Women's World Championship: Ju takes the lead...again

A clutch win with black

The competition for the World Championship between the defending champion Ju Wenjun and her challenger Aleksandra Goryachkina has been exciting and evenly matched. The players have traded blows: Ju Wenjun scored first, but then lost the lead and even fell behind. She faced down a difficult psychological situation with aplomb, first equalizing the match and today, reclaiming the lead with a win in the tenth game.

The World Champion is now back in the lead and Goryachkina has just two chances to balance the score. However, she will have black in the eleventh game.

The theoretical terrain of today's game was once again the Queen's Gambit Declined,  exchange variation with which, the challenger obtained a convincing victory in the eighth game.

Match standings

GM	Ju,W		2584	½	½	½	1	0	½	½	0	1	1	½	0	½	½	1	½	8.5
GM	Goryachkina,A		2578	½	½	½	0	1	½	½	1	0	0	½	1	½	½	0	½	7.5

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A World Champion's Repertoire against the Queen's Gambit Declined

This DVD offers a complete repertoire for handling this solid opening, often featuring a dynamic approach to pose the opponent more practical problems. Both of the main continuations 3...Nf6 and 3...Be7 are covered in two separate parts.

Today Ju Wenjun deviated from her approach in the eighth game and chose the Vaganian variation. In this line, Black allows her structure on the kingside to be weakened, but tries to maintain a defensible position. In fact, the players followed a game between Surya Ganguly and Erwin l'Ami that was played just yesterday in the Challengers group in Wijk aan Zee!

After the bishop has retreated to g6, white exchanges on f6 crippling the black pawns.

The style of play was dealt a major setback four years ago when Magnus Carlsen defeated Vladimir Kramnik with a new concept.

Kramnik played here 12...♞b6 and was worse after 13.♘g3 ♝b4+ 14.♔d1 ♞a4 15.♘gf5.

In the meantime, black's handling has improved with 12...f5, as played by Ju. After a few moves, a position emerged with a very unusual pawn structure.

This set the stage for the critical endgame phase. After the 25^th move the following situation arose:

Black played 25...♜a8, followed by 26.b5 c5.

Goryachkina starts 1.d4

As in the prior games, the two players fought intensely even in an endgame with limited material on the board, ultimately leading to the following crucial position.

Black is better, but it is not clear whether this is enough to win the game. Only after 52...♜a3+ did White play 53.♔b4? and started down the wrong path: 

53...♜b3+ 54.♔a4 ♚e4 55.♖h8 ♜b7 56.♖c8 ♚d3 57.h5 c3 58.h6 c2 59.♔a3 ♚d2 60.♖d8+ ♚xe3 61.♖c8 ♚d2 62.♖d8+ ♚c1 0-1

Instead, 53.♔b2 ♜b3+ (53...♜xe3 54.♖xf5+ ♚e4 55.♖xf6 ♜h3 =) 54.♔c2 ♚e4 55.♖h7 ♚xe3 56.♖c7 ♚d4 57.♖d7+ offered White a better chance.

All games and commentary of Game 10

Greatest Hits Vol. 1

Nigel Short takes us on an electrifying journey through a very rich chess career, which saw him beat no less than twelve world champions. His experience in tournaments and matches all over the world – Short has visited a total of 89 countries – can be seen in the narratives that precede the games which he annotates with humour and instructive insights.

Translation from German: Macauley Peterson

Links

• All stories on the Women's World Championship
• Official site
• Regulations