight is the most common case. The technique of exploiting the individual power of these pieces is completely different.
Lagno vs. Ju Wenjun - Tiebreak game #3
Position after 22...Bd4
Lagno could have calmly captured the knight with 23.Bxb2, reaching the aforementioned drawish endgame, but played 23.Bf1 instead. Kosteniuk and Morozevich quickly agreed that the only explanation was that Kateryna completely missed 23...Nd1. White went on to grab the f2-pawn and, although the position was not completely lost, Lagno could not recover and ended up giving up the point after 49 moves.
Nerves...
Deep focus
Now the Russian contender was in a must-win situation while fighting for her first World Championship title — not a good place to be, especially against such a cold-blooded opponent.
Ju Wenjun followed a simple strategy with the white pieces: to do nothing and wait for her opponent to falter. Nerves did not seem to play a big role for Ju, who remained still and exchanged as many pieces as she could. Eventually, the players arrived in a position with queens, knights and pawns, and it was hard to imagine for Lagno to find a way to break through. Nevertheless, the manoeuvring battle was abruptly interrupted when Kateryna suffered a mental lapse, probably caused by extreme tiredness:
On this DVD GM Nick Pert shows you typical mistakes by 1800-200 players. Themes as when to exchange pieces, how to convert an advantage, passive pieces, anticipating your opponents plan, openings and pawn structure are shown throughout the DVD.
Ju Wenjun vs. Lagno - Tiebreak game #4
Position after 34.Nh2
The Russian player hung her queen with 34...Qg6?. Ju Wenjun immediately took the gift and the match was over.
Lagno, who arrived as the third rating favourite, had a phenomenal tournament. She even had the upper hand at the start of the classical phase of the final match, but could not finish off her opponent when she had the chance. The consolation prize — and a big one at that — is that she qualified to the 2019 Women's Candidates Tournament, together with Alexandra Kosteniuk and Mariya Muzychuk.
It was a fine result for Kateryna Lagno
On a final note, Arkady Dvorkovich — who flew in for the tiebreaks — talked about the upcoming cycle in the post-game press conference. He announced that the winner of the Candidates will play Ju Wenjun in a match for the crown. Then, he also explained that the cycle that will follow that match will include, much like in the absolute cycle, a Grand Prix series, a World Cup and will award places in the Candidates based on ratings.
Select an item from the playlist to replay commentary from prior rounds
Correction: Ju becomes the first player since Xie Jun in 2000 to defend her title in the knockout format. Xie defeated Alisa Galliamova in a match in 1999.
Antonio PereiraAntonio is a freelance writer and a philologist. He is mainly interested in the links between chess and culture, primarily literature. In chess games, he skews towards endgames and positional play.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
2025 European Championship with a German double victory and analyses by Bluebaum, Svane, Rodshtein, Yuffa, Navara and many more. Opening videos by Engel, King and Marin. Training sections “The Fortress”, “The Trap” and “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" etc.
2nd Move Anti-Sicilian Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 12090 games from Mega 2025 or the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 874 are annotated.
€9.90
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.