 and welcome to the final round of the Jib Chess Battle of the Sex is 2022. It all comes down to this, the round today and it's been a roller coaster tournament, so many ups, so many downs, drama, excitement, fascinating games, creativity, everything you could have wanted in a tournament but ultimately it is all about today and who is going to win. Is it going to be the men's team? Is it going to be the women's team? The men leading by three points, right? Yeah. Three points. So what that means is that the story is simple. The women need to get at least six and a half points today out of ten, so that's a plus three score. If they get six and a half, they take it to a tie break. If they get more than six and a half, they win and if they get less than six and a half, they lose. Right, as simple as that. Yeah, so and it's a big ask because today, of course, the men all have got the white pieces, which means that all the women are playing with black and they need to find a way to keep the games going and to keep the dream alive. Of course, why is it so important? Well, number one, pride and honor. That's of course, and bragging right. That's number one. Of course, the concept of this tournament is battle of sex is men against women to very evenly matched teams pitted against each other. So that's number one. But of course, number two is they're playing for a lot of money. In fact, as we spoke on stream yesterday, Rena, none of the men have ever won the money they could win in this tournament. It is a hundred thousand pounds prize fund at seventy five thousand pounds goes to the winning team, meaning seven and a half thousand pounds per player. And you know, speaking to the men, even experienced grandmasters like Joe Gallagher have never won seven and a half thousand pounds equivalent of nearly 10,000 euros in a tournament. So there's a lot to play for definitely. And we will see a very exciting day today. And we we see most of the players at the boards. They are ready for the fight. They are ready. And you know, I managed to see a few people at breakfast, a few people on the bus. It's been a it's been really a wonderful tournament given the difficult circumstances to to make a tournament like this happen over 20 nations represented. All continents are here, South America, America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, Australia. Amazing. And a handshake. And they are kicking off. And what we're going to do is, well, we will go through the individual games as well. Yesterday, arena, I highlighted just before the end of play that I thought there were some must win games for the ladies. Let's look at those again. For me. I look at the Gillian Bualia, Gunai Mamadzada. That has to be a win for the ladies. They can have a chance. Definitely. Gunai has has to play for a win today with the black pieces. And we'll see if she manages to because she's had a tough event. She was struggling throughout. She was showing her best fighting spirit, but that wasn't enough until now. And I hope that today she will going to be able to bring the point. Me too. I hope she does. And Gillian, I feel, yeah, he's had such a hard tournament. I mean, he lost yesterday as well, which was just, you know, heartbreaking really after nearly holding Pia. Yeah. What can you say? You're playing some of the top women players in the world. You're going to have a bad tournament from time to time. And this was his bad tournament. Let's see if he can save face with one round to go. Who else do we see as a must win situation? Remember, they need three points. So do you see anything there in this list? Well, I believe that Tantraneta has also to go for a win today with black pieces versus Joe because she has won her last two games since coming out of isolation. And she's just on fire here. She is. Yeah, she is. She was obviously struck with COVID, came back, won all her games, and now is she going to take that momentum into today's round? So there's two wins. Where else do you see a win coming from? Well, I think there are several chances. I believe Giantsaya might try for something because Sabino had a rough day yesterday. He could have lost, actually, because he was in big trouble against Gunai. He was, I believe, on the on the rope of losing, and he managed to save that one. Also, I like how Yovanka has played yesterday. She had a really good game after after what have been a tough tournament for her. And today playing against Bobby, yeah, it definitely won't be easy because Bobby is one of the most solid players here. What about this game we see now between Hussein and Pia? I believe Pia could try something here with with black, right? Absolutely. She couldn't try something. I mean, Pia, she won yesterday. She needed that win desperately. She had to work till the very end to get that win. And she's playing Hussein Aziz, who, you know, Hussein, great guy. I had the chance to get to know him. But she's played the right way in the opening. We can see here she's played a Sicilian. So we'll look at that in a moment. And, you know, she's absolutely, I mean, she's favorite on paper, by the way. Definitely. Definitely. She has some 70 points difference, and they might count. What could very well do? Let's let's see what what other games could be extremely interesting. Um, let's see here. Janssia. Now, I mean, we haven't really spoken about Janssia winning the game today, but she's more than capable of beating Sabino today. And I've seen her on the bus to the to the round being very determined. I believe she will try her best today. But actually, judging by what Sabino chose in the opening, I think he's going for for a very solid game. So he avoided the Grunfeld main lines. He played this Bishop g5 e3 92 slightly quieter setup. And yeah, it will be difficult for black to to break through in this game. Yeah, judging by the opening, I'm starting to have some doubts about Janssia being able to play for a win here. Well, it's still very early. All the pieces are on the board. I think she just wants to get a middle game and see what happens. I don't blame her at all. But white is so very solid here, right? Sure, white is solid. I mean, he's been very clever with his opening selection. But as I say, it could be a long game and and with all the pieces on the board, it's not to sterile the position. It's not to I mean, because with this fancatted Bishop on g7, you always get some ideas with c5. It's certainly not over. But I tell you one game that has impressed me. And perhaps the most impressive player in the women's team, apart from Antoinette, Maria Muzichuk, the highest rated player, I'd like to go there straight away because she has played exactly what you would want to play in a must win situation. I love her opening choice here. She plays a Slav, which is fine. She plays e6. And here, Leandro, quite surprisingly, goes for Bishop g5. Now we've seen e3 in this tournament. We've seen g3 also. We've seen g3. But Bishop g5, of course, for years and years was the main move. And now, after h6, I'm very surprised that Leandro did not take on f6. Or yeah, that he didn't go for Bishop takes f6. Because it's quite quite a solid way of playing it with wide, but Bishop h4 takes a lot of risks. Yeah. Well, Bishop h4, we get into this fantastic. Is it just somewhat like a Moscow variation? Exactly. Or you can call this maybe it's even an anti Moscow with an early g5. Because, of course, years and years ago, in this position, Black used to take on c4 immediately, right? And after e4, b5, e5, h6. Yeah, this was the theory for years and years. Then they came up with inserting h6 first, so that after Bishop h4, and now after d6, e4, e4, Black has got the additional option of g5. So White has avoided playing e5, right? Right. That's the big difference. So the knight doesn't jump to d5 so easily for Black. Then you should be careful about the e4 point, I guess. Well, yeah. So basically, in this position after b5, the main move for years now has been Bishop to e2. And Black can't really just go b4 and try and win this pawn. It's just too loose. You'd end up losing c4, and your king is very weak. Right. So Black tends to play the move Bishop b7, and now Leandro plays the move Qc2 very, very quickly. This is a moment where lots of moves have been tried, 95, h4, and so on and so forth. But Qc2, I vaguely remember now as kind of being one of the main moves, giving extra protection to this pawn on e4. And then again, White will be going at some point for those plans with b3, right? In this particular position, I don't think it's as common, actually. I think more common is for White just to... Let's say, what happens if I play something like Bishop to g7? Is it a move? I'm not sure how Black should handle these positions. Yeah. I mean, Nbd7 is kind of standard here. And yeah, White tends to play with h4. That's one of the big ideas. h4, g4, 95, like this. I see. And things can get very, very sharp and very, very complicated. I'm wondering, I'm not sure if Leandro wants to, but I'm wondering if Castle's point side is actually an idea. That's going to be so risky. And I believe we'll see fireworks in this game. Yeah, we could do. Absolutely. It's going to be a question also of how well prepared Leandro is in this position. He's played instantly, which makes me think that he's actually done some serious work on this position, which is really good. Very encouraging for the boys. And actually, you have to say, even though I like what Maria has done, it's also a very risky strategy from her point of view, right? Because... Yeah, but we saw that in two games, the ladies could definitely play for a win, but they need a third one. So perhaps they will try on several boards. And she has just played a knight to h5. Yeah, I think this is a move because you're just attacking the bishop. And it wouldn't surprise me if Leandro answers very quickly. She's played also quickly here. So we must be in some theoretical line. All right. Actually, I see a lot of our viewers asking what will happen in case the match is tight. And actually, we know that the team captains will have to choose two players each, and they will play one with white, one with black for every team. And this will be a rapid, rapid chess, right? So two games of rapid chess. And then if it's still a tie, then we're going to see some blitz games with the same system. The captains are going to choose two players from their team to represent it. And yeah, if Finks will come down to the typewreck, that's going to be very exciting. Yeah, we'll go over the rules more in detail. If that happens, of course, the probability of that happening is... Well, I mean, the probability of that happening is probably five percent or two percent or something like that. So very... You think so? Well, because yeah, the score has to be exactly... Six and a half. And they all have black. And they're already massive underdog to get six and a half with black. So I think it's... But it did happen previously in this match in the second round. The ladies won with plus three, having all blacks. So it's not impossible. No, certainly not impossible. Of course, in round two, I think when they did it, or round one... Round two. Round two. The story was different because of course it was the beginning of the match and people were playing in different style. Now a lot of the men know that making a draw today is just fine. But wait, what is that game? Who has played that Nimzo with Queen B3? Can we bring it up? I think that's Jillian. All right. So he played this Queen B3 move, which used to be very unusual some years ago, but I have seen it quite a few times. And I believe that black can play with C5 here. I believe this is one of the main lines. And yeah, then we will see very complex structures. And I believe this is a bit of a strange choice to go off-beat in the opening, because if I was white here against Guna and I would need a draw, then I would go for something more solid, more forcing, you know, such... There are such lines in the Nimzo, like for example, the Queen C2 E4 one, when actually many times it's just a forced draw, right? It's very difficult to avoid it with black. But let's see what Jillian has in mind here today. And actually I believe that Guna will have quite a long thought here, because she likes to take some time in the opening. For sure. Yeah. Another game that's, well, not very interesting so far is Joe Gallagrance. And she has played A5 actually, which is also a reasonable alternative here. Because, well, many times white wants to go for a plan on the Queen side to try to expand the pawn structure with A3, B4, so A5 is sort of a typical move. Looks fairly standard. Joe Gallagher, Antoneta Stephanova is nothing to comment on so far. We have the main line, Italian, and Antoneta clearly just saying, you know what, I'm going to go for the long game. And Joe plays now a very, very good move, because it's a very difficult move to beat. That's the move Knight C3. Knight C3. But I seem to recall a recent game where actually white won in Tata Steel, I believe it was. Who was that who played this one? I don't know. I remember somebody, yeah, did win with this Knight to C3. It's quite tricky. I believe that white's main idea is to play Bg5, then take on F6, and have very good control on the d5 square. And that's exactly why black could try to play h6 here. It's a very, indeed solid way of handling the Italian for white. But still, all the pieces are on the board, and yeah, I believe we'll still see a very complex battle here. Yeah. Well, it depends because for example, Joe, if he wants, let's say he plays h3, actually, or castles. Let's say he castles. But what about a move like d6 now? And now Knight A4. Knight A4. So you want to take this bishop. Yeah. This is one of the main ideas of this particular variation. It's really annoying if you're black because you lose the bishop. Oh, wait. And if I am smart and I try to avoid it by playing instead of d6, A6, wait. Ah, A6 here. Is it already like... No, this is fine. This is absolutely fine. And now white can do lots of things. Because you know what I was thinking. I know that when white has the point on C3 instead of the knight, if white castles very fast, you could at some point play those plans with g5. But then white tries for an early d4. But now as the knight is on C3, could it also be an idea for black to try those kind of plans? With g5? Yeah. I mean, not immediately after d6 and... I don't think so. Because I think in order to play g5, white needs to play h3 for g5 to work. Because then g5 and g4 make sense. So for example, if I just played, for example, A3, d6, and I don't know. But the point is I don't have a like... Let's say I go bishop A2. I think g5 here is just not a playable idea. Not in... Because g5 is either when white has played h3 or when he's gone bishop g5, h6, bishop h4, and then you get time with g5. This looks just far too loose to me. I mean, I don't even get the idea. But you could still play it. I think black might want to play g4 because after knight h4, you should be ready for knight takes e4. I'm not sure it works. Definitely this might just be bad for black. Yeah. No, I don't believe... I mean, as I say, if the pawn is on h3, I can buy it. And if the bishop is on g3, I can buy it. But I've never seen just g5 without this... Yeah. And with the knight on c3, white has very good control over the light square. So, yeah, maybe white could just go for the d5 square immediately. Yeah. And in these systems, what white also tends to do is he often offers just a very quick bishop e3. And you can't... Just, for example, in that position there, g5, I would already be concerned here. What do I do against bishop e3 as black? Definitely. Right. Looks bad. So, you know, very smart opening choice by Joe Gallagher making it... You know, if you want to play for a... How do you possibly want to play for a win here as black in a symmetrical position where you're a tempo down? That's the whole point. So... Let's check the game of Balash versus Marcel. We know that Balash needs just a draw to secure his GM norm. And actually we see the queens off the board very quickly. What opening has it been? It's been this... Semitara. But with g3. Yeah. This was... I remember commenting a lot this opening in the Olympiad. Oh, but this is just a really safe opening line for white. Even though I seem to recall black losing a few here as well. Yeah. Black has definitely lost a few. But it's a really clever choice by Balash. Here he just takes and she'll just take with the pawn probably. And, you know, white never loses this position. So... You could also go for bishop e3 here trying to trade a few more pieces. King e7, king d2. Yeah, king e7 and king d2. Makes sense. Yeah. It's definitely one of those types of positions where black has to be precise to equalize and white doesn't take too many risks. No, this is very, very clever. And Balash is just, you know, but barring an absolute disaster. He's just never losing this position. And with that he'll get a grand master norm. Yeah. I think we might see actually quite quite a quick draw here, to be honest. Because also Marcel, I mean, what can you do when your opponent is so rock solid here? I mean, you cannot take too many risks because losing is a catastrophe. The ladies should not lose or at least should try not to lose any games today in order to have a chance. So, yeah, a very clever opening choice by Balash. Yep. And every half point counts. Remember, the boys only need to get four points out of 10 to win the match. So... Right. Let's check also the game of Bilal versus Marie. Because this looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. We see one of the main lines in the nightroof. So, e4, c5, knight f3, d6. Okay. Take, take. Knight f6, knight c3, a6. Bishop e3, we've seen this move also played by Gunai. And here, if you remember, Joe prepared this knight g4 plan, but Marie goes for e5. And I believe that she always does go for it, because I played myself against her. And she's, you know, that kind of player who relies on her opening lines a lot. So, she tends to be predictable, but she has very good knowledge and feel for them. And here, after e5, quite an unusual move, knight to be free. And the funny thing is that this has been my pet line for so many years. Okay. For black or for white? For white, but I have been on the other side of the board as well. I have played it loads and loads of games here. Bishop e6, it's one of the main lines, h3, knight bd7. Well, it is very clever, because now if white goes for ideas with queen f3, it's just not ideal as the rook can go immediately to c8. And then attacking that knight on c3, and many times you can see later a sacrifice, rook takes c3. So, that's precisely why white keeps the queen on d1 and plays g4. And now, actually, g5 is a threat, because that knight on d7 is taking away the square for the overnight. And I seem to recall here the move was it here? Okay, h6 is definitely a possibility. But if I remember correctly, after h6, queen d2, right, I think it has been played correctly. Yeah. Then these positions tend to be just better for white, I'm afraid to say. I think it's not... Well, there is one very long line, a 30 move line here, which ends in a draw, but there's a lot of theory to be remembered. It's something connected with d5. Not sure in how is it after... I don't know. I think it's something with bishop b3. Yeah, it's difficult to recall that once. Ricky Ricciardo in the chat says he was pretending to be rooting for the women at the beginning of the tournament, but now he has shown his true colours. False, Ricky Ricciardo. You don't know what you're talking about. I have been rooting for the women predominantly, firstly, because I want them to win, actually. Secondly, I've got a bet on the women to win. So, you know... I'm not sure I believe you, Lawrence, because you were so happy when the man won yesterday in that last game of Leandro versus Olga. I wasn't happy. I was happy for the drama and for the excitement, but I've got a large bet on the women. Really? Yeah. I thought I said the women were going to win 58-42. Laurent is there in the corner. He can confirm it. But it's already... Is it still possible? 58-42? It's no longer possible. No, I'm dead. No, but if they win, I might not lose, because I might be close. Yeah, so, well, saying about this game, I definitely like what Marie has on the board here, but I'm a bit concerned that she's quite behind on the clock, and Bilal has one hour 34 minutes, so four more minutes compared to the beginning of the game. And even though I like somehow the type of position she has, I believe it might be very dangerous for her as well. All right, we keep an eye on that one. I tell you, somebody who has impressed me with her opening choice, and that's Pia Kramling. Let's have a look at that one. Yeah, Pia has gone for a Sicilian, but as we'll see in a moment the position that she's got on the board. So we had a Bishop b5 Sicilian with the fianchetto, all fairly standard. Yeah, but Hussain went for c3, which is not exactly the main line. So we have seen a lot of Bishop takes c6, right? And then Black has a choice, d takes or b takes. We have seen both of them, but he chose the move c3, a quieter setup, because now after knight f6, rook e1, castle and d4, White has a very straightforward plan, right? Just to try and take the control in the center. And after a6? Yeah, a6 is already a very notable move here because for years and years the main move has been d5. But a6 I think is a Carlson idea actually. He played this a few times. And now after Bishop takes c6, d takes c6. It's a very clever move order by Black because it cannot really take the pawn on c5 because after queen d1, rook d194, Black gets back the pawn and also the pawn on c5 might run in trouble. Exactly. So Bishop c6, dc6, White plays h3 to stop the pin, but now Foupier is able to undouble her pawns and play c5 anyway. But the structure has changed so much. Now it reminds me more of a Grunfeld actually, right? Yeah, exactly. And now after d5, b5, well, a Grunfeld or a Bononi or something like that, we have a wonderful position here, knight c3, bishop b7. But wait, now without the light squared bishop, is it just great for Black? I mean, White doesn't have control over the light squares, both bishop's fiancated. Now the center will be in trouble for White. I don't know. I'm not sure how bad it is because let's say I play queen d2 in this position here. And let's just say I follow up with rook a d1. Black has to be a bit concerned that I'm not just going with e5 very quickly. And I think it's just one of those... It's very interesting. Yeah, it's very double edged and it's very interesting. And I love Pia basically trying to keep the game as imbalanced as possible. And what about a move like e6? Is it bad because of e5 here? Well, I mean, you would assume that e5 is close to winning. Right, because I don't have those h6 intermediate moves as you just take and the bishop on g7 is lost. So what would be the best reaction after Qd2? Because it also stops my playing h6 and I really don't like it. I don't know is the honest answer. Pia has to come up with something urgent. Probably b4. I was hoping to be able to play first c4 and then only b4, but I'm not sure I have time for that. Yeah, because if c4 I play rook a d1. So e5 is a threat already. I must probably play b4, but now you could go for even knight a4, right? Knight a4, something like this. Queen a5, yeah, and something like this I guess is Pia's idea. Yeah, because now if I got b3, now you can go c3 at least. Right, and now it's not so easy to make that e5 happening. Exactly. This is what I think Pia is hoping for, yeah. I think this is a very good idea. So c4. In fact here it wouldn't surprise me if Hussein tries some move like a3, although now I'm a bit worried that... Yeah, the light squares you don't have, you don't have that bishop, but then you could maybe play knight a4 and who knows. But also you have to consider d6 ideas because of this pin. You also have to consider queen a4, queen a4, which is sometimes a nasty manoeuvre. So I mean Hussein also shouldn't be too unhappy with the position after rook c8 because he's going to get his chances here. Right, but he has to be very, very careful to choose the right moment for each move because once again we see a position where each move has a very high price. Exactly. All right, let's go to the Eric Rosen... Let's check that one. And it's a kind of surprising opening. I believe that you were wrong here saying that Eric will try his best to win in this one. I think he tries to be just as solid as possible because normally when you are a e5 player with black, when you see this opening on the board you kind of think, all right, so my opponent wants to make a draw today. That's what I think when somebody plays it against me because we've seen tons and tons of games of how it ends with a draw actually. Yeah, but okay, Eric also understanding that a draw today, I mean this is a good result. Yes, because the men's team shouldn't take any risks if possible, any risks at all. Yeah, it's quite a smart strategy, but you were expecting I guess him to play something more aggressive, right? No. No? Because yesterday you were telling that he will be going for a win, no? No, none of the men I expected to really go for it today. I mean nobody has to go for a win, right? I mean the only thing I would say is Bilal I think should stay true to his style. Balash, we know that's basically going to be a draw. Joe looks like he's got a great chance to keep it slow. But you know, even in this very quiet system, let's put the moves on the board. Bishop b4, knight takes c6, b takes, bishop d3, castle, castle. Well, first of all there was also a possibility for black to take more risks by playing rookie eight instead of d5. And then there are wild variations after, let's say, bishop g5, h6, bishop h4, bishop c3, b takes, g5, bishop g3, knight e4. Things could have gone really wild here, but it tends also to go towards a draw. But instead, Aran chose the most principled move, d5, e takes, c takes, bishop g5, c6, and queen to f3. Still, it's a very double-edged position. I have seen it gone wrong for white as well, not only for black, because, well, white now wants to take on f6 and somehow ruin black's pawn structure. And I'm a bit surprised by the move h6. Anyway, it is a mainline, but I believe that bishop e7 has also been played quite a bit, and it is somehow, from the strategical point of view, a safer option because you don't double your pawns, and then you also keep the queens on the boards. Yeah, white tends to be absolutely fine there as well, but with the queen still on, it's a more complex game. Here I believe that Eric is not going to play a move like bishop f4 because it also has a chance for life, but actually after bishop f6, queen f6, queen takes f6, g takes f6, it will just go towards a draw. I believe knight e2 is a possibility. Yeah, so there is a lot of theory there, but yeah, black is fine there, white is fine. In those end games, there are not too many things happening. It's just a clever choice by Eric. H6 definitely is not the mainline here. For years and years and years after queen f3 moves like bishop d6 was one of the mainlines, rookie eight. Forcing this is actually, if I remember, it's probably okay, but it's definitely not one of the mainlines because actually white is looking, so this can be seen as a slight waste of a tempo, and now as you said, knight e2 or even the move knight a4, planning to play c4 and actually... But it's all right, I mean, still black has a very big, it's very, I mean, black is so very solid in this, in all these end games. Can be, but you know, things can also go wrong for black. For example, after rook b8 c4, it's already, you know, you go bishop e6, rook c1 and... What is your plan? I have to say I'm very confused by this knight a4. Oh, knight a4 is one of the main moves, because now... Then what is your idea? For example, if I don't do anything here? Well, let's say you go king g7. Yeah. And I take... I take back, wait, I should think with what to take back. Okay. I understand that after bishop d5, you want to play b3, right? Yeah, I'll secure my structure. And then get a lot of good squares for your pieces. Right, the knight can jump in on... What about me taking with the pawn? Okay. Because now if you go for b3, I have time for rook c8. Rook fc8, I believe you. And I don't see this going wrong for black. Okay, I could just take, take. My deep pawn might be actually quite, quite dangerous. I'm not sure, because it can always be blockaded. I can bring my king in. I could also play bishop d6, just in a quiet way here. And after knight c5, I just ignore it. Yeah, you can ignore it. I might not need to do that. I can bring the rook to d1. For example, attack this pawn. I don't think this pawn is so much of a strength. This bishop does a wonderful job. Knight can also come to b2. At the moment you go away from c1 with the rook, I will play bishop e5. I think it's difficult to really get to that d5 pawn. Yeah, no. I mean, I'm not saying that white is expecting too much here. But it's certainly a very, very pleasant way for white to play. Because black's two bishops don't really do very much. Because white hasn't really got any targets. He hasn't got any serious weaknesses. So I think knight a4 is definitely an idea. As you said, knight to e2 is an idea. Knight to e2 is also one. Because now, as you said, after the h6 move, the knight might come also to g3 and then to h5 even at some point. Yeah, it's definitely there. I seem to recall some ideas when white goes for knight h5, black plays bishop e5 and you know. Yeah, the knight can sometimes be a bit offside here. I mean, I've played, I don't know if I've played this exact position before. I think I have actually. And yeah, it's just a bit annoying this position. If you want to play for a win here with black because white is just so solid. Yeah, definitely. So I expect Eric to do just fine there. And let's have a look at Ravi Haria. Now Ravi has played, yeah, Ravi has played something very interesting. So this is an opening choice which Olga goes for quite often. This really opens the, how is it called, the open variation, right? Right, the open variation. Knight takes e4, d4, all standard so far. We have seen it a lot. I think it's actually not the best choice by Olga. The open variation. Well, it's interesting because Ravi has gone for a line which isn't forcing, but there are like a lot of tons of forcing lines in this open. I've played the open for years with black. But you know, the other option she had was the Karakan. So perhaps she was unhappy about something he might choose there. And she thought maybe he wouldn't prepare so much in this line. Right. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, it's, you know, in general, trying to find a line with black where you can not, where you, things are not forced is very, very tough. But also actually we've seen the open variation of the real oppas being played by guys like Mamedyarov who actually won a lot of nice games with it. So I think it's a decent one. Even though, yeah, there are those lines with queen e2, rook d1 and c4 here, which basically is just a draw offer. And I'm surprised that Ravi did not want to go for that one. But instead he chose quite an unusual way of playing. Bishop c2, bishop g4 and queen to e1. Yeah. This is, this might be a beautiful little sideline. I don't know it well at all. I have never seen it actually. I've seen it somewhere. I can't remember where. Just so you guys know, after bishop e7, the move knight bd2 is the main line by some distance. And then black tends to play the move knight c5. Bishop c2. Bishop c2. And now d4. And there have been a bunch of games recently in this knight to b3 and lots and lots of theory. Right, right. But bishop c2, bishop g4, queen e1. Might it be a novelty or not? I'm not sure if it's a novel. I've seen it somewhere. I can't remember where I've seen it. I might have even looked at this myself because trying to think it's been a while. But it's a cute little idea. I think it's a great idea by Ravi. The point, the reason you put the queen on e1 and not on e2 is obviously because this knight is still pinned. So knight takes e5 might exist here. Right. But queen e1 and now it doesn't. But it allows bishop takes f3 and now after g takes f3, black should already choose knight g5 or knight c5. I'm not entirely sure which one is the best after knight g5. Though you have to, I know taking isn't an option because after e6 I will have just short castle in the worst case. Yeah, this can't be good for white. So yeah, I guess after knight g5 the idea is just to protect this pawn, either with knight d2 or king g2. King g2, queen d7 might be a bit of an option. I nearly asked what happens after f4. Yeah, not f4. Not f4, right. f4 is going to be a mistake that Ravi will not want to make. Queen e2 looks particularly natural to me here. Yeah, and I'm not sure if it's the good way to go with the knight on g5 because then f4 and f5 might be coming. Exactly. So perhaps it's knight c5. Perhaps you don't take at all on f3. Possibly, yeah. But then knight c5 and what now? Do you think he wants to play f4 immediately? Very possibly, yeah. f4 or maybe even queen e2 just to start. What about a move like queen d7 here? And if I go to d1? Yeah, it's so complicated because the king on g1 is opened but for now all my pieces are on the queen side so I can't really try to attack that king. You know what I was thinking? I don't know why I keep having these types of ideas. But what if I play g5 here? G5? Did you have your breakfast? Is it insane? Did you have a cup of tea? You're obsessed with g5 today? Yes, yes I am. I don't know why. It just keeps coming into my mind. Do you want my honest opinion about this move? You think it's absolutely terrible and... I wouldn't be so kind with such words. I don't think you can do it. No, but it has an idea not to allow f4. This was my point that if white manages to play f4 and f5, perhaps my knights and pieces will have very little places to go to. But here my point on d5 might be in trouble actually. Yeah, I mean I was wondering if I could go b4. Yeah, I probably should go to e6. And now you could play something like... Yeah, definitely. But still it's not simple here. It's not the end. You can go d4 maybe on a good day. But also I might have ideas with knight f4. Who knows? Here? Yeah, because maybe I could then try some rook g8, queen h3. I'm not sure if that might work at all. I'm protecting f3, so rook g8. Firstly, I can run this way, but just to illustrate if I go king h1. But it's not so clear here, no? Here? Ah, but you want bishop takes f7, that's a big point. Here it's over. Here it's just... Yeah, here it's bad. I didn't have time to... But wait, wait, wait, wait. What if I play long castle now? Long castle? Yeah. Okay. Because now your rook on d1 is in trouble. E6? I'm wondering if that knight on b1 and rook on a1, if I can't use this fact, somehow sacrificing... I love how optimistic you are. You're so optimistic, right? Yeah, now ef is coming. Yeah, and I mean in general, I mean even without e6, right? Even if I just... I don't know, let's just say I connected with knight a3. But now I can play maybe queen... Ah, after queen a3, you claim that you have queen f1, right? I have queen f1 and yeah, I mean... But queen f1, you don't have it, because... Oh no? I just take it. Ah, I'm dropping my bishop. After queen a3, you are actually losing here. Queen a3, I'm losing? Yeah, because after rook d1, I can take and take... No, yeah, but I don't have time for all of it because of e6. Right, e6 was my first... And just in general, I mean... It... I just... G5 is plus 6.5. People saying it. I wouldn't be surprised. Only plus 6.5? No, that wasn't true. Look, it's one of the best moves in the position. Look, it's only 0.2 for rook. Amazing, only 0.2. But I think this is on a... On a low depth. Is it plus... G5 is plus 6.5? No, but we have just cheated a bit and switched. On the engine right now. But you probably have to go knight a... Maybe knight e6 is not right. You're still not losing. Only slightly better for white, maybe. Yeah, but knight a4 is a nice idea actually. Here after b4, knight a4. I didn't consider it, but now that the engine suggests it, I like it. So maybe it's one of those positions for a G5 could actually be considered. I mean, sure, I mean, yeah. Actually, we have bishop f3, gf3 on the board. So knight c5 is very possible. But I think knight c5 should be the main option for black because knight g5 just will run into that f4 and f5 very quickly. And actually here I like what Olga is doing. I think this will be really double edged. But you know, if white will be able to play f4, then it will be slightly unpleasant for black to play this one. Yeah, I really love what Ravi's doing. He's also playing quickly and he's very well prepared. I've done a lot of work with Ravi on one of my courses. He helped me, yeah. So I know how good Ravi is with analysis. So I'm actually a bit concerned for Olga because she could be walking right into some reasonably deep preparation. It's the clock right here because why did he spend 10 minutes if he prepared the move, Queenie, once? Well, maybe firstly he's trying to bluff it. Firstly, secondly, maybe he wasn't expecting knight takes e4. So he has to try and remember. He might have spent, as you said, more time on a Karakan today. There's a lot of... But this game is also going to be very exciting. And I really like it. I really like it. Yeah, so... So I, I, Sirik is saying, oh no, my concentration. Eric trying not to make eye contact with Irene. Yeah. Oh, wait. Let's check the game of... Who is that? The first one which we have on the screen with e4. Brunello. Sabina against Zansaya. Yeah. What is this one? Because normally when white plays e4, then there are a lot of trades and it generally ends up with a very drawish end game. Yeah, again, I think this is just very good preparation by Sabina Brunello basically who... But wait, he has spent 23 minutes already. Maybe he had some ideas of playing like this. I don't know, because he must have expected Fienketo by Zansaya. So again, I don't know if it's exactly preparation. But I mean, the idea in general I really like. He's trying to liquidate the center. Yeah, I believe it's going to be tough to keep the game complicated here for too long. Yeah, so for now we see some games where the man's team has chosen to play very solid and just to try to hold the draw. And some games where they try to keep the chances on the boards. So I like how they are playing this match so far today. Yeah, so far things looking still in order for them. And let's quickly check in with Bobby Cheng against Yovanka Huska. We'll take it from this position here. And Yovanka has just decided to play F5. Yovanka, I have to say, it's very difficult when you have Yovanka's style to try and manufacture something with black against a player like Bobby. Against a player like me, for example, or other complete lunatics, she could get something. But actually, I really don't like what she's doing. Why not? Well, because I think she gets very... Isn't it just theory? No, no, no, sure. I'm not saying it's not like, I'm not saying the position is bad. I'm saying that I think the approach is, well, maybe she was told by Pia. Actually, you know what today, Yovanka, you're a really important game not to lose. But wait, I believe that the other choice Yovanka has, judging by my memories of her repertoire, is to go for the Slav, which can be even more draw-ish. So here, you actually get a very complex battle. And there were thousands of games played here by the very top players. And Magnus Carlsen himself played many of these with black. I understand what you're saying, that white is rock solid in these lines. But still, black can have ideas at some point with g5 and g4. But I believe it's still going to be a complex game. No, there's still a lot of game here, that's for sure. What other games? There is one more game that we haven't... Oh, no, we have... Oh, no, we've looked at everything just to quickly show the ballash. Yeah, let's have a look again. Well, actually, ballash can just play here. He doesn't even need to make a draw quickly. No, but what's your plan if I just bring the other rook on d6? How do you play for a win? Well, I mean, I'm not saying I can play for a win, but I'm saying I shouldn't accept a draw quickly. Oh, definitely. But it will probably head towards the draw very soon. Yeah, so... Rook d6 I should play. Now you could go king d3, yes. Now probably something like f... I'm not sure. I have to choose f6 or f5. Why do you have to do any of it? Because of e4? Eventually I will have to do it, I believe anyway, no? I mean, if I go for king d7, let's say, then you could play e4. And then you might want to play d5. And then it might be not that pleasant, I believe. We might get, you know, that type of position which Pia had yesterday against Julian. And that's why I was not sure we should... Of course, it's still definitely a draw. I mean, if we turn on the computer revelation, it will probably be 0.00. It isn't, I'm surprised. I'm not particularly surprised. I don't know why it's totally... I mean, black has got one weakness, white hasn't, and white has got the majority in the center. Again, I believe it should be holdable, of course. But you know probably why the computer gives this advantage because he believes that eventually white might win that b6 pawn. Because in the rook hand games, many times it's more important to get active with the rooks than to keep the material. And then these hand games with five against four, of course they are drawn, but it's a very long way to go. And so many top grandmasters have gone wrong in these ones. And that's why I believe that actually black should try something more active, not to allow white to play this e4 and d5. So yeah, rook b3, let's say. Rook b3 or rook a6, I don't know what is best. Maybe rook a6 is even better because then you might have ideas with rook a8 at some point. So rook d6 and now... Still king d3, right? Probably, yeah. And now, yes, it's a very difficult choice for black to understand what is the best setup with f6 or with f5. Because f5 might run into f3 and e4, and then we have three islands of pawns already, so... But perhaps I could just bring my king now, king d7 now that the rook is not protected on b5 and king c6. Let's say the rook goes to... Let's say b4. And king c7. King c7. Yeah, maybe actually I like now more the idea with the rook on b1 because then you didn't have to worry about rook on b5. Now I believe it's a bit more difficult for white to push the pawns, right? Well, I put the rook on b4. The reason I didn't play rook b1 is because you have rook... No, no, I mean the rook b1 in the beginning... Ah, rook b1. I see what you mean. Yeah, I mean that's possible. I also thought that this could be useful. King c7? Yeah. And how do you progress here? Do you go... No, rook c4 can't be good, right? Because I just... No, but actually maybe it has... But I could even go for king d7 perhaps after rook c4. Even... I know this looks... Oh no, king c4 b5 check. I'm losing. That's good. That's a good tactic to run into. Yeah, a good one. So if I go rook c4, king d7. And can I come round the back now with rook a8? I have doubts, b5. Okay, and now I come here. King... Can I play king c6? Yes, I can play king c6. Yeah. Okay. But now you've got maybe rook c8. Rook c8? Or not. I'm not sure. How is this position after king b6, rook c5, king a5? Yeah, I... It looks strange. It looks a little bit loose. Like I've also got rook a6. No, but rook... No, rook b6, rook a7. Oh, rook b6, rook a7 you want. Okay, so king c7 done. Yeah, rook a5. King c6. It's close though. It is close. It's getting close. Not sure. I mean, it looks very nice for white, but the problem is about making progress. You can't push d5, you can't push e5. Okay, I'll try to improve my king. By bringing it well. No, just to bring it off the... Let's say rook d, d to d7. Okay. Yeah, I think it might not be... Feels like black should hold, right? Yes. Maybe we should try something, something different. Yeah, I mean, as I say, it's a big decision at the beginning, whether to put the rook on a6 or on... I think I like more this rook a2b3 after what we've seen in these two lines. Something like this, rook d6, king d3. Yeah, because now d5 will be really a challenge for black when you manage to push e4 and d5. Perhaps I could... But what's the idea with d5? If I go here, let's say... Should I play it immediately or...? Because sometimes you could throw in a move like g4 first, just not hurry, try to take more space like Pia did yesterday. And that's why I was thinking maybe it makes sense to play a move like g6 instead of king c7, but you could probably still go g4 then, right? G6? Yeah, to play h5 then, you know, just to have a solid setup on the... But here after g4, it's not going to be easy. White definitely has some chances. Yeah, now that I look more at it, I tend to disagree with my first assessment of it being a dead draw. Yeah, definitely doesn't feel like a dead draw, but one thing it is for sure is fantastic. Again, opening strategy and play by Balashu has basically guaranteed the draw. So his grandmaster norm is basically guaranteed. Yeah, he has absolutely no risk in this position and he can just enjoy a very long, slightly more pleasant end game. Maybe even not slightly, because as we've seen yesterday in the game of Pia versus Jillian, it was even a simpler end game, much simpler one. And still it was not easy at all to find the right moves to hold the draw and Pia actually managed to win that one. So yeah, we'll see if Balashu manages to put some problems to Marcel here. I'm not sure we haven't seen so many rook and games from her. I believe we haven't seen actually any rook and games from her at all. So we'll see how will she deal with them. Yeah, let's go back to Leandro's game against Maria, because that is one of the most crazy positions of the round. And Maria has just spent 20 minutes on her last move and Leandro has spent almost no time. So it's a critical moment. And Queen f6 is probably not the move that Leandro had. I mean, let's just... I'm curious about this game because it is theoretically important. So it went knight h5, rook d1, knight d7 and now very thematic d5. Looking to blow open this file. Takes, takes, takes, takes, takes, takes. Bishop to g7 and now a very common move as well, 93. Looking at this lovely f5 square for the knight. And Maria played Queen f6 and now it's on Leandro. Is he still a pawn down, right? Yes, he is a pawn down. But it's one of those positions where... I am wondering, is knight f5 working here? Because after queen b2 my idea was to go for knight g7, queen g7 and something like queen f5 or something, you know, to try to... But you can just win a piece, you don't need to do that. How? Queen b2, I can just take a knight d6 check. Ah, I have missed that one. But are you really winning a piece after king d8? You won it well. King c7? I mean... Because I still have those two pawns, right? Is it so clear here? Not sure. No? I don't know. I would assume this is just... This is just back? Just over, yeah. f7 b5 is hanging. Yeah, might be. Okay, what if I don't play... But if not queen b2 then I dislike black's... position. She has to have an idea here. So the question is what is her idea? But you could play after queen b2 even immediately, knight d6. Also... And it might be actually game over here immediately. Yeah, I don't like queen b2. Yeah. So what's the idea after knight f5? Yeah, I'm struggling to see it. She can't castle because d7 is hanging. Yes. You can't... Long castle looks really dangerous after I moved like knight d6, knight b7, getting that light-squared bishop. But maybe it can work. I would be afraid to go for it. But here after queen e4 I've got queen c6, right? Exactly. So all is fine and a bit of pawn is weak. So after knight f5, let's say long castle, yeah? What could white try here instead? You know, it's so funny because I keep... I keep hanging pieces in our lines and I'm wondering, is it only me struggling to keep my pieces safe in the morning? Or do the players have the same issue? We'll soon find out if they start blundering pieces. I think that line is very interesting. I also... I'm not 100% sure that knight f5 is the only move. What other options would you consider here? Well, I would actually just consider castling here. Just castling? Yeah, I would seriously consider it. So you're saying that the knight on e3 is a better piece than the bishop on g7? No, I'm just saying I want to get my rook into the game and ask you where you want to put your king. But you're not afraid of queen b2 here? No. Queen f5. Wait. Am I missing something? What if I cast along here? Well, the position is very double edged. I have rook b1 taking on b4. But your e2 bishop is hanging. Yeah, but I'm mating you, aren't I? Not sure, yeah. I've got knight b6 there. Ah, knight b6. You survive. Oh, yes. First time you blundered something today. No, I didn't. It's not only me. I didn't blunder it. I just thought I was mating you. I just completely missed knight b6, which is obviously very unfortunate. Even here, it would be weird. But I mean, I don't want to play this particularly. I'm not sure if I can get away with a4 here in a5. Shouldn't be possible? Even knight takes c4. But I've got rook d7 there and just pre-casting everything, yes. A4 rook d7. Okay, a5. So I can't play knight d5 because of a6. A6. Things get a little bit hairy. But wait, I could play something else. Wait, wait, wait. After a4, I believe you're a bit top to mystic here. No, no, I'm saying that I missed knight b6. But if I got to here, I would play a4 and try my best here. Yeah, it's not that easy. That easy. And I could play something like queen d3 maybe. And then after a5, just try to give the piece back with queen d7 or something. Then after queen c5 or... I can just take as well, no? Yeah, queen b5. But here, here only black can be better, right? No, because of the pair of bishops? I don't know because c4 is hanging. So I don't know what the idea is here. I would still think that white has got some chances of an advantage here. Really? 8xb6. Okay, knight c4. I'm very surprised. Well, your king is very weak compared to my king. So I'm not... I mean, I've got all my pieces in play. But again, that's me sort of just giving up this piece, right? And I'm saying I'm not even sure rook b1. But just there are other ideas here that are very interesting. For example, even that is extremely interesting. You know, a lot of calculation has to take... No, definitely, but... A lot of calculation is required. There are two pawns for now. Two pawns. And he played knight f5, actually. Yeah, he played knight f5. So that's really good. So yeah. So queen b2 is just a blunder here. We have figured this one out. And what else? Well, castle's queen side is... Yeah, and she played it. So she played... She played it. Yeah, yeah, this was her big idea. That's amazing. This game will not end in a draw. That's my bet. It will end one way or another, but not in a draw, definitely. It cannot end with a draw. Either white will manage to create a dangerous initiative and win, or black will manage to keep the material. And with the pair of bishops, if you just imagine the king on a8 here, then it's no longer clear that white has something. But it's two moves away. Yeah, I mean, white's got still a lot of interesting ideas. For example, one idea is to go knight d6, like we did before. Definitely. Take. Take m, for example, and move like knight d4. Looks very tempting. Knight d4, because now the threats of queen e4 are quite big. And bishop f3. But it's going to get wild. I was thinking about rook h to e8 here. But now you could take on b5. That was trying to understand if there... No, but here you will have knight d6. No, let's keep the b5 pawn alive. Okay, you want to go a6? I'm not sure how. Because bishop f3 is an unpleasant threat. Well, you might have to put the king on b6. But this also looks dangerous. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. In a lot of these lines, just to illustrate something like this, firstly, queen e4 might be good. But let's just say I go with my initial idea. You put the king on b6 and now I just castle with white. And I just say, okay. But maybe I've got knight c5 here. Yeah, you're very solid here with black. Very solid. Somehow, unbelievably, yes. But wait, go a bit back. So a6. Well, here I would be very tempted to play a4 with white, or some kind of move to... But again, there is this knight c5, which is quite unpleasant, because now the knight on d4 is hanging. Exactly. But maybe now you can play bishop f3, and if king b6 then a5. King b6 and a5? A5. A5 here, oh yeah. I mean, I don't know what is going on. I could maybe even take. How bad is taking? Taking is probably okay as well, probably. But you've got to calculate b4, knight c6. Well, knight c6, I mean, these positions just are always fine for black, because the king is so safe, and b2 is hanging, and knight d3 is coming. What about b4? Yeah, b4 is possible. So if I take, you're going to take... Then I can go off. Oh, I can't play knight c6, because you will take on c6 now. Yeah, you can play queen c5. Yeah, I was not sure that I'm mating. Me neither. But there is... Ah, and then rook a1, rook a4, queen c7, queen b6, queen c3. Ah, no, I cannot do that. Yeah, it's complicated. Yeah, it's very complicated. I mean, there's just a lot to calculate. I mean, this is the sort of position where, you know, you really do need to invest a lot of time as white, because every move is just critical. Unless there's some kind of knockout blow, which I'm just missing, but I don't think I am. Yeah, because you cannot play other moves, as queen b2 is coming, right? Right. You could also try something like... But b3 seems like it's too slow, and if the bishop on b7 is alive, then black's king is safe. So knight e6 probably should be the move. Yeah, it's a wild position. We'll see. Oh, Olga has got in one of those positions where... Oh, no. We were talking about something similar. Well, it's not the end of the world. But she has placed the knight on e6, and now f5 will be in the air. Oh. Yeah, I mean, obviously, if Ravi gets in the move f5 here, it might just be an early day. But wait, so she took on f3, she played knight c5, and he played before immediately. Before immediately, yeah, knight e6. So is knight e6 forced? Because I tend to think that it might be the case that knight a4 was again a very good and unusual move. Yeah, could have been knight a4. Knight e6 might be a little... I dislike this position for black now after f4. Okay, but g6, let's say. But now you could just develop, or you could even try something like a4 maybe? A4, a4 I like. There are just a lot of dangers for black here, because you cannot really consider castling in these types of positions, castling short, I mean. Because then after some f5, it might just be made at some point. I mean, what do you do after f5? Okay, take... I could start with bishop h6 or bishop f5, yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe bishop f5, yeah, just bishop f5 is fine. King h1, yeah. It's not made yet, it's a long way from made. Yeah, but somehow I don't have control over the light squares at all. So after let's say rook g8, I could even go queen e2. Maybe queen h5 is already a big threat. You're not afraid of anything. No, it's not that I'm not afraid of anything. I mean, I understand the dangers here, but I mean, I can... Rook g1. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I understand that things can get out of line here. Also b5 is always hanging. Yeah, yeah. No, that's another thing, like I have to resolve this. Yeah, I mean, for sure it's dangerous, whichever way you look at it. Yeah, this is why Olga's hesitating. She does go fg6, which I think is correct. But I do like a4 a lot, because I think that's... Yeah, and actually I see Miguel saying that knight a4 was the engine's choice. And yeah. I'm not sure how bad this position is though, actually, for black, objectively. But I just... Okay, let's say that I don't even do this f5. So I play a4, castle. Now I could go even for queen e2 after castle. Yeah, but firstly, I'm not sure I definitely want a castle. I think one of the... d4, b4 is a problem. Okay, I will cast. So queen e2, yeah? Yeah. Okay. And now those f5s will come faster because I'm ready to bring the queen to h5. And also your pawn... I don't know if it's hanging, but it might be. Okay, I'll let... Yeah, I hate this move with b8, but I'll do it anyway. And you want to go f5? Yeah. No. No. No, here I could take on b5 first. Okay. And now your knight on c6 might be in trouble. I could play even bishop d3 maybe. Bishop d3. Yeah, and the pawn on b5, I don't see a way to protect it. Maybe you could try something smart like queen d7 or queen e8 and after bishop b5, knight d4, but I'm not forced to take on b5 also. Yeah, it looks very dangerous for black, I have to say. So also instead of bishop d3, after a takes b5, I could then go for f5, I believe. f5 here. Yeah. And this smells dangerous. Yeah, it's definitely dangerous. I think... That guy is so dangerous, Ravi, going... I believe he's playing for a win in this game. Yeah, he has to be, because I think he just felt like Olga after yesterday's loss is really gonna struggle. Oh right, she played that very long game which she lost in the end. Yeah, and then playing in the morning. Yeah, and a4, really nice move. And black with definitely some practical problems to solve and I really love what Ravi has done today. Meanwhile, in Eric against Irene, Eric doing what he's supposed to, which is to play a risk-free game and we have exactly that. Irene won't lose this position though, so this is gonna be... Yeah, this is gonna be just a draw. Probably just a draw. So, yeah, you can't really do anything. Okay, yeah, it's fine. And anything is fine here for black. The opposite color bishops and the fact that white doesn't have any legitimate targets means it's gonna... That one will end in a draw. Let's look at Joe Gallagher. Joe is also... Oh, this one is interesting. Well, we got something... Oh, they played almost like we looked. Yeah. And your move, bishop e3. Yeah. And she went knight e4, which I really like as an attempt to keep some pieces on the board, but Joe just said, you know what, I'm gonna... Knight e5. Okay, he's very straightforward with his plan of keeping it rock solid. And yeah, I see nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Because now if you go for the most good-looking move, which is knight takes e3, then you just get... Queen takes f3. There is my mate on f7. Right. Threatened so... But yeah, if you go for castle, then probably once again something like... But here, could you consider? No, you probably don't want to take on d4. No. Probably c3 is just enough. Knight f3, queen f3. And yeah, it's very difficult to do anything with any color here. Perhaps even after bishop e3, you could try f takes. But probably it's still not enough. I could even sacrifice that pawn on f7 at some point. Yeah, you can just go bishop e6 as well. Yeah. That might be just asymmetrical. Well, you've got to be... I mean, I hear there's just no chance... I mean, Joe just plays queen takes. Yes, definitely. Because you can... If you do nothing here, I go castle. But wait, maybe I could play d5 here now. d5? Okay, I'll castle. Now, something like queen d6. Okay, I will... Let's say I take... Take, take, and go for d4. Let's say I go rook e1. I don't want to, but I might have to play f6. Now, I'll go f4. It looks interesting, yeah. But can you really... Do you want to... Yeah, you want to take it. Yeah, sure. No, it looks good for white here. I don't think you can go d5 here. I don't understand. I mean... No, I mean, of course I could go just bishop e6 or queen e7 and bishop e6. Yeah. But I was trying to create some play, not just to trade pieces and... Maybe if it's not so easy to achieve it here with black. I just think this is a position where you're not allowed to create players black. I mean, after all, I've got... But what if I play king h8 here? King h8? Okay. Okay. And if I castle... You want to go f5? I assume. But it's just not good, right? Yeah. Again, it's one of those positions, Irina, where you... You have to be justifiable in your actions. Yeah, but this is the game where we... Well, it was one of the... The latest team. But I mean, Joe has just played an opening which hasn't allowed it. And sometimes you've just got to say, okay, Joe, I understand. You've played like this. I can't actually do anything. And so I just admit that if the pieces come off, the pieces come off and I rely on my teammates. Let's try that f5. You want to try? Prove it to me. Really? But I've proved everything else. That's true. That's true. But that will then not make a difference if you are correct one more time. You can't. Okay. I'll go f4. Now I say I want to win with white. F4. Why not? I don't know. It looks good here. But what if I take on e4? Okay, I take on e5, let's say. You take on e5. Possibly. I mean, I can also take on e4, but let's say I take on e5. Yeah, somehow I struggle to bring my rook from a8 to the game fast. So I'm not prepared to those breakthroughs in the center. You are right here. Yeah, you just can't force the matter. That is very bad news because it means after queen e3 I have to play something like queen e7 probably. Yeah, but this is just Carthul's bishop e6. Then Carthul bishop e6 and it's just draw. Yeah, that's the way it should end. If we get something like this and there's nothing Antoinette can do and she just tested. That's terrible. I mean not terrible, but I mean it's a bad outcome because where do we score points with the ladies team? Well, that's the whole point. The ladies team had to score points yesterday. And not playing to win with black. I mean, Joe is an experience. Maybe Antoinette will find some other idea. Can she try something else? After short castle, we think that c3... She played actually short castle already. We think that c3 will be on the board, right? Yeah, he will play c3. No question about it. Does she have any other opportunities? The honest answer is... Well, no. Because 96 is bad, right? 96 is just your... You could even take on e6 actually and take on c5 and take on e5. Because after bishop e3, you've got bishop f7 intermediate. Yeah, that line I'm not... Why not win upon? Well, I'm not sure there's queen g5 at the end. Where? So, for example, here... Bishop takes e6. Oh, sorry, what did you say? Yeah, yeah, bishop e6, bishop e6, right? Oh, you wanted to do this, this, this, this and... And now you are saying queen g5. Possibly, I don't know. And now after 94, because... Do you call f5? Yeah, f5 is definitely the first move I wanted to do. I have a 93 spare move after taking probably, right? Takes, takes. Or... Okay, I could even castle here probably. Yeah, but black is fine here, right? Rook d8. I don't know. I have queen b3 check, maybe. And I can't go rook f7. I blinded queen b3 check. Yep. Yeah, maybe. Okay, I mean, of course you don't have to give up... I don't... I mean, firstly, I don't have to give up the pawn. That's number one. Or you could give it up in a better way after bishop e6. You could play... But I don't understand this move ever, like... No, it's just... It just has a materialistic approach. I just want to win a pawn. Oh, okay. Yeah, because if it works, then it works. Yeah, and if I take here, you wanted to take on f7, right? Yes, that was my... But wait. Wait, I think I'm completely wrong after bishop e3, bishop e8. Am I not winning a piece? Ah, you win a piece, even. Yeah. Yeah. So you can't do that. So you want to take, take, take, take and take. Yeah. Possible queen g5, knight g4. Still feels like black should be okay somehow. Maybe rook d8 immediately is also just fine for black, because... Yeah, this is a weakness. Yeah. And you might actually want to... After a short castle, you maybe have bishop c4, right? Yeah, I've got ideas of bishop c4 for sure. Ah, but here I can play f4 actually, after bishop c4. f4 and rook f3. It's not over. No, no, no. For sure it's... It's... It gets... It gets complicated. I've got also knight e5. Yeah, yeah. I don't like this. No, it's not great, yeah. But I have to say this move, bishop takes e6, is not even a move. I would even... I don't know, I just don't even look at that move somehow. But it might be good, no? I mean, why not win a pawn? Yeah, if it wins a pawn, sure. I mean, of course, you have to calculate everything, but... Yeah. Let's try this one. Let's put it on the board. Yeah. Just this line that we looked at. I think the computer... Doesn't like it, but... I mean, it doesn't surprise me that this f5 move is... It likes for black slightly. And then he takes with the queen so that I don't have queen b3 ideas, right? Yeah, I know. But still it's... It's still a pawn up, so... Yeah, it's just saying that black has got, you know, the typical... You know, like marshal, like compensation and this d3 pawn. No, I think as white I would play a much more classic way in general. I mean, I think... You know, in general in these positions... I mean, I would be very happy to see 96 on the board if I was Joe. Because now I can just get in d4. But here I think d4 I can take on d4. And if you're still not castled, I can have a bishop before check. Yes. Even that, I'm not sure what's going on. Like here takes, takes, bishop before. Let's say I just go 92. Perhaps here I could... I was considering most like d5 here, but... d5? Yeah. Because after e5 I was hoping to be ready to come with a breakthrough, not sure which one... With f6, yeah. Either f6, either c5. Yeah, maybe 92. I've also got bishop d2. And in general I don't even have to go d4 here straight away, right? I can just... I can probably just castle. I mean, why can't I just castle? No, you definitely can. But maybe here I could try something like queen f6. Could I? Somehow to bring the knight to f4 and who knows, maybe... d4? d4? Am I forced to take? Probably... Looks like a very bad version of an Italian for black because... I mean, why does... Why it gets these positions? I mean... But I'm not forced to take back. Okay. I mean, if I may just play bishop a7 then maybe it's not... Bishop a7? But this is bad for black. Yeah, I can take. Detect... Oh wait, detects, yeah? Bishop rook. Quidditch 6. And you... Probably. It's not over yet, yes. Probably. But it's bad. That's something like... Yeah, it's not what I wanted to achieve, definitely. Yeah, I just don't think you can go... No, I mean, as I say, I... You can't force certain things in chess and this is just one of those positions where if you just try to force things... Let me try again. Okay. You're being stubborn, I like it. I don't know why in lots of other positions you can be stubborn and this is the only one you can't. Okay, so 96... 96? Short castle, you said. What if I go for a different plan, make one e3? Okay. F takes e3. So, yeah, here I have to be quiet and play something like queen a7, I guess. Queen a7. Okay, I'll play the natural move d4. d4, yeah. Now I need to bring the knight somewhere. Can I play knight g5? Sure. Okay. Worst case scenario, I will take. Queen takes? Yeah. And queen f3 and you want to go bishop e6? I don't want, but I am not sure what else to play. Maybe queen g6, can I...? Queen g6? Okay. And... I want to somehow get to use that e4 e3 pawn if I can, but so solid for white. Yeah, that's the whole point really, isn't it? Is that this position is just... I mean... You could even play rook f2 maybe. Yeah, rook f2, rook f1 is... But now maybe I could go bishop e6 and try to take with the queen. Oh yeah, this is... No, you can take with the pawn because e4 is hanging. But you've got queen g4. Oh yeah, but... Oh, you just want to avoid any endings at all costs. Even slightly better ones for black. Yeah, because it's very difficult to make progress here, right? Sure. But it should be very difficult in every position, right? There's no... Black doesn't really have the right to... But I like from all the lines we have seen in this game, I like this one the most because it still has some, you know, practical ideas. But... Yeah, I mean, why does God just so many different ways? I mean, even here, like castles isn't moved with queen d2. You could play first. It's not... Yeah, but here I can take on e3. Okay. And if you take with the queen, I could consider knight f4 already. Because now, okay, g3 can either work or not, but then I achieved at least something. Yeah, so here at least is... And after short castle, of course, all is fine if queen f6, you can go away with the knight somewhere, but you have to be careful. Yeah. The king, the knight. But yeah, there's at least a little bit of initiative here. Right. That knight on f4 would be a great piece. But I'm curious... Yeah. Ah, so Joe is still thinking about c3, so Antonetta will have to calculate all of this and assess if the pawn sacrifice is all right. But yeah, well, yeah, she has to assess that. But I just don't see her doing anything here now. That's the point. I mean, I know Antonetta, and I just think if Joe plays c3... I think she has a fantastic will to win. Yeah, but I mean, she's going to be aware that there are nine other games in play, and she could lose, and then it could be a crit... I mean, it's one of those, she could be slightly worse with no prospects. I just think after c3, she just has to take on f3, probably, or will take on f3 and just... Yeah, might be. I guess we're going to find out shortly because Joe just played c3. So maybe let's have a look at another game. Let's check the one between Bilal and Maury, because it looked like a very interesting knight or... Let's see if Maury has... Oh, yeah, this is very interesting. So a very, again, a very typical structure. But this has gone very wrong for black, no? Yes, yes, because the pawn on g6, black did not have time to castle. This is a very... You've got a monster here on c6. I mean, this is very bad for black, isn't it? Might be, but I remember one game of mine. It was a very funny one. So I got in trouble exactly the same way. After a queen before, I wasn't very big trouble. They just played a move like king d7, which looked terrible, but then I managed to consolidate, and I actually won that game in the end. Because here also the knight on c6, of course, it's a nice-looking piece, but sometimes it can be out of the game. So if after... But I don't know, is king d7 already forced? Like, I mean, maybe I could even play something normal like queen c7. Why not queen c7 here? Yeah, because I think I did not have that option in my game. Okay, I'll play a4. Definitely, yeah. No, but here I can take, I think, on a4. You take? My idea is that if you take with the rook, maybe I have a five. Oh, but I don't have a five. If you take with the rook, you don't have to change queen. Yeah, let's... I mean, I can... No, but then I don't take on a4. I have to think. It might be just... It might be just bad, actually. I don't have time for this. I don't have time for queen c7. No. No. I think queen b4 is actually a very unpleasant move. Bilal, one of the revelations of this tournament. What about a move like queen c5? Is it also bad? You lose a pawn first, which kind of feels bad. I mean, it is a pawn. Yeah, maybe I have some chance, but I'm a pawn down. So it seems like actually my king c7 might be the move. Because if you go... I thought she... Did she just play queen c5? She went queen c5, yeah. This is a very depressing... She'll be very upset, actually, because now it's just a free roll and... That's terrible opening outcome for Marie. Yeah. And I'm not even sure he's going to take here, you know. I'm not... But why not take? No, no. Yeah, like take, bishop c7. Yeah, you have a choice even here. There is knight d3. Knight d3, and now let's say c4. I chase it around. And I don't have knight c5 because of bishop a5. Exactly. So maybe knight f, yeah. Maybe it's not so easy then. Maybe you have f4, actually, after bishop c7. Yeah, you can try a 4. Maybe knight g5. I could even take, probably. Ah, you want to take? Or even g5. Yeah, g5 also looks completely fine. Not sure which one is better. Taking looks a little weird to me, but maybe it's... My idea was to play knight d7. If I go e6, you just want to take, yeah. And eventually I will be able to win this point, probably. Really? Knight f6. Ah, but wait, I have to be careful. There's bishop b7. Even that doesn't... No, no, it's not so clear. Might work. I thought rook b8. Yeah, I'd say. Yeah, still... It's going to be like a free roll. Yeah, it's a free roll. Yeah, I'm not in love with it. I'm really not in love with queen. But interest, it's very interesting. Do you think d7 was a plausible alternative? Honest answer, no. But at the same time, it's not like I'm full of great ideas here for black. But another question, let's put the king back. What about the move b7? Yeah, that's the move that first came to mind for me. Because now the queen is still protected, so after a4... Okay, you probably will still play it, right? Yeah, I think this is probably still... But now I can take on a4. But this is very ugly for black. I can take... Take back, and now I have a5. Yeah, but in the long term, this pawn is dead, right? So I'll go... But I could argue that my knight will not be so bad against the bishop. No, that's a very, very fair point. Even here, my gut feeling is that this is... No, it's definitely better for white, but my point is that maybe it's better than just giving the pawn with queen c5. Yeah, I... We can quickly look, but queen c5. Or just castle, just give it. Just castle. Just give the pawn. Yeah, just castle, give it. And just try and... Yeah, that's the way, isn't it? That's the way. This is very clever. Castles here, and then go a4. This is the way. Oh, no, 97 check. I'm blundering everything. Yes. Now am I? Maybe I'm not. Why are you not? What happens after 97? You just take on c8, no? Is there anything? No, I protect. So yeah, I can't go e4. Maybe I can go... Maybe I can go rook e8 or something. Something crazy. But this makes a lot more sense, yes, to sacrifice the pawn this way. Exactly. Queen c5 I just can't believe is right. I just can't believe this move is... Yeah, it's just... Yeah, and actually it's saying also not to capture immediately. And that was my original thought, is that here you can just castle long. There's actually no rush to take this pawn. Because bishop c7 d6. But what if I start protecting it with 97? 97. Okay, let's say I play rook e1. But here I could maybe... You want to give a check on bishop f4? Here maybe I can... Yeah, but if I castle it's still a worse hand game. But you can go bishop g5 check here. Bishop g5... Ah, and bishop f4? Yeah, yeah, and bishop f4. Is it working? I mean, even this I'm not completely... Yeah, it's working. Even this I'm not sure, because d6 might be a bit annoying, I don't know. Yeah, then you have to... Yeah. 97, 95 is coming. What an opening disaster. Yeah, no, but queen c5 for sure is just not the way. And it doesn't really matter if he takes the pawn or not, but Bilal now has to have the attitude to try and win this game. So he of course understands now that actually... What's this? Sorry. But wait, how many points does he have? Is he also... He has a lot. I wanted to say is he also in for a GM norm, but I forgot he's a GM already. Yeah, he's a GM already. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, no, he has to play for a win here. Yeah, so a lot of interesting games, everything is on the board. For now, I don't really see where the women's team can try to win some games. I'm not sure. Let's have a look again at the Maria game. Maria, okay. Because I see the queen's game off the board and she's a point up for now. Yeah, but Leandro has been very clever, right? Because it's one of those pawn-ups which don't stay... You don't keep the pawn forever here because a6, a4. And I think Leandro has been very smart. The bishop can come to g4. So if you go rookie, I can play bishop g4. But h5. Yeah, but I mean, in the worst case scenario, there are a lot of lines where I can just take, right? But here I'm fine because I might win a piece. Oh, you're going to pin me? Yeah. Okay, so let's say I go... Yeah, I've got to be a little... That's a bit... Bishop g4 might be a bit careless. Okay, so if I take... Let me throw in this. Maybe you could just play... Now I can play bishop g4, no? Or bishop f3 even. Bishop f3 might work. Yeah, I don't see a way for me to protect that pawn on... But now I can do it, right? Because b5 is hanging. That's... If you go h4... Yeah, you have time to take. I have time to... Even this... I'm not sure I would go in for this as white, but it's probably okay. Yeah, no, knight e6 is a very unpleasant threat and I don't have a way to avoid, I think. No, this is very clever by Leandro. It was just now... Did he play a4? Ah, a6 is still not on the board. No, a6 is not on the board, but you have to protect this pawn unless you go rook here straight away. Yes, maybe I could try to be smart. But maybe we get something similar. No, because now I have a6 after bishop g4 maybe. Ah, and we have... I don't because there's knight e6. Yeah, knight e6. No, I can't trick you. Yeah. I would guess that this position, if you slam the computer on it, would just say it's a draw here. Yeah. No, well played Leandro. I mean to... Because he went for a low variance route, so he didn't create a position where just the chances of a decisive result are very high on both sides and... Yeah. I think it's going to be very tough to get to that plus three. I don't see where it's coming from. I just... I actually don't see... Wait, are you even getting... Where is the victory coming from now? Let's... Sure, gunai is still, of course. Yeah, what about Pia's game? Pia also. Let's have a look. Pia. Oh yeah, Pia can still win, sure. This position is still really up. Probably white has gone wrong here. Feels like it could be better for black, somehow, even with the double points. That point on d6 is probably lost in long term. Probably I'm going to win it. What about winning it immediately with rook e6? Am I missing something? Maybe you have this... No, you don't have this, so I can just take it. Queen b8, queen d8, it's all fine. Yeah, I'm not in love with Hussain's position here at all. But also, rook a8 is not... You could also try queen b6. Queen b6. Yeah. I think he's just losing a point if we're not... Yeah. Yeah, it looks promising for Pia. And actually we see somebody in the chat saying that it's minus 1.7 here. Minus 1.7? Yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all. Even minus 2. Yeah, this is... Okay, so we've got one game where the ladies might bring a point. But where else? Well, the only problem is that Bilal is just at least much better. And the other thing is that we didn't like Olga's position against Ravi. And Ravi has gone for a4. So this is... Oh. Oh, my God. She played bishop a8? Oh, man. Bishop a8, I believe, was the engine's first place. Really? Yes. Wow. She wants to put the bishop on h6 and maybe go queen h4. That's really clever. But is it a bit slow? So, wait. He cannot take on b5 now? It's black's move. Oh, okay. It's black's move. All right. But how do you deal with this move? And so he played queen a2 first. Yeah, he played queen a4. He didn't go for a4 immediately. He went queen a2 and a4. Now there's a real problem with this b5 pawn. But maybe black could be that black wants to set... Probably not, right? If I play bishop g7... Bishop g7? Take on b5, take rook a8, queen a8, right? Yeah, probably. Queen b5. And castle. Could I have any compensation here? Maybe because of some... Possibly. No, but d4 will run into bishop b4. I can take. I forgot. I could take. I can take. No, wait. Here I have... Oh, yeah, you can take. No, it's not working at all. So what do we do against d4? Okay, probably... But I don't understand because here if I go for rook b8, you take on b5 and can go for even... Bishop d3 is an unpleasant move again. I don't understand why this position isn't just very good for white. So what's the idea? What's her idea after a4? Okay, let's try to make it work. Let's... Oh, maybe... No, but bishop h6 looks ugly. Could it be that bishop h... No, bishop h6. Could be. Yeah, but f5 already you have to calculate if you don't lose. Bishop takes c1. Yeah, maybe I have some queen g5 ideas and I protect my bishop. Okay, let's try this one. Bishop h6. It might be in the shot. Okay, so you want to try f5. Yeah, bishop takes c1, f takes c6. It wasn't forced at all. Oh, okay. Let us think. There is also maybe... No, but knight g5 looks strange. Knight f4 as well. Is knight f4 making sense? Okay, let's try bishop c1 first. Okay, f takes c6. Queen g5 and f takes e6. Okay, I take... Take on b5. That doesn't look right. No. Knight takes... Yeah, I mean, you can try this, but why is it solid? And, you know, at the very least, let's say I took here threatening this as well. Wait, I take... I have something. You want to go bishop f4? No, I actually wanted to castle. Castle? Then try something with bishop f4 and maybe I can achieve something. But it looks... It definitely looks risky, but it might already be the only way to not get in trouble. Yeah. Yeah, bishop h6. Okay, f5 is certainly not the only move I can take. You can take. Yes, you can. That's true. Ah, but now maybe I have... Could I have bishop f4? In this position? Yes. Oh, wow. Okay. Nice idea. You can take, take. Queen f... Ah, queen g4. Now two knights are hanging. What do I do about it? Probably nothing. No, so I cannot take on f4. Yeah, and I cannot take with the knight either. So I have to take on b5, I guess. Queen a8, queen b5. Now bishop a4 is a serious threat. I don't know what to think about this one. Maybe short castle here and after queen d5 to collect some pawn somehow. Yeah, but it looks so dangerous. Yeah, I believe the position is probably just very bad for her, unless she has some miracle idea here. Okay, let's try maybe something else after f5. After which one? The bishop h6 f5. But I'm not going f5, am I? I'm taking here... Ah, you're taking on b5. Sorry, I forgot that. Yeah. Feels though like it should be the way for black, I believe. Ah, now I have a great idea. Okay. After a4. a4, yes. Is it work? It might not work. It doesn't work, sorry. No, I don't know. I mean, the position is just... It looks... I mean, black needs two moves to castle, b5 is hanging to me. You know, intuitively the position looks really bad for Olga. Is knight a7 just losing? Well, it's one of those moves which admits that something has gone really wrong. Okay, I would probably take... But here maybe I can take with the knight because of rook a6, so a takes. Yeah, and now I don't know for sure. Yes. Ugly. c5. Yeah, but the position is getting... It looks very badly strategically, yeah. Position is getting ugly. Yeah, I just as I say, I just don't believe that Olga... Something probably went wrong for Olga. She probably had to play this knight a4 move. Yeah, not to allow all of these ideas with a4. Now that the light squared bishop is gone. Somebody says in the chat, why is Ravi... I am higher rated than Olga. Ravi is a grandmaster, number one. His title just hasn't been ratified yet. And number two, there are many IMs higher rated than grandmasters in the world. Many, many, many. I'm higher rated than... I mean, I don't even play anymore, but I'm higher rated than at least a few grandmasters in England. And I believe there is a tax one should pay in order to get the GM title these days. So some people, if the Federation doesn't do it for them, just say that they don't care about the title. No? You mean you have to pay for it, basically? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even if you get the norms, the rating, I believe it's still not all over. You have to submit the application and then also to pay a fee. Yep. No, you definitely have to pay a fee day for the pleasure of being a grandmaster. They don't just give it to you for free. I think maybe now is a good moment to take our first quick break for today, but the way things are looking at the moment, it does look like bad news for the ladies team. The only real game which looks positive is Piers. Right. And every other game looks either equal or the book. Or around equality, right? Well, no. I mean, equal or the boys are better. Like, Bilal is clear, and he castled the Queen's side, which is really good. So Bilal, actually, I would say is... I think that position might be even objectively winning because of the extra pawn. And yeah, I don't see why Bilal shouldn't be winning. And I also don't see why this position for Olga isn't really bad. And somebody... Yeah, somebody is saying that it's plus 1.2. It's still not lost, but probably Black has to find only moves to keep the game going. Yeah, it's a bad, bad situation. But you know what? Yesterday we had a similar thing. It looked as though things were going badly, and then all of a sudden, blunders happened and miracles can happen. So we'll be back in a few minutes to see if the girls can make this a competitive fight. Let's hope so. Fingers crossed, we'll be back to see battle of the sexes. Final round. Join us in just a jiffy. So the final round of battle of the sexes, GypsyChess 2022. If you've just joined us, welcome. We know we have a lot of people joining us from the U.S., and it's very early there, so if you've just woken up, welcome. The situation is as follows. All games are still in play, and the task for the women is clear. They need to get six and a half points today. There are no results so far. Unfortunately, though... It is becoming more and more difficult to see where the ladies are going to score those plus 3, because in some positions, they are much worse. One of the games is clear that probably the ladies are going to win, the one of Pia versus Hussein. Pia has a very big advantage there. Yeah, probably she will win a point in a few moves. And otherwise, yeah, a very good strategy by the men's team, I should say today. They are not taking too many risks. In some game, they are playing for two results. So, yeah, that's going to be a very tough situation for the ladies to make a comeback. Yeah, and Abdullah Aiman says, is Gillian actually winning against Gurnay? I don't think he's winning, but he's got a very pleasant position, and Gillian basically hasn't had a good position all tournament. Yeah, I think it's the best position he's got so far in the tournament. He has very big chances today, and we'll see if he's going to be able to keep his cool. And just have patience to play it in the best possible way. It would be huge if he manages to win today, because it will be the first win in the tournament for him. Yeah, Gillian has just really, really struggled. Sometimes this just happens, you just have a hard tournament, but I actually would want him to win today, not for the boys versus girls thing or anything like that, just for him personally. When you lose pretty much every game in a tournament, it's really, really unpleasant. And if you finish on a winning note, it's actually a really nice feeling. I remember playing a lot of the World Youth Championships. As you did, Irina, I was playing the World Youth for England from the age of 10 to 18. And I remember one thing one of my coaches said to me said, you know what, even if you imagine I had a bad tournament, which of course happens, or an average tournament, it really does make a difference to your spirit and to your mood if you win a game, the final game. And so I actually would love to see Gillian win. And let's actually have a look at that position. Why not? Yeah, let's check it. Okay. So the point is that white center is very, very strong. And also the black spawn, which will probably be on A5 soon, is a big weakness. White might just win it in the next few moves. Yeah. So after take-stakes, as you said, this pawn is weak. This pawn is a little bit weak. White has got a very compact center. You can play a lot of moves here as white. I believe you should bring over the rook from F1 to C1 or to B1. C1 looks fine. Yeah. The problem is that you cannot even play moves like knight B6 with black here, because the pawn on A5 is hanging, right? I was trying to work it out. I wasn't completely sure. Yeah, but I think, yeah, I don't think it works. Maybe Bc4, could it be working after rook A5? Yeah, that's what I was trying to calculate, but I failed miserably. So knight c4 definitely doesn't work, because the bishop is hanging. Only Bc4 might be possible. So Bc4, I take a new take with the double attack on my rook. And this actually looks like it might work. I don't have Bf6 intermediate, because you can just take the rook. Yeah, I think it's working actually. So he has to be a bit careful here, but he could play a move like perhaps maybe Bp1. Bp1, wow. Now force black to go for A4. And how is this one? Because Bp5 will still be in the air, so I could even play something like Qa2. And then Bp5 is coming. And after that, I can take on Bx6 and collect the pawn. D5, yeah. D5 is a good move. Okay. Bp5, dxc4. Well, Bx6, I don't know which is best. Okay, let's try this. Getting completely out of hand this position. Yes. I don't know what happened. It felt like we lost control unnecessarily as white here. Definitely. Okay, so this is the move Bx6, so this is the position where a little bit of care. What about the move rook f to B1? That was my other option, but I was concerned about Qc7. Okay. And now I want to take the, but you have no, rook a4 isn't the way probably because of rook b8. Yeah, you see it's still not so easy for white to handle this one. Yeah, this is actually going to require some thinking here. Definitely. Yeah, not easy at all. Feels though that white should have something, but what that is, I'm not, can you go Bb1 immediately? Why not this immediately? Work actually, yeah. But perhaps, so if Qc7 then Bb5, and I don't have time for Bc4, Bc7. You might do. But yeah, at the very least. Bb6, you're a point up, but this might be, no, it's all right for white now. This is, yeah, this is great for white, isn't it? Yeah, it looks so. Okay, so Bb1. But I cannot really protect the pawn, right? On a5? Yes. Ah, Qb6 maybe. Yeah, Qb6, exactly. But no, this is bad, I think. Why? Because I take. Knight takes. Ah, and you want to go Bc4 again. Yeah, that's clever. Because if you take with a knight, I can just move the bishop, I think. And... After Bb5? Oh, you have Bb5. That's nasty. Knight c3? Oh, knight c3, good spot, you know. Yeah. No, but you can play, you can play Bc4. You can play Bc4. Right. And black is fine. Yeah, no, that is fine. Ah, okay. So it's Qb6. Qb6. But after Qb6, you could probably go away with the queen. Something like that. Oh, Qa4 actually exists, or Qa2. Yeah. Oh, actually, that's nasty. Oh, that's very nasty, actually. Yeah, because d5 is terrible. As after c5, probably you're just losing with black. And you can see by Gunai's body language, he's not comfortable at all. Yeah, Bb1 might just be very strong. Yeah, but he needs to find this one, because we saw that white doesn't have time to first bring the rook. And it's actually the natural way you want to handle this position to first bring the rook, and then only play Bb1. So Bb1 is a bit against your intuition, but it probably is just the best move in the position. Yep. All right. Who else is doing okay? Well, well, a lot of plays are doing. Balash is just, we'll keep an eye on that. The situation is just very clear. It's either Balash wins or he makes a draw. Yeah, he has no risks at all in this position, and we're going to see a very long end game, I believe, in this one. Let's check the Bilal versus Marie one, because it looked like Marie was in big trouble. Okay, so Bilal decided not to take the pawn. You know what I'm afraid of here? I've moved like, I'm not sure, immediately f4 or Bb5 and f4. Mm-hmm. Let's just quickly have a look what happens. He took, he decided not to take, which is fine. I liked Castle's queen side, 97, and here he went d6, which I like. She attacked this pawn here like so. And my question now is taking this stupid. Wow. Knight takes e5, let's say. Rook h to e1. Mm-hmm. King d8. Ah, you just want to block. You've got no interest in... Or king. Okay. Even... It's interesting. Maybe king d7 actually. King d7? Yeah, I will not take the pawn. Okay, I will take. And now I want to play rook e8. Rook e8, let's say. Okay. And if I go f4... Okay, so I don't do it. I play Bb5 check first. Okay, Bg5. King b1. And now rook e8. And now rook e8. Not to allow you play this. I can still go f4. Really? And then rook f5. Ah, good, good thing. But I could play Bf6, let's say. But why isn't this just really fantastic for White? I'm a pawn up. I can get my bishop on this diagonal. It looks... Can you? Yeah, of course. After rook e2. I mean, many. You want to go rook e3? Yes. Okay, but in the absolute worst case scenario, let's say I go here. Ah, so you might have some tactics now. Yeah, and I have Bp7s. And I mean... Okay, I have to take on d3, it seems. And then hope that rook e8 works. But that's what it is. It's just hope at this stage, right? Well, I wanted to play rook e6 and rook d6. Rook e6, g5. So I cannot do that for now. No, but g5... Wait, let's check it. Rook e6, g5, rook e1, check. And h takes. I give the check. King d8. Yeah. It looks like I'm not losing here. No? No? Oh, okay. Bishop g5, yeah. Okay, rook d5. Bishop f4. Bishop f4. d7, rook e5, I was hoping. d7, rook e5 and holding on by the skin of your teeth. Even this worst case I take and go here and win this, which is still chances, but... Definitely. You want to go rook e5 and save. Save the day. And then maybe I have even f5. Ah, f5 is a problem. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, Bilal did something else. But I mean, in general, do you see what I mean? Like, we just did this and I just thought like this... This just looked really convincing to me. I don't know. But perhaps he did not want to go to this opposite colored bishop. Yeah, sure. Because with the knights on the board, still the knight on c6 looks like a great piece compared to the one on d7. And he probably might still have the option of trading them a bit later. But I don't like it because, you know, she gets the king out now. This bishop is now a wonderful piece. I'm not so... I was thinking that maybe he wants to go for f4 plans, actually, to try to get to that pawn on f7. So let's say after a4, she does something. I'm not sure. Maybe. Actually, maybe she doesn't have to do anything about that pawn on b5. Yeah, I'm not happy with how Bilal has played this. I mean... You feel like he could have achieved more. Yeah, much more. Much more. Like, I don't even think black is that much worse now. So we actually have the first result of today's match. It is a draw versus Antoineta. Yeah. And it is, I believe, a very good result for the man's team because Antoineta won her last two games. So she probably wanted to have a big fight. But Joe played a very solid game. And here after bxa5, the players agreed for a draw. Very logical result here. Yeah, there's just nothing we tried to make something work for Antoineta. But sometimes you just can't force it. You just risk losing too much. So here after rook takes a5, let's say, how would white force matters? Rb1 would be the move. And now the problem is you have to go passive with the rook. So you have no chance in any case. Right. Or you could play rook a7 also. Oh, or rook a7. But here... But still, there is no way of getting the a pawn without losing the b pawn, right? Exactly. So just rook b4 or a5. But I have a question. How do you play after rook a7? I have a funny plan. Okay. So I'll go rook b4. Rf2a8. I'll try this. Yeah, you know, I just hoped that I would have time to bring my king to c7, but I just don't. Because after a move like rook b8, okay, it's ugly. You could even go rook b6. Yeah. But can I try to make it work in any way? Probably not. Otherwise, she would have tried, yeah. I mean, the king is a lot way too far away. Way too far. No, this was just a very good practical decision by Joe. And it brings the boys half a point closer. So now they only need three and a half of the remaining games. Right. A half point, that is guaranteed. We already know it's in Balashtronka's game. So the question is, where are the other halves coming? Let's have a quick look at the Maria Muzichuk. Let's look at Leandro Krisser. Yeah, because it also looked like White has a good chance to liquidate quite quickly, right? In this one? Yeah. Well, let's have a quick look, because it's been a while since we've been there. Rf2a8, we consider today's move, actually. What did she play? Did she play it already? Bishop chief. Yeah, she did. Bishop g4? Yeah, it was exactly the variation we looked at. Ah, this is what we have on the board. Bishop takes d7, yeah. Right. Yeah, this is what we looked at. No, she has to take back with the rook. Yeah, and knight takes b4. Knight b5. And we said that there are no good ways. But wait, is it already over? Like, is it going to be a draw? Because the bishop is better than the knight normally in these types of positions, unless you have a very quick knight d6. Then the things change. It's just a draw. There's just nothing to do. Could I play maybe rook e2d8? Rook e2d8? Yes. Okay. But here you have rook c1, actually. Yeah, I'm going to take, take, and rook c1. Bishop d5 is... But here you could even go for b3. Be3, yeah. Yeah, there's no way. Actually, you can be worse if you're not careful here as well. Yeah, right. No, it is. So probably after knight b5, what are we going to see? It actually could be... You've got to be a little bit careful here as Maria, actually. She took on d7, right? We expect him to take on b5 very quickly. No, but I could go for the e2 pawn. So for example, rook d1, rook d1, and rook e2. For the b2 pawn, sorry, yeah. Yeah, so you go for... I think that's what you have to do, actually. Knight d6, let's say, king c7. But you could take on... You don't take on c4? Oh, sorry, I can take on c4, sorry. Yeah, and here maybe something like bishop b6. But I'm a pawn up, no? Yes, definitely. No, I mean, this is just... You play on here as white. I don't expect you win a lot of the time, but you play on. You just play on here. Probably, probably. Oh, Maria might have to do... Yeah, but she's going to have to do some defending, which is not what she had in mind. Definitely. So, and Leandro, we saw yesterday, he can fight for a long time, and he's a grand master, he's experienced, I mean... Perhaps there's a better way of making all of this work. So let's try again. Rook takes d1, rook takes. What about a move like... No, this one isn't good. Rook d8, rook c1. Yeah, it's not so easy. So rook e2 should be... I don't know really what the best move is. I don't really know. It looks like quite an awkward position for black. I would hate playing this position as black. Because, you know, I was thinking that in the rook hands games, you could have ideas with rook e1 and then rook e2, even if you're a pawn down at some point. But let me think. Okay. Let me think before b6. Okay. What else could I try? The problem is that after rook c2, you go for 95, right? But then maybe I have bishop e4. Rook c2. And if I go b3... What did she play? She played something else. She played... Did she play rook e6? Ah, maybe that's the clever way. Rook e6? Yeah, she played rook e6. Covering the d6 square, it's... Yeah, it's definitely very good. So now if he, let's say, takes, king takes d7. Yeah, now king... The king has to go to e7, I guess. Yeah, this was clever. You know, now I'm not losing this pawn anymore. Yeah. This was very clever. Right. So probably here we're going to see a draw again. Probably, yeah. Let's go to oligoguria's game. So this is most likely a draw. So that's two draws for sure on the board probably. I mean, I can't see white ever losing. Let's put it like that. Right. Dolga seemed like she was in trouble, so let's check how she's doing. Weird. We saw this. Why didn't Ravi play bishop d3 here? He must have disliked something. Ah, it's queen h4. How lovely. Oh, I miss everything. Queen h4, bishop b5, rook b5. And it's a draw. Ah, very nice. And perpetual. Very nice. Right, a very good resource. Ah, okay. Very nice resource there by oligoguria's issue. So Ravi played king h1. And now queen h4 anyway. It's, I believe it should be a good move, but queen f3. But now it's not that bad how we thought, right? Probably. I mean, black might have some time even to play 97 in the worst case scenario. Yeah, I quite like 97. Even though you have to still be careful. Ah, the point. No, it looks, it looks all right. Maybe he wants to go queen g3 here. Queen g3. Is it possible? No, yeah. We're getting some weird... So you're saying that the end game, if I take on g3, is definitely better for you? Yeah, I mean, my instinct says take here, but I actually have to consider f takes, right? But I probably take with the h pawn. And what do I do with the knight from e7? Yeah, and the bishop, I mean... Probably I have to play h, something like h5, right? Yeah, the problem is that if I ever want to bring the knight to f5, you can take on f5 and all my pawns are on light squares. I'm not sure you could use it because I still have bishop e7, but... No, this is probably still okay for black somehow, but... Yeah, it's all right-ish. It's all right-ish, but I would still be quite comfortable here as white. Definitely, definitely. But it doesn't look as bad as we've predicted it. Yeah, so queen f3, so queen h for queen f3. Somebody's saying in the chat that Olga is fighting for redemption. Yeah. It's a funny way of putting it. Olga is fighting because she has to fight because she's got the position to fight, but... It might get double-edged if black manages to make a castle. Because then that pawn on f4, you have some weak squares. White should be fast in the ideas here. But I believe that we will see actually 97. 97? And we'll see another good way of protecting the pawn. Let's try queen g3. Is there another move apart from it? I thought you could try queen h5. Yeah, because after bishop d1, I always have queen... Queen f5, yeah. But then I thought bishop d4, queen e4 check. And if I want, I can repeat, right? Yeah, you could, but... Okay, let's say that I play queen c2. Here. Do I lose the queen? I don't know, but I start to get... I mean, worst... Oh, I can't do that. I blunder my bishop. Looks like you might blunder your queen, though. So knight a3, I've got queen c3 for now. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. So close to not having queen c3. So close! But you could just play a move like... Ah, but now I want to play knight f5. Yeah, let's retry this. Yeah, we definitely should. So queen c3, let's see if that one works. Doesn't really work for white. Yeah, knight f5 is coming and I will be all right. Yep. Okay, so queen h5 is definitely a possibility then. Bishop d1, queen f5. Bishop g4, queen c2. Yeah, like this, was it? I first gave a check by g4. Let's see if that makes a difference. Now, can I play something different here? I believe not, because f3 would be bad. The bishop on g4 would be stuck. Trading queens, isn't that great either? Yeah, it looks like... Possible. A possibility for black. Random stuff, yeah. Yeah, I think that's what she's thinking about actually. She did play 97. Very, very well. And we see that they are almost equal on the clock. And I believe something is not all right for white. I mean, it seems like he would have had more. Yeah, yeah. What if I go knight a3 here? You're going to go... But what is the idea? Well, I might take. I might take. Like, let's say you played bishop h6. Yes. And I take. Is this any good? Rook take? Ah, rook takes. Rook takes, rook a8, check. Knight d8 is the only move. Now bishop a4, c6 only move. I start to feel a bit comfortable now as well. I mean, I don't know if comfortable takes, takes. My spidey senses say that... But wait, I want to play short. Sure, sure. No, I know. But it still didn't feel... Yeah, somehow that bishop on h6 feels like it's out of play, right? Yeah, maybe now. Feels like there should be... Okay, even this move is playable. What about knight a5? Queen d5. Short castle. Oh, you just want to... The queen is protecting dx. Okay, something like this. Knight h6. Yeah, but b5 is hanging. I mean, this position... I've got knight g4 coming. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And queen e4, check in just worst case. No, it looks all right for black, I believe. Yeah, it could be. No, I mean, knight a3 is just a random idea. But I would also... Oops, I would also... You might have a 5, so at some point. I thought black would just go c6 solid here. Yeah, just play solid. But here maybe you have queen g3, and now maybe I will not be able to avoid the queen trade. Ah, good point. He played queen g3 immediately. Now it's a very interesting moment. Will she trade queens or will she go queen h5? I believe it's a very important moment here. If she keeps the queens, then the game is alive. Otherwise, we will see again... She will. We will see again a case where white will play for two results because the end game is definitely better for white. She will keep the queens. And look at that image of Sabina versus Jhansaya. They are both making movements with their legs. They are stressed. Let's check that game as well, because it looked also interesting. Somehow all the points in the center were traded, but actually it's not that simple because the bishop on d3 is somewhat strange there. The queen on e1 is... It's not easy at all. I believe black might be a bit better here. Yeah, I can believe that. Because if the rook would be on e1 and the queen on e2, maybe it would be all right. But like this, this construction, I believe is a bit fragile. You could run easily into some back rank trouble. I actually dislike it quite a lot. How do you play here? A4 looks dangerous, but then b5 and c4 is coming, and you can't afford playing c4 because then that bishop on d3 is very weak. You probably might just lose there somehow. Yeah, I believe that Jhansaya might have good chances here. And how is the situation on the clock? It's 13 minutes for Sabina and 32 minutes for Jhansaya, and 20 more moves to be made. Yes, suddenly we get some hopes. No? I don't know. I think it's a little bit early to... I mean, she's definitely got a playable position, that's for sure. Yeah, and that's very good with black pieces. What else can you dream of? A playable position, your opponent slightly back on his foot on the clock. There is also the problem of this long white diagonal. How ridiculous is the move c4 here? Yeah, it might be working, or it might be not. So I have the first question. Bishop takes e5, rook takes e5, knight f6. Do you save the piece? Well, I can save the piece, and I think... Can I save the piece? I don't see some other move other than rook e3, and it runs into knight g4 maybe. And rook g3, rook e8, yeah. I'm not sure how is that one, yeah. But it looks really dangerous, right? Yeah. But rook e3 is the only move. Now knight g4, let's try this one, yeah. If rook e8, I've got king h7, and something on h2 might be. Yeah, I wanted to go rook g3. Rook g3. Now knight... 95, is it? 95 bishop, take two, 95... 95 is a problem. 95, and I'm winning a piece maybe. Yeah, because bishop f4, knight e3, bishop d6, knight e1, yeah. And we have a result. Another result, Eric versus Irene. In the moment when I was starting to think that maybe Irene has got some chances, they agreed for a draw. Well, I have to say that we've seen that one coming, right? Yeah, I didn't expect another result there. I'm curious though if this move just loses after bishop takes. If it could do, maybe just... Okay, you could maybe... no, taking on d5 makes no sense. No, I don't think so. I have to take in 9 or 9 of 6. I really wanted to go here, but it just doesn't work. Yeah. Now I think that's the main problem of white, not being able to leave that bishop on d3 and protect it. Yep, it's just a bit loose c4. So what else do you do here as white? Okay. You could try some moves like knight c4 perhaps. That looks ugly. What did he do? He played knight c4 actually. Oh, he played knight c4. The idea is that after queen c6 he wants bishop e4. I guess. Yes, and after queen c7 he wants rook e8. Right, this is the way. But it's not over yet, because after queen c6 bishop e4. Queen c6, yeah. Does he want bishop e4? Okay, let's say he does. I believe so. Okay. No. No, this is clever. Yeah, now the threat is knight e3 actually. Yeah. What about the moves like rook e8? Is it working? Bishop d5, rook e2. Yeah, no. Yeah, I just want to secure the bishop. Yeah, this one is good. Yeah, probably it's the best way of handling this with white. Yeah. What about do I have another move after knight c4? Maybe I could try queen d7 to keep an eye on the e8 square. Then again you probably go for... I like bishop e4. But here I have an additional chance to play b5 maybe. Yes. Yes, you do. And the pawn on b2 will be hanging in some variations. Yes. Knight a5 and you go bishop a8. Yeah, you can go for b5. Yeah, this one looks like the best try. Looks better, doesn't it? c4 perhaps? c4. Yeah, I can't take, so I should go away with the knight. But where? Maybe knight b6. Knight b6. I'll exchange. Yeah, the rook a8 is not the right place for the rook. No, I feel okay as white. I mean, I don't know exactly what I'm going to do here. But I feel like... Yeah, compared to the first position it's an improvement. Evens... I don't really want to go b3. No, I mean it feels okay. But we'll see where Genza puts her queen. Right. Still black will have to try to keep this a game for as long as possible. And let's have a look at which one. Let's look at Bilal. Yeah. Okay, so... It is very important for Mari here to hold this one. But she can't, right? Or can she? Why not? Bishop c6. It's white to move? Yeah. He just played it, yeah. Oh. Well, rook d8, let's say. Oh, good. Yeah. But now I can just take... I can just take... Bishop b5. Ah, bishop b5. I didn't think you could do it because of rook b7. I mean, maybe you can do it. But I... Maybe... Yeah, because I've got bishop d7 still. Even this. But now at least... Knight c6. Yeah, knight c6. Knight c5. Yeah, that doesn't work. Yeah, so bishop c6 is just good. Oh, this is terrible. Yeah, this is actually just bad, yeah? Yeah, I believe so. Bishop c6. Yeah, you have to protect the knight. What did she do? Knight f8? What? No, this move is too negative. Yeah. No, this move is probably... She's probably losing now. Yeah. Knight f8 is too negative. There are probably lots of moves here. If she just goes to the wrong... Look at that rook on h8. Well, her idea is she wants to come in. I mean, it does make some sense, but it's just probably too slow, I would guess. It feels wrong. Feels wrong. Yeah, it feels bad. Okay, so Beleu, definitely in the driving seat there. Let's have a look at Bobby versus Yovankov. Sure. We haven't checked it in a while. Yeah. And actually, it's a very interesting and complex position. As I was saying, Black does have these g5 ideas, trying to prove a point on the king side. But from the other point of view, if you move your pawns too fast, then you might actually remain with only weaknesses on the board. And White is really very solid here. I'm wondering if he's thinking of taking on g5 at any point. And what do you think? With the knight hanging, do you mean to... No, just as an idea at some point. Will he want to take on g5 trade rules? Possibly. Well, yeah, very possibly. Because now... But I like Black's position actually here. So how do you play this one with White? Do you play bishop f1 or what? Actually, I have no idea. 95 is probably a bad move because then I can just take and... My pawn structure is great. Yeah, I don't like bishop f1. Oh, sorry, 95. I like bishop f1 more than 95. However... f4 is again a very... f3. Ah, this is a very interesting move. So he wants to go for e4? Yes. He wants to claim that this king long term is in danger across the long diagonals. But we will see now a very interesting fight. Because here Black will get a lot of chances, I believe. So it will be the one who calculates the most precisely. Will Jovanka be able to handle her nerves today again? Because they are approaching time trouble and they still have a lot of moves to make. Almost all the pieces are on the board. It's gonna be fireworks. Yeah, things are starting to actually look better for the women. But wait! What happened? Can I play c5? Here? Do I open my king too much? Because I was hoping to get to the e3 pawn somehow now that you played f3. Oh my goodness. Is my king too much in danger? Hard to say. It's certainly a move. It's certainly a move. Because... She has to consider it at least. Yeah. Very, very tense fight here. Very, very tense fight. Right. Yeah, and I really hope that she won't take too long, I think, because she doesn't have that many minutes left on her clock. But I see this game going either way. Yeah. I think it's a very important game in the match altogether. Because whoever wins this, it might be just a match over. Yeah, I think that if Bobby wins, there's just no chance. They're saying Bilal threw it away, which is very surprising. So he's played... I have to say, I haven't been really impressed with his play since he got a great position. And Nf8, and apparently Bd5 is a bad move. But why didn't he take a pawn? Well, exactly. Maybe he was just worried about this Nx6 stuff. But you have c3 at any point you want. Yeah, yeah. I agree. It's a strange decision. I'm shocked, I have to say. I'm completely shocked. If I play, let's try. Nxb5. Maybe Rb6. But still I've got... Do I have bishop? It looks too strange. No, Bb8, Nx6. And I don't have... You might be able to go d7 here, but it's just so weird. It is, it definitely is. But I think it might be actually working. It's funny. It might work, but now suddenly your bishop is out of play, and maybe now I can even just... Play Bd8. Yeah, exactly. You have to move the knight. No, but Nb5 wasn't necessary. I could have taken... How? Wait, can I take Bb7? You still have Rb7. Yeah. But here, maybe this was why he disliked all of this. This is why he disliked it, for sure. Interesting. So, I mean, the position... I mean, I would still take white all day here, no question. Oh, and I see that c5 was actually the best move in Yovanka's game. Yeah, c5 felt like a great move to me. I'm happy that I'm starting to wake up, finally. That's it. You're going to be in time, because at some point in the moment, I can see the way that the momentum is in the women's favor, so... Even Gunai has got chances now. Oh, so if Bilal is not winning this one, then we are back on track. Well, Gunai as well, you know. We said that Jillian had a good position, but he's... Let's check that one, yeah. He's kind of thrown it away. How so? Well, here, after Ba5, he played, but should be won. And what happened? We thought Bp1 was a great move. Qb6, and he just took. Oh, he didn't go for Qa4? Which is surprising. Now, was there something really wrong? Maybe it's... No, d5c5, we already decided. How is this wrong for white? Qc6. Ah, something similar. Yeah, because what he played in the game after Bb1, Qb6 takes. Takes. Takes. Takes. Rook fd1 takes, and Rook takes. Black is doing fine, no? Yeah, but the question is, can he mess it up? Yes. 100%. Because it looks very symmetrical, but there's a big one coming. We have two knights with black, and they can jump nicely. And I know that you like to have two knights. I remember your Blitz games from yesterday, where you were handling the knights very well. Would you say you prefer the knights for the bishops? It depends who I'm playing. Depends. But this looks good for Gnai. Rook c2, very, very, very surprising that she played this move. Why not knight c4? Yeah, I guess she wants to find chances in this game. She feels like she should activate the rook. Yeah, but Rxc2 is kind of now I feel. Bb6, yeah. Yeah, Rx2. I don't know, let's say Kf, I don't know if I'm wrong. Not so easy. Kf1, Rb2. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Bc7. I might. No, I don't have Rx8, Rx2. No, you've got b. Maybe I have Rx8. Rx8 and Rxc2. Yeah, I want to go for the G pawn. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you might. Okay, at least it looks very safe for black. Yeah, something like this is probably. Bg3, knight h5, h5. Yeah, I think it's an interesting idea for black. And did he take? No, he didn't. He played something else, actually. He played Rd2. Ah, Rd2. Trying to be super solid, but good night. She has to take probably. But wait, here after take, take, knight c4. You are forced to play Bxc1. Maybe, or Ra2 is a move. I think he wants to go Ra2. What about Rb8 here? And he wants to go e4. Yeah, I think. Might be, right. Yeah, so it doesn't have to be a bit careful here, but I believe he should be able to hold this one, but Gnai will definitely try to give him a hard time doing that. So I guess it is quite a good outcome, judging by the previous position which Gnai had on the board. Yeah, no, it's really good. She's out of trouble here. And let's have a look at Olga's game, because it seems like Ravi... What is this? Somebody said that it was minus 3 now, but I'm not sure. Plus 3 for white. He wrote minus 3, but okay. What is Olga doing? I don't understand anything. So, okay, here she kept the queens on. 97, Qg3, how did she...? Queen h5, which I thought was good. Rbf3, interesting. Planning to meet Nf5 with Qg4. This is what happened, Nf5, Qg4, and Qh6, okay, this is still all right. Na3, and now the most bizarre move I've ever seen in my life, Qg7. I just... This move to me is from... Okay, her idea was that she wants after Bf5, Gx, Qx, Rg8 probably. But still, it's not working. It's not even good in a bullet game. What does she want after Bf5? I mean, here I have Qh3, I have Rk2, I have every move. Qg4, still probably is good. Oh my God. So, hold on, let's just try. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt. What is Qg7? What is the idea? She just take on f5, there is no other way. I mean, there could be another way, but why to... Yeah, I mean... Look for it if... You have to take, right? Yeah. She doesn't want to throw in some h5 or something. Doesn't make sense because the pawn on h5 will also be weak, I mean. Okay, takes, takes. What is the idea? I'm struggling to see it. Yeah, I'm just... Yeah, Qg7 is one of those absolutely... Oh. I mean, it's just not consistent with the position, right? Somehow, do you know what I mean? Like, even here I would prefer c6, for example. And if takes, takes, takes to play Qg6, something. Yeah, it seems reasonable, but I can go back with the queen. Yeah, you can go back, but at least... And still f5 might be coming. At least I'm kind of... Well, f5 is just a huge problem. But maybe you could have Ng7, actually, instead of... Ah, Ng7, yeah, good move. Excellent. You know, get some coordination, Qg6, Nf5 and continue. Yeah, it suddenly looks all right for black here. Qg7 is just a more... An absolutely baffling move to me. I've just got no idea what this move is trying to achieve. Zero. I'm struggling to find a good idea after Bxf5 now. Also, I don't think this is, to be honest, her kind of... Oh, but maybe she wants to do the same thing. What does she want to do? Take, take, Qf5 and Qg6. Maybe it's the same idea. But now it's not the same, right? Because... The pawn is not on c6, right? But does it really make that much of the difference? I'm going to say yes, Qg4. Okay, let me think. Should I play h5 or should I go Ng7? Ng7 might run into trouble, actually. Yeah, Ng7. I'm obviously going to try and make Nxb5 work. But it probably shouldn't, right? I don't know, it's so close. Nxg4. For example, this is very interesting already, but we'll leave that for another day. Let's say I take... I will take the knight. Check. Where do I place my king? King d7 probably, and now I have 5. But it's not so bad. No? No, I think I have 98. 98. The savior. Bg5, Bb7. Maybe you've got e6, though. Ooh, yeah. Yeah, it's unclear. I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just unclear. King e7. No, this one is not unclear. Why not? King e7 is unclear? Oh my god. I want to play f6 and Bg7 and... What are you doing? Knight takes f6. Bg5, Bg7. I'm in time to save all my pieces, maybe. Ah, but still not. You will get the pieces back, but... I might get the pieces back, and it might be a draw. But I mean, in general, I mean, I can just tell you intuitively here, f5 feels like it's fine for white. It feels like it's fine for white. But again, it's just intuition and not based on any calculation, which is often a problem. But 98, I like this move. Do you like this position for black? No, I mean, I like that I have the idea of developing my bishop. Some. But the funny thing is that, where do I develop my bishop? You're like, even this, right? Let's say e6, king e7. Let's say I went Bg5 check, just for example. I wanted to play f6. Yeah, and I go Bg3. Just as just... Okay, this is not so bad for me. I go for h6. Wait, there is Bc5, sorry, coming or not? Well, I don't even know. But I mean, again, just... I don't feel like... Okay, Bg7, then? I don't feel like I'm a piece down here. Then I go for 96, maybe. You take, take. Rook a7. Ah, rook a8. Bg7. Oh, I'm running into trouble. You could go for rook g8 and rook a8. Yeah, rook g8, 98. And then it's check, sorry. Am I still fine? But maybe I can take here. No, I can't, yeah. I can't do that. But I bet you'd be... Like, I'm curious if we... But I bet... I'm gonna bet that white isn't much worse here. Ready? Yeah, I agree with you. So, you know... Yeah. Yeah, definitely. But wait, he did something very strange. He didn't take on a 5 at all. Wow. He just decided to develop. Actually, it makes sense, because the queen from g7, it took a very important square from the other pieces for the bishop, for the other knight. So, you actually cannot really... What can you do, I mean? Maybe h5, queen h3, but... This queen g7 move really is just gonna cause... Because now I can even think about taking in some rook g1s or rook g1s immediately. Yeah, definitely. No, it's just... I think Ravi's actually gonna win this game. Might be. All right, that's a big, big blow for the women's team. Huge. And by the way, I have to say Yavanka, I'm getting concerned, because she's opened the position up in a way that is... I mean, I really liked your c5 here. Oh, she took on c4 first. Yeah, she took... But it wasn't necessary. And now f4 by Bobby, probably a great move, by the way, takes and takes and b5. Oh, it looks like... It's Lucy Goosey. No, it probably is bad for black. Feels bad. Can I go c5 or what? No. You might run into b4, yeah. And what's going on there? 95, you want? Yeah, some... I don't know. No, you're still fine on the last rank there. Should I keep the knight or should I trade them? You want to go knight f6? Okay, let's try first to take on e5, see if that one works. It might actually work, maybe. What about a move like... Like which one? Bishop d3, no? Yeah, let's try that one out, Rook. And then your pawn is hanging. Yeah, my pawn is hanging. Yeah, it's not working. All right, b5. Wow, wow, wow, wow. But I would consider just taking on b5 actually. You can just take it. Yeah, you can just take it. You can just take it. Now Rook takes c2, I believe. Yeah. Rook takes and bishop b5. Also, I could have taken on b5 immediately, but we could check it out later. Some move like queen c3 or something. Yeah, it suddenly looks like white isn't risking the thing here. White is really fine. Yeah, but yes. Question, why did Eric draw? Because it was a drawn position. That's why if we look at the final position of Eric... Let's have a look at it, because I believed... What? Well, this is just a draw, isn't it? I mean, white has got one weakness, which is protected. You can't attack it. Let's say I play Rook e5 here. Okay, so tell me your plan. My plan is to play f5, then king f6, then see what you do. Okay. So I'll go king f3. f5. Okay. And now, okay, I will just... For the sake of argument, I will just pass. King f6. And I'll... Try at some point, I guess, with f4. So bishop and bishop d2, rook b2 you've got. Rook d1. I want really to make f4, and then force you to take with the pawn, and then go maybe for rook h5 somehow. This would be a plan. Yeah. And then bishop d2, and maybe I can argue something. But even after f4, there's a lot of the time I don't have to take, right? I can just ignore it. Yeah. But I mean that only black is... I mean, of course, it might be just a draw in the end. Maybe it's just a fortress, but black isn't risking a thing here. Just nothing. No, black isn't risking, but I really think the winning chances here are like so, so slim. Two persons or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, by the way, let's go to Balash's ending, because we've had... They've reached m40, but we've had quite a lot of... Actually, this is a bit unpleasant for Marcel. What? Is it not? Why? Isn't it just a draw immediately? Where'd you go? Ah, so I see your point now. But king e6 still is fine. f5? I thought you went for g4. But okay, king d6. Okay. But how is it unpleasant? Well, your rook is going to be a bit... I play rook f1. Rook f7. I might even have rook e1. I have to calculate. Let's try first rook f1. Rook e1, sorry. If it doesn't work, I go on h6. Rook f1. You want to go h5, do you? Yeah. Okay. Check again? Yeah, the checks are just working. Rook f1. Let's put this king g4 h5. You could also have tried g4 maybe first. Where? Instead of f5 or it's the... Ah, here you mean. G4 here. G4, but then I thought maybe... Ah, f5. No, no, no, I can't. Yeah, f5 here, yeah. And king f6. Yeah, this immediate drop. Right. So how much? So here, here, here. Rook h1. Okay. And rook is... But you know what I was thinking? Yeah, go on. It might be after rook takes g7. Here in this position, you mean? Yeah, yeah. But now you go f5 check, right? No, wait. In our variation, we have king d6. We have 5 king d6. 5 king d6, rook g7. Actually, rook g5 might also be a draw. Wow. Rook takes g5. Yes. F takes g5, g4 probably. The only chance. And now I have to calculate a little bit, but let's try first king. Is it a draw that might not be? King is 7. Let's have a look. King e5, king f7, f6. Ah, yeah, because king d6, king f6. So f6 is a draw, yeah. And now h5. Oh no. Yeah. Wait, is it? h5 is the only move. G takes g4, h6, king g6. And you're actually... I'm winning because I check, check. G3, f7, g2, f8. You're winning. Okay, so the opponent game is not drawn. Good to know. Yeah, this one is... That means that Black will have to play rook h1. Which one? King d6, rook g7, rook h1. It seems like a good enough try. Okay, now is there anything else here for White? It's unfortunate that you can't play g4 because then when I start giving checks and when you arrive with your king on h4, I give check again so you cannot really pass anywhere. I think it's a draw here. Probably is a draw. Do you have another opportunities after king e6? Any other chances? Yeah, I mean the only thing is after rook takes g7, f5 check looks like just a draw. Yeah, it's a draw. Because the king is too close and it's just not even... But could I also avoid all of it all together and just play king d6? Yes. And after rook g7, f5? Yes. Isn't it just much easier to make a draw? Yes, much better. King f3, king e6. There's absolutely no chance to win this one. No, this is a draw. This will be a draw. Okay, yep, agreed. So a very good outcome in this game for the ladies because Marcel was under pressure here. So a draw is a very good result here but also it's a good result for Balash as well because he will achieve his GM norm. So let's see. That means there will be three draws already, right? One and a half point. How many points do the men... They need four to win the... They need four. So they need two and a half more. Yeah, let's see where they're getting those two and a half. Let's go to the Leandro Chris again. Okay, that is, I mean... Another draw, right? I mean, I can't imagine him ever losing this position. But she can play on a little bit. She can play on but I would be shocked. Let's have a look. C takes b3, rook takes b3. Because somehow the white king is a bit... And the knight on a3 is not the greatest piece but probably it's not enough, no? Yeah. Let's say rook c1, king h2. How do I try to improve here? I need to get somehow to the f2 pawn. But after rook f1, f3? Can I play this or f4? I would be afraid. But maybe you can. Because after g takes you've got rook f3. Yeah, maybe you could do that. But it reminds me somehow of the position we had in the... Which one was it? Bobby versus Gunai. But he was a pawn up there compared to this one. And he also had the bishop, right? Against the knight. Oh, wow. What is going on here? Let's just go to Brunello-Abdomalic because... Yeah, let's have a look because it's insane. Well, this is a chance for Gensai, bishop a4. This is a chance. It might as well be a very good chance. I mean, this is just exactly what you want. Bishop takes c2. But you've got good control over the light squares for now. That is true. I mean, I expect that white is supposed to hold. Bishop d8 might be working out. Bishop d8, yeah. Yes, with the idea of bishop c4 and winning the pawn on b6. Yeah, that's very good. Actually, is white better? White might be better here. I think just very curious about something. What about... Ah, but after c4 you've got knight c4. I was trying to realize if the bishop and game, if I have a past pawn, if it just runs to queen, but probably not. I mean, two pair of bishops if we don't have knights. Okay, so he played bishop g5. How do we try here with black? Ah, I have an idea. Maybe I don't have to take the pawn. Maybe I could play knight c3 with a very... Wait, what? Yeah, the idea was to play b5. The idea is that if you go for bishop d3, there's a trap c4. Ah, but you can take with the knight. You love your traps. No, it doesn't work. You're a trickster. b5. Okay, b5? How will this one be? Let's say... Knight d5 maybe? I was trying... Repeat. No, I don't want to repeat. Go back. Let's say bishop a5. Bishop a5, but now I can take... Bishop takes c3, bishop takes c3. I can't lose now as white. Bishop takes c2. It's safe, right? Yeah, no, this is not even a chance because I have the light squares and I'm a pawn up. But what do I do then after bishop g5? Well, I think it's just one of those where it's probably just a draw, you know? Somehow. No. Yeah. No. But let's go back and have a look how he made it to this position because we left it after knight c4. Queen f6 she played. Queen f6, okay. She allowed the check. This was probably not the best from her. Oh, so she allowed the rook trade. And then she allowed the queen trade. Yeah. Perhaps she thought that she's just winning material here. Yeah, she saw this. Well, maybe... But here, why did she play bishop b4? Couldn't she have gone for something like g5, let's say? G5 is not working? G5? Yes. Am I losing something here? What's the idea? The idea is that your bishop on to maybe doesn't feel as great as in the line in the game because we are equal on pawns for now. And here maybe I can try bishop a4. I've got king g7 after bishop d3 check. Yeah, and that bishop on d2 is struggling a little bit. Really? I mean... Not struggling that much. I think it's a better version compared to the game. Maybe, maybe. But I don't know, knight c4. Knight c4. So you want to trade your bad bishop. It doesn't feel that bad. I mean, the bishop is... I mean, it's not blocked in, right? It's just it's got... It's got... And let's see, 4 is a good move probably. It's got air. Now I must play bishop b4. You take. I can take bishop b4 if I need. Take, take. I can even maybe go c3 here, although I don't... But why? You don't need it. You can just take on b4 and you're doing fine here. Probably, I mean... Yeah. Yeah, so maybe it was not that much altogether after queen f6. I don't think... It doesn't feel like it should be that much. So we have now bishop b4 takes this. Bishop g5, a very good move. At least we think it's a good move. Marcel has just agreed to a draw against Balash and expected result. And let's have a look at Jovanka's game because it might have... Oh, wow. It's got completely out of hand, Jovanka. Bishop e5? Wow. What is this? What is this move? I'm trying... I can't compute this. If I take, what's her idea? Is it genius or is it something I just don't get? But... She's kind of gone all in, hasn't she? She's gone all in here. But that wasn't... That wasn't the right moment for it. Oh, I'm so worried for her. She has only 50 seconds left. Actually, and now c6 is... Actually, is this just bishop g7? This is her idea. But now, hold on, wait. Doesn't this lose? There is e6. Yeah, e6, bishop takes d4. He takes d7. But then... Ed7, right? Yeah. Queen e3, d takes e8, queen. Queen. And there's no genius... And the rook should be too much. Maybe you still have a chance, maybe, after rook c8, because after queen b1 you've got bishop d3, maybe? Bishop d3. Look at... This is chaos. Rook e1, bishop c2, rook e3, bishop b1. No, this is... Okay, this is... So, hold on a second. We need just a moment here. Just un momento. Un momento. Un momento más. E6, bishop d4. My original idea was just to take, by the way. Classical. Queen takes e6. But now just rook e1, for example. Right. I mean, I'm dominating the knight. Queen f6. Yeah, queen f6. Now I need a good move. It looks very good for white, but maybe it's still not over. I mean, it's definitely not a dream position for black. Yeah, there's still some... Because this pawn is a bit weak. Something can happen. Okay, let's see. Bishop d4, now... But the big problem, actually, in this game is that Yovanka is down to 50 seconds and Bobby's got 12 minutes on his clock. Okay, let's go to the current position after bishop g7. So, let's say now they have one and a half point. Let's say they win this one. The boys, yeah, two and a half. Two and a half, and they need one and a half more. So Leandro is half, and Bilal is at least another half. And then you need to win the rest. Yeah. And Sabino might be a half. Yeah, so there is a big chance from what we see here that... Pia threw it away in chat. Are you kidding me? Oh, uh-oh. No. Why? Why did she throw it away? It might be perpetual. No. Yeah. There's no perpetual. Yeah, there is. Queen d7. Queen d4. f6. Queen a7. King h6. Ng4. No. That's actually losing. No way. That's going to be losing. Wait, but I've got queen a8. Huh? But then you take my pawn on a6. Exactly, yeah. And then you might... Oh, no. Oh, no. If Pia doesn't win... But us. Okay, go on. Let's check. We need to try it. We need to try something, but her pieces are a bit poor. Oh, no. Yeah, Pia might have... Pia might have blown it. It might just be a draw, because look, here... That will cost the match. Here, f6, queen a7. If you block, I take. If you come out, now I go Ng4, and you could just get made it. Yeah, because after king h5, there is queen h7. And king g5. I go queen e... Oops. King g5. I go queen e3, and... Well... You could as well take on h7 after king g5. Yeah, sure. But I just thought this might be made, but... Might be, yeah. King f5, and now queen... Knight h6, and you win a piece. Knight h6, and... I thought queen c5... Well, I don't know. Queen c5, queen d5... Queen c5, queen d5, knight e3. This also looks over, right? Oh, yeah, it's made. No, wait, I've got bishop d5, actually. Yeah, bishop d5, knight e3. But why do you need all of this if you just win a piece after knight h6? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't need to calculate. So she has to take a draw, right? What else is there? No, she can continue playing. Just give up the a6... Ah, so she goes here, here, and then goes here, yeah? And then I take, but she... Or queen e8 immediately after queen e8. Ah, queen e8 immediately. Check. Queen d6, and king g7, let's say. But I'm a bit worried... But you can be worse now, no? Yeah, because this knight on e3 is a very good piece. But what about queen e5 here, though, after queen a6? Maybe I can get the b2 pawn. Got it. Actually, I think that you might have something else instead of this. So king g7, I played after queen d6, right? Queen d6, king g7. What if you go for something more global? Knight g4. Something like that, I'm not sure in which way. I like this move. But I've got... Yeah, and here, queen... And it's gonna be a draw problem. Queen e6, okay, let's try this. f6, queen a7, queen f7. Now I take. Now you take, yeah. Yeah, this... Actually, you can lose these positions. The queen and knight works very well on the dark squares. Also, here after queen e8, I was wondering, can you go queen f6? Quite similar, because again I play queen e6. And now you could repeat. Now I can repeat, which is already good. Now, going this way is bad. Because taking the a7, yeah, it shouldn't be the way. Yeah, so actually Hussein is probably at least drawing, and now if we go back to Bilal... Not at least, because it's going to be a perpetual, probably. No, she went for it. She went f6. She could lose. Definitely lose that position. No, let's not jinx it. Let's not jinx it. Let's believe that Pia... Let's believe that Pia will at least make a draw. I like the optimism. I do. I admire it. I need to be young and optimistic again. I just can't say... I'm an old... Look, I'm an old... I'm battered. You know, life just didn't give me the youthful optimism that you have. Well, I think you're just fine. So, what is happening here? 97, Bishop b5, Rook e3 looks beautiful for white. Beautiful for white? Looks winning. Straight up. Knight a5, let's say. But why knight a5 and not knight e7, for example? Oh, okay, let's try knight a5 first. Knight a7 is a very weird move. Knight a5 allows you to come to squares and hits the knight. So, knight a5, what do you do here? You have to protect... I have to move the knight. But where? I could also... And no, I couldn't. Oh, God, what do I do here? It's just over, yeah? How did my re-manage to spoil it again? Yeah, it's over. I'm going to lose a lot of money, guys. Ladies and gentlemen. But if he wins, it's already two and a half. It's over. Landro, it's three. Bobby, four. Yeah, it could be even more than four points for the men's team today. Actually, the men could just win today. Straight up, the men might just win. And then I'm going to be shipping cash left, right, and center. And you know what? I'll never bet on the girls ever again. That's it. They had their chance. I gave them full support. No, I'm joking. I'll bet on them all day. If we did this tournament again, I'd bet on them again. I would. I would bet on them again. I have to say that I'm quite upset here about the outcome of the game so far. It's just, you know, the problem is this. The problem was this. Yesterday was a huge day. They needed to get more than they got. Yeah. And really, the problem was not even yesterday. The problem was you get off to that start and you have to win another round. They didn't win a round. Right. They had to try and win the white rounds, at least, you know, because it's like in tennis, you know, you win one on your opponent's serve, like they did in the second round with the black pieces. And then if you just keep winning with white, it's enough. Most probably. Most probably. You can never know, of course. But yeah, the games are still in progress. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's... Maybe there can be some blunders. So my hopes are not too high, but who knows anything can happen. Let's go back to Ravi. We haven't seen that in a while. So... Oh, it's not so bad anymore. What? Right? For who? For black. I mean, I thought it would be game over. Oh, you mean that she's still playing? Yes. Is she? I mean, okay, it looks like a sort of a fortress, might it be? All right, so we have another result. Sabino scoring an important half point for the men's team versus Jancaia, who looked like she was... Having some decent chances today, but apparently not enough. It was not enough to convert it to a point. This position looks toast to me, but maybe what do I know? No, definitely white is much better, but perhaps we could hope for some fortress or something. Okay. The problem is that I cannot move my king from E8 because whenever I play king d7, you have rook a7 and it's... So what does it mean? How could I do anything? Oh, it's Ravi's move. Oh, she played king f8. King f8, yeah. Maybe that's a decent chance. My point is that the bishop on d2 is a bad piece. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And we have another result, actually. True. A draw between Hussein and Pia, a great save by Hussein because he was in trouble big time. He was a pawn down and it is a miraculous save, actually. Okay, in this game here, if a king f8, can I go rook a7? Let's try. Yeah. So what do you do after rook a7? The problem you've got here is black, because you've got really not very... Maybe bishop g7. Okay, queen g5. Bishop h6. And now I'm going to really upset you, queen f6. That's going to really upset you. It's going to make you angry. You think so? I'm quite a calm person. It's very difficult to upset me. Okay. Okay, let me think. Maybe you can go rook g8. Rook g8, yeah, that's what I was trying to consider. But I mean, even this, right, like in the worst case, I'm not saying this is good. Let's say I took, took, took, took, and rook e7. Yeah, this is completely... And that's, I don't even know if that's any good. And also the other point is after rook a7, if you somehow pass as black, then I do have... Maybe I could play something like rook a8. Yeah, let's say rook a8. And what if I now go bishop e1? Yeah, this was a good idea to bring the bishop to h4 and then try to put it on f6. If you manage, it's just lost. But maybe could I avoid it? Maybe going bishop g7 now. Okay, queen g5. Bishop h6 back. Now you don't have queen f6 anymore. Now I can go, let's say queen g2. And so I cannot take the pawn because I've made. Yeah, it looks bad. I will have to agree. Rook e7, okay. I am still kicking there, like in the final position after queen g2 in our line. Which one? In our line after queen g2. Ah, rook e7? No, sorry. Queen g2? Yeah. Ah, rook e7. Rook e7. Okay. I might be just lost. Rook e8. King takes. Ah, you want to take with the king. I still probably come over. Ah, you have, I know it's not easy. Maybe I run away. I'm blundering. I shouldn't play so quickly. Okay. And yes, actually I seen in the chat that people say Balash is undefeated. And indeed, he hasn't lost a game in this tournament. Yep. A very impressive performance by him. One which once again I have to say secures him. A GM norm. A well-deserved one. Queen g5, rook e7, rook... Sorry, what happened? So king f8, rook a7. She went bishop g7, queen g5, and rook h7. This is the game. And now he went rook f2a1, which looks like a good move to me. Because now rook a8 is coming. But ah, wait, I have... No, I don't have bishop h6. What a disaster in this game for Olga. Yeah, this is not gone well. Just too many random moves. But you know, Ravi did the right thing, which was to make it, to mix it up basically. Okay, so if he wins this one, Bilal wins. It's gonna be it. Can Ravi still, still spoil it? This? Yeah. Queen h6? Well... Oh, I had an idea. Queen h6, she's threatening mate. So if he moves the rook, he can spoil it. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I had a fantastic idea. What if I play instead of this queen h6? Yeah. Ah, but I can't play f6 because then you can play queen g6. f6. I wanted to make you take that queen e2 or something. Holy cow. But it's not working, of course. Yeah. Queen h6. Okay, but Ravi can just take. Let's say rook takes. And rook c7. And c7. And it's just all over, actually. Yeah. I mean, maybe not. You go king g8, rook f8. It's not all over. But yeah, it is, it is. King g8, rook a7 and rook a6 even is possible. Yeah, rook a6. You can start winning. I mean, you can't lose this position as white, right? But it's good that you say you can't lose it. It means that you don't see an immediate win. Yeah. Unfortunately for white after rook a7, rook a8, there's no e6 too. So they've got only a few moves left to the time control and then Ravi will probably take a bit of a longer think and try to come up with a winning plan. Yes. Let's go to Bilal's game. Okay. Sorry, may I say about fighting hard? Ah, but it's not over yet because after knight b7 or knight c6, I've got knight d8, right? So knight d8 and I guess, I don't know. Oh, but I'm losing too many points. You know, he can just play the safe route. He can also take, take, rook d3, right? But why didn't you want to take c5? Because I thought you were not afraid of rook a3. Not afraid, but I just thought it keeps pieces on. But okay, I mean, this is... What am I? I'm a pawn up? Yeah, a pawn up and you have this monster on d7. Should still be winning. Right, but perhaps indeed he can just take on d8 to play the safe option. I mean, this is such a wussy option to play like this, but it's just all right, I mean, whatever. Can't ever lose this position. Can't. Yeah, it might even be still winning. It might even still be winning. So, I mean, Belal is at least guaranteed a draw. Leandro, he's getting his pieces a little bit tied up here, Leandro. I told you that Maria might be playing for a win here. Yeah, sure. But he's getting a bit nervous and I don't really know... He will get in trouble. I believe Maria might win this one. Oh my God. But wait, she still has six minutes. I thought it's the other way around. I thought he had one minute. But it would be enough because it's just one move to be made until the time control. Do you think there are chances that... I think there are decent chances here. Night e4. Night e4? Sure. Where are you heading to? You just played it. I'm not heading anywhere. I want night f2. Well, night f2 is on the agenda, but I'm also threatening rook b6. Let's say I take on f3. Okay, I take. And play king e3. Oh my God. Just call for night f2? Yeah, why not? Is the pawn and game drawn? Porn and game? You mean after rook d2? Or you just don't go there? Yes. Well, no, I just take, take f4, yeah. Just immediate... Yeah. Immediate draw. How else could I play after night e4? So bishop takes e4 is just immediate draw. Oops, rook b4 check. Yeah. Yeah. I like night e4. Maybe I can avoid night f2 somehow trading the bishops and the knight shouldn't be the answer. Okay. So... You want to move to rook? Rf1. She took actually. Okay, it's still all right. You get this chance on the next move. And rook f1? No, wait. Now rook f1 is king g2. How do I play it? Maybe bishop c... No, bishop's for rook d2. Rook d2 check. Okay, rook c1, let's say. Rook c1. Now after night f2, what do I want to play? Maybe bishop c4. Bishop c4? But it doesn't feel like I should ever lose this, right? Knight h3 or something. My idea is to try to bring king e3. Okay. Let's try this. It's probably... Oh, it looks dangerous. It probably is dangerous, but we live for the danger. Bishop e2? And Yovanka has lost. Oh, no. And that loss is... They need just half more point now. Just a half. The men's team to win the match. And Bilal is... Bilal can't lose. I mean, Leandro can still lose. Ravi can theoretically still lose, but he's better. Even Jillian is probably going to make a draw here. Oh, she's a pawn up? Oh, no. Gunai can continue. Yeah, very sad outcome for Yovanka, because it looked like she had a very nice position with the black pieces. I mean, the problem for her was the time travel, I believe she managed to get great position throughout the tournament, but somehow in the time travel, she messed them up, unfortunately. And yeah, it's a pity, because she has been playing great chess, and I believe she could have scored much more in this match. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, this is a position in the Ravi Hari game, so he reaches the time control. Bishop g3, I mean. I mean, it's just, you know... Can't do anything here as black. You can move your king around for eternity here as white. Olga understands. No, I think, yeah, today, men handled very well the match. They played good chess. On some boards, they were just very solid. On others, they played for two results, and it paid off. It looks like, actually, I have to ask you. Did you get the feeling that the ladies got somehow more tired? Because it looked like after several rounds, they were blundering more than the men. Is it just my feeling, or...? But I don't really know, because, I mean... For example, Pia today would never normally blunder a perpetual with a winning endgame with a ponup. Or who else? Or for example, Olga yesterday, in that very long game, which, okay, she already played for like 30 moves, and then she blundered the only trick. Or, you know, there are so many examples. Or for example, Guna yesterday, who also had a big advantage with Sabino, and then, normally, she's the one finding tricks, you know, tactical tricks. And yesterday, I was surprised to see it being the other way around, so... I mean, it's difficult to say, because there's no reason why they should be more tired than the men, right? I mean, why should the women be, I mean... Okay, so then I could ask another question. Why do they play five sets in tennis, and only three for women, you know? Because after all, you say... I mean, not you, I mean... People say that chess isn't a physical sport at all, but the physical condition is very important, especially when you play long events and long games. I don't know, it's just a theory. I'm not sure if it makes any sense, but... I don't think, I think both sides were equally... I mean, the men made tons of... If we look at some of the men's blunders, Gillian, Joe Gallagher, loads of the men made blunders ravi. That's actually true. Yeah, I don't think it is a question that the women were getting tired. I just think that... But what was then the reason of them going down in the second part of the match? Well, yeah, they didn't convert enough good positions that they had in rounds three, four, five, six, seven. It's just a question of conversion. I don't think it's a question of physicality. It's just a very small number of games, and if we did this tournament again, they might have won by five or something with the positions they had. And... Yeah, I mean... So you think that in chess, the difference is in physical condition, and so don't make a difference? No, I think it makes a big difference, but I don't see any evidence to say that the women are less physically prepared than the men in this tournament. I think in general, if you look at Leech, at elite chess, there is a problem for women, because if you look at the top elite male players, they are all clearly much fitter than the women, barring of... Which sense? Because I think many top ladies are also really fit. No, sure, but I mean, if you look at, for example, how much work the absolute top male players put in, Fabiano, Magnus, and the list goes on, some of the younger players as well. I think that there is... You know, they do... They do work more on their physical condition. I mean, they have physical trainers. I'm not saying that a lot of the top women players don't, because... Actually, I don't know any women's player who's got a physical trainer. Alexander Kostenyuk must be one of the fittest. Yeah, definitely. She ran the marathon, she's a big... She plays tennis all the time. She's so sporty. She loves sports, yes. But I cannot think of anyone else, actually. You might have a good point here. I mean, who actually invests a portion of their salaries and winnings. And I remember when I was managing Fabiano, that was a big part of what we were doing. If you're being able to maintain concentration is just key. And I wonder if there is maybe the... I don't know if the attitude towards that at Elite Women's just needs... Not attitude towards it, because I don't know the honest answer. I can't tell you for sure that Maria Muzichuk doesn't go and run a marathon or work out. Maybe she does, but I get the impression that a lot of top women players don't. And maybe that's something that needs to be looked into. I don't... You would know better than me. How many of your peers really do put massive effort into physical condition? I know that I do, but I know also many players who don't. So I cannot also say for sure. But maybe that's definitely something that we should pay attention for more. Because you know what I also noticed in this tournament? That in time troubles, there were a lot of blunders. And actually I believe more blunders by the women's team. I can recall a few of the men's team as well. For example Eric, but I think it was... But the question is what caused the blunders? Is it tiredness? No, I have more theory, but I think it will be a bit strange. So my second theory is that women get more emotional in time trouble. So I'm not sure if this is the case, but if I compare myself... In time trouble to let's say you in time trouble. I believe that you keep more objective. I believe that sometimes I just can't handle these situations very well. So it's a nervous system, it's your nerves. It's keeping your composure. Yes, it's keeping very cool headed. Cool headed. And you think that women struggle more than men in that sense. Well, if you have a long time to think, I think it's not a problem. But when it comes to the instinct, somehow I believe that there might be something about it. Okay, interesting. Could be that. I mean, obviously one of the ideas of this tournament is to be able to theorize about, you know, if you put two equal teams together. Why? I mean, the women, let's get something very clear about this one. The women, it has been a competition and it has been very competitive. Even if the final result is plus six or plus seven for the men, that is very much within what I would call, you know, basically a standard sample size for a tournament like this. If you did like a standard deviation or something like that of the results of this tournament, this would be in it. Like an outlier would be if the men scored plus 20, let's say. Let's say the men won by plus 20. We would then say, okay, this is a really exceptional tournament. Winning by plus six or something like that. It's not a very big difference. No, it's not. Yeah, I agree that throughout the match it could have gone either way. But yeah, today we are very likely to see the ladies going down. Yeah, we are likely. Well, I mean, it's not even likely now, right? The boys have got one, two, three and a half. So they need a half more point. Yeah, they just need a draw. And they have, in one game, Bilal is, well, okay, the position is after Bishop CXD8. Bilal, it's just not a position you can ever lose in any normal universe. So Bilal can't lose. Even Leandro has played a great move here. By the way, Knight of Two immediately. That just ends the game. Because now we just get a drawn rook and pawn. Two against one, which is a very simple draw, right? Two against one? No, I don't get. No, no, no, no, no, no. Because I think if you go rook f1, I go... Have you got rook d2? Rook d2 might exist. Ah, now it's an easy, is it? King e3, rook d3, king f2. Yeah, you could have gone even rook f3. Rook f3 is easy. And then go away with the rook. Yeah. Even this is a draw. You could even take, yeah. This is even a draw. Right. So, I mean, Leandro is going to make a draw after just being slightly careful. So Knight of Two was a really nice idea, just making sure. So, Bilal is secure, Leandro is secure, and that's it. Ravi also, by the way, just cannot lose this position. So, only Gunai has chances to win this game today. And she has great chances. She's a pawn up and can play forever. So, but I wonder if she will play, if she sees the other results, whether she will try and... She probably will, because she... She will play. This is the professional way of handling such situations. I mean, if the team has lost already, then there is nothing to lose and no reason to stop playing. And as Peter Cifola says in the chat, yeah, the women could have won by six. Exactly what I said. If one of those rounds earlier on just went a bit more the women's way and they got the lucky breaks, they could have won by six. So, it's just too, too smaller event, too smaller sample size of games to make any definitive conclusions. It might be... Right, right. The question of men facing tougher opposition, because they play in open tournaments, is a tricky one, I would say. Yeah, I think I will have to agree, because often a lady who's rated 24.50 is better prepared in some ways than a man rated 24.50, because there is much bigger opening preparation involved. And that's why actually I also thought that the ladies will have a very good chance of winning this match, because all of them are professionals, compared to the men's team. Exactly. Yeah, I must say that I'm impressed by the men's performance overall, especially after the first two losses in the two rounds, both with plus three. It's been an impressive comeback. Definitely. And they, unlike the ladies, managed to do it. Yeah, it's just been, they've taken their chances. Perhaps blundered less overall, even though there were clearly a lot of blunders. What can you say? They won maybe more black games at the right moments. You know, maybe it would be interesting to analyse the black winning percentage. But even like today, right, Pierre Kramling's position, you can't give half a point like that in a must win situation. That's unfortunate. But we've seen that probably her energy levels were quite low, because she had three losses in a row at some point today. I mean, yesterday she managed to win, but today, yeah, that blunder was completely unnecessary. And yeah. All right, I think what we'll do is we're actually going to go for another break now. We've reached a bit of a moment in the match where, well, the match is in a one in a million universe. The match is lost, but it's really just not possible. The situation is as follows. The Milan one up, but Ravi Haria has just a, well, I mean, you can't lose that position in a normal circumstance. Leandro also has a pretty simple draw. BLL is better and probably still has a winning position. And Gunai, yes, she can win, but even if she does, if all the other results go to plan, then the men are going to win this round by at least a few points. So unfortunately, it looks as though objectively speaking, the match is over, but we'll see it out till the very end, of course. So don't anywhere. We'll be back in a few minutes and see the final of this round. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Battle of the Sexes. It's the final round, the final day. And if you've just joined us, well, the result of the tournament has been decided because in the break, we did get some more results. Ravi Haria has actually just won his game against Olga Giria, meaning that the boys have got to the magic number of four. Five actually, Olga. Oh, they have five already. So they're well in front. And that's it. The match is over. The boys needed just four points today. And we'll win the inaugural Battle of the Sexes title, meaning that they win 75,000 pounds, wow, between them. That's a lot of money, huh? Yes. Wow. I think there will be a big celebration tonight. I think there will be. And it'll obviously be commiserations for the women's team. They fought hard. Some brilliant players on the team. Some absolute mega talents. I'm really looking forward to seeing how a lot of these women develop over the next few years, especially when I think of, for example, Gunai Mamazzaro. I think she's a very exciting young player. Also, Jean Sy, I think they are the same age. And of course, they've got all the future ahead of them. And it will be interesting to follow the results and their performances. Absolutely. But anyway, we have to say that the men fought really well in this tournament, making a comeback. After losing the first two rounds, each with plus three, they were able to make just a fantastic comeback. And I have to say, a well-deserved win for them. I think in the end, you have to say they deserved it. Yeah, I agree. They just took their chances when they had them more often and they didn't blunder as much, basically. I think that's what we were discussing. They just managed to just not give away those crucial half points and points. And that's, after all, if the men end up winning by a difference of, let's say, six in this match or five, it's really not that many games. It's a very, very close match. But it's those little errors that made the difference. You know what I was thinking? That even if it would be 10 men against 10 men, in the end, one of the teams would have to win anyway. So, yeah, I believe that has been a very well-thought match. And we have still two games in progress between Julian and Gunay and also the one between Bilal and Marie. So, let's try to have a look at them and see how are the positions. Yeah, let's have a quick look at, let's start with Julian against Gunay Mamadzada. Gunay has slowly been outplaying Julian for 20 moves, basically 30 moves. And the situation is clear cut. Gunay is a pawn up. Yeah, and she will try to win this end game. It's still not so easy because these ponds are so close to each other. So, basically, if the D-pond was a B-pond, there would be bigger chances and it might have been easier to win it. Here, Wetter is still trying to orchestrate a fortress or something along those lines, but yeah, it's not going to be easy. Certainly isn't. Thanks to everybody in chat, especially to Inetka as well. First time watching Irina commentary and I enjoyed her insights. Lawrence was better than he usually is, but that isn't much of a compliment. Much appreciated, Sir Inetka. I will make sure you're on my Christmas list, send you a nice card for your lovely comments. Or was it sarcasm? Okay, each to their own, as we say. Yes, and I know I just want to say as well, I've really enjoyed doing this with you Irina. I think we've had a great number of games and we've had very lively discussions. I think without you being here it would have been a much worse experience. Thank you very much and I have to say that I have also enjoyed it greatly to be here as a commentator. It has been my first big experience covering these types of events as a commentator. I did some occasional jobs, like a one-day job or something, but it has been really nice. It felt like we had a great time watching the games and discussing them. And I believe I have learned a lot from everything, chess-wise, commentary-wise. Absolutely. And I'm glad that I hear that people have enjoyed it. Yeah, I've got a lot of messages. A lot of people have enjoyed it. So hopefully we're going to be back doing some more. People are asking if there's, well of course we've already spoken, if you go to the live streams, we've spoken about the future of this tournament. They're in a brainstorming phase for what could happen next. Did anyone get a GM norm? Yes, Balash Chonka did get his grandmaster norm, securing it with a draw today. Easily the standout player of this entire tournament. I think also Bilal. Him and Bilal were the players who scored the most right in this tournament. Bilal, especially if he wins today, he and Balash did really well. Balash with 7 out of 10 was basically never in danger. I don't remember one game where he had even a seriously bad position. Yeah, definitely. He could have even scored more if he would convert the winning advantage he had against John Sayer. Yes, he could have scored more points, absolutely. Bilal, one of the most uncompromising players, super fun to watch and analyse his games, really enjoyed getting to know him as well. A lot of people are asking about Eric, of course. Eric drew his game against Irene. Eric had a very, I would say for him, disappointing tournament personally. He had so many beautiful positions and he blundered in so many spots. He could have scored at least three points more. Exactly, at least three points. So I think he'll be disappointed. Ravi will be quite happy overall. He scored actually very well. I think he's gaining like 12 or 13 rating points actually, Ravi. That's a great result. Sabino was solid, Leandro was solid, Bobby was extremely solid. Really the only player that struggled was Gillian, right? But it might have been actually the strongest tournament he has played in his life. I don't think it's even a question, is it? Yes, and then, of course, getting the first time, this kind of experience is never easy, but I hope he will come stronger out of it. And who knows, maybe he could save today's game, do you think? Yeah, I mean, this is the position on the board. I would say that his chances are very slim to save this game because the two nights work beautifully in this position to help push the pawn. And I think white, even if you exchange one of the minor pieces, it doesn't really help, for example. If a knight for a knight comes off, this is a fairly easy conversion because the knights can jump around. I don't really see how you're supposed to save this position as white objectively. I mean... Let's try a knight of two, I suppose. Oh, sorry. So he played Bishop e1 already. Bishop e1, so it's black's move. Oh, it's black. Well, actually, can I play it something? King d5, I believe. Yeah, king d5 is logical. Look at these knights, beautiful. Yeah, the problem is that after knight f2, you didn't even go for king c4. King c4 looks good. Knight c5 looks very decent because then check and check comes. What about f4? And let's say I give check. Yeah. And where... King d2? Yeah, and check. Oh, but knight f3. Sorry, knight f3 wins. Sorry, knight f3 is good. Knight f3, king d1. You've pushed the king back and now probably lots of ways to go. King d4 should be the easiest. So there's no way to save it. No, I doubt it. I doubt it. I doubt it. Not objectively, I don't think. So I expect Gillian to lose. But you know what? He's had a great experience. Yeah. And anyway, his team won. And his team won. It was a team event. You know, I mean, he might be disappointed, but he's going to go home with seven and a half thousand pounds, which is not... Well, a lot of people were asking, is it euros? No, it's pounds. So that's... What's that in euros? No idea. I'll check. I don't even know what that is in euros. Perhaps it will make a big difference in his future chess career. Maybe he could get a better coach, more tournaments, more strong tournaments to play. 9,000 euros. It's a big difference, right? So it's nearly... Yeah, it's a big one. And then with everything else, probably a tenth, because, you know, accommodation was paid for, travel, 10,000 euros. No way he... Well, as I said, nobody has won that prize money before. Yeah, from the men's team. From the men's team. From the women's team, they've all probably won it. Or most of them have won it. Probably all, actually. So, yeah, over 10,000 US dollars, exactly. Yeah, amazing. Great score. I'm very happy for Chile. Very nice guy. Very modest and... Do you know, because I see people in the chat asking, do you know if he has a coach at all? He might not... I have no idea. No, I doubt it. He's a policeman. Oh, really? That's his job. He's a policeman. Wow, I did not know that one. Yeah, indeed. Let's look at the other game remaining, Bilal against Marie, because we have a typical opposite color-bish bending. I think Bilal could have won this a lot earlier. He probably just lost concentration. But his position is probably objectively still good enough to win. Okay, so the plan is King A6, King B7, King C8. And then when I play King E7, probably I could just push the other pawn before, right? You can push the other pawn. You might even be able to do the old swing a row around this way to force the bishop out. Oh, right. Yeah, that's a good point. Because then if I get with the rook on H8, it's just the pawn... The deep pawn will be Queening. Shout out to Laurence Cooper in the chat. Laurence, lovely to see you here, mate. Well done to Irina for putting up with Laurence. I agree totally. Laurence, a peaceful night says, Laurence, what do you think of ways to get more men to the game? Do you think it would be better long-term to get rid of separate women's titles? We actually spoke about, maybe not the titles, we spoke about women's tournaments on the stream. Yeah, we were speaking about getting rid of women's tournaments and making everyone to compete against each other. And we thought that in short term, it would probably mean that many professional women players would quit chess. But long-term, it would probably mean that more girls would start to compete with the boys. And that would mean that overall, the level of the ladies playing chess might increase. But it would definitely take a long time just to start from the beginning. Yeah, I think getting rid of women's tournaments at the moment is just not possible, as you said. There needs to be a slightly more even playing field before we start to do that. And there wouldn't be any women professional players, basically, if that was the case. We're not there yet. As for women's titles, again, I think in the future, there might be an argument for that. But now I think that did, de-incentivizes women. I think, in general, it is just important to encourage little girls who are just at the beginning of their path, not to aim only for the women's titles and so on, but to compete from equal to equal with the boys. And that, it should increase the level of the women's players. And I think, I'm not sure in how many years but this should naturally lead to the women playing stronger. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, and in general, of course, this whole event is designed to raise the profile of women's chess. And Gibraltar, for many years, has been doing just that. Supporting, promoting, encouraging women to play. And women's football, I think, to play. And women have had enormous success in Gibraltar, in general, over the years. Right. And actually, yesterday, Antoinetta mentioned that it is very important that in the open, which was held before, there were a lot of strong players and women got the chance to play against a lot of strong players, strong and top GMs. Yeah. And that's been amazing. And a lot of ladies got their GM titles, actually, by playing in Gibraltar in this very strong open. And yeah, I hope that one day we will see a women's world champion becoming an overall world champion. That is the dream. I mean, that's something, if I could wish a few things in chess, that is one of my top three wishes. That would inspire a lot of little girls. Yeah, I think it would just, it would just, it could propel chess to a level that we've not seen. Fingers crossed we get that. Quick shout out to Howard, 0181, Howard Berlin. Now, that name might sound random to you, Irina, but Howard is one of my best friend's dads. And actually, when I first learned chess, it was really Howard and Jamie, his son. Jamie won't be watching because he's a dad with kids. But it was really thanks to Howard and Jamie that I got into chess. So it's really nice to see you, Howard. Thanks for the messages in general. And of course, let's hope that Aston Villa get crushed next season. They're Aston Villa. They're a football team. And they are Aston Villa fans. And I can't remember the reason why, but it is not acceptable, Howard. All right, what's going on here? Well, Bilal, by the way, has just moved his king to A6. And this is what we call the slow death by a thousand cuts. You know that expression? Yeah, I do. And this is death by a thousand cuts. This one is not so, not a thousand cuts. This is just a nice, this is like going for a massage. This is Gunai massaging her way to victory. And then Bilal is just slowly chipping away. And we see that actually from the ladies team, the top scorer is Maria Muzichuk with a plus three score. If our viewers are right. This is actually a good score. Plus three should grant her a few yellow points, right? Definitely, a hundred percent. She's definitely making a few yellow points. Um, I guess that also... Okay, Antoinette has a plus two score, but only out of four games. Shansa might be winning a point or two, possibly. Yeah. And I think all the rest, Marcel probably is not losing actually. Right, definitely. Definitely, she should also be winning a few yellow points. Yep, five yellow. Who is that Abdullah? Who's winning five? Probably Maria, right? Yeah, probably Maria. Yeah. And there you can see in the picture, women's captain Pierre Kramling, who had for me a very, very disappointing event. She had a stretch of those three losses in a row, really killed the event for her, really, I would say. And she found it tough. But it is very inspiring actually that she keeps playing chess at a very good level for so many years. I believe there is no one like her in women's chess. Absolutely not. Absolutely not, no. And she's there supporting her team till the very end, as any captain should do. Really wishing for Gunaid to win this game. And I have to say, Gunaid is just inching further with every move. And actually, 95 just played now. And you can smell the victory in this one. Yeah, D3 is a big threat because after King E3, Knight C4, the bishop on D2 will be lost. So, yeah, probably this game will end with Gunaid's win. And actually, it will also be very good news for her because she was struggling in the last few rounds and the win will definitely raise her spirits. Yeah. I know that she is a very emotional lady. Is she? Yes, yes. And it was very difficult for her to overcome all these losses. She's very quiet. She hasn't really, you know, I've noticed she's been very quiet here and she's hung out a lot with Janssaya, who I guess is her best friend. Right. Right, yeah. But an exceptional player. I've got really very lofty expectations for Gunaid. Mamadzada, I think she has got the natural talent to be a 2,500-plus grandmaster and really challenged for the top 10 places in the world. Yeah, and I believe she's a very ambitious person as well. And I really believe that she's going to do whatever she needs to in order to become a GM and perhaps, like you said, a top 10 player. Player, yeah. Sabina, where is Sabina? Good question. Probably I guess a group of the boys are probably, either they're already back at the hotel or maybe they've gone for a celebratory drink in town. We have got a closing dinner tonight, so there is a formal closing dinner. I don't know if that's going to be... I think it will be held at the mayor's place, right? Yes, I think we've got some places we've got to go. And the boys will revel in their victory. And, of course, the appropriate thing to do is to ask for all the money in cash and then go to the casino later. I think it's not advisable. Maybe not the right thing to do. No, I mean, look, let's be honest, it's a lot of money and for a lot of these guys, especially the younger guys, somebody like Ravi or somebody like... Bilal also. Bilal, it's huge. $10,000. Definitely. And you know, this might be also very important because they might be able to travel to very strong tournaments and continue to improve because that's the struggle which players have at this rating about 2400, 2500, that you want to play really strong tournaments, but then you don't get invited to them and you have to go by your own means. Exactly. And this money could make a big difference. Yeah, and I also want to say that... Yeah, quick shout out to Kevin Stevens. Thank you very much for the nut kind words. And I have to say, I've done many events, Irina, as you know, I've commented many events. And I really want to see chess commentators in the future. I think it's very important for commentators to try to avoid using an engine in analysis. We use the engine... Just when we disagreed too much and we need to know which of us is right. But we even didn't even look. We just flicked it on and turned it off. So, well, for 95% of the broadcast, we didn't have the engine on 96%, something like that. I think it's more than 95, yeah. So I really think it is important because, you know, of course, we're not super grandmasters and we're not the Anish Giri's or Peter's fiddlers of this world. But I think we're good enough to be able to give a decent idea of what's going on in the position. And I think people appreciate it. And it should be probably more interesting to watch what a person thinks, you know, and to see what might be going through the brain of the players who are playing. Because, yeah, we, I guess, have similar ratings to some of the players who are on this tournament. And perhaps we sometimes think in a similar way like they do. And yeah, I hope that the people at home enjoyed this kind of commentating. Yeah, absolutely. And again, thank you to everybody for all the very kind words. Well, Gunai is slowly inching in. Okay, Jillian has put the bishop on H6. And slowly but surely she's going to find a way here. Knight c4 here looks reasonable, for example, just to cut some more squares for the king. And then you have to, you do still have to find a win, yeah. So let's say white passes with bishop g5. What's the easiest way here to? I think we need to trade a piece. Yeah, I think that would help. Not easy to do that though. Yeah. Okay, let's go back to the position, bishop H6. Let's see if we can be, okay, let's go knight d4 first. I just wanted to say that I need to bring my knight to c2 and you did exactly the thing which I wanted. Oh, you want to, I wanted to attack this pawn simply. All right. I wanted, because you can't go here because knight g4 check wins the piece. That's a pin. And if you give a check, I was wondering if I could just go king c, that has to be the way. That has to be the way. But there is knight e3 check instead of knight c3. Yeah, so you go knight e3 and then I just. And then knight f4 maybe. Yeah, and now f4, can I do this? I can do the same maybe, yeah. Maybe, I have to be a bit careful, but I can probably do the same. I take it? Yeah, takes. You can't go here because of knight f5 check, oops. So I have to sacrifice my pawn, play f5, right? f5? Oh wow. Otherwise you queen. Okay, and if I take. With the knight? Yeah, because I hit the bishop and then I come in and it's over. Wait, a bishop d2, let's say? King e5. Yeah, king e4, knight d4 and knight b3 and pawn and game is winning. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one way to do it. Yeah, I think it should be the way of doing it. Yeah, because you want to force, basically what you want to do is you want to force the weakness. So knight d4. But wait, what about after knight d4, king e3? King e3. Okay. My idea is that if you take with the d knight, I want to play bishop g7. Can I make it work? Or you just play king c4? King c4, king f4. I'm still in time. And if I go... If you move the knight I will take on e5 and then on d3. And if I go knight e1? Then I take and play king d2. Take, take, king d2. And I'm managing to screw this up, am I? Might be, yeah. Because king e4 might not be enough. Even this... I mean, yeah, I'm definitely getting on the... Okay, so let's have a think after king e3. So king e3 is your idea, okay. And what if I go king c4 here? How stupid is this? This is probably a very stupid move. Bishop g7 once again. You want to go bishop g7? And if I take... There is knight b2 now. And I blunder d3. Yeah, I've blundered e3. Okay, so actual serious care is required here. You could still play knight d4. And after king e3 try maybe knight c2. And king d2... King d4, king d2, king d4. And then bishop g7, so forth, yeah. It's not so easy. Did she play knight d4? Yeah, she did. So now it's up to Jillian if he will be able to find this resource with king e3, I believe. Because I don't see another way of keeping the game going. Okay, so knight d takes f3? Yeah, what did I play here? Bishop g7, right? Bishop g7, okay. And what if I go for... King c4. Knight g5. And king c4, king f4. We already discussed that. I see what you want. So I will play bishop takes e5. Okay, king takes e5. Now after knight f2 you might have d2? Yeah, I wanted to make d2 work. I'm still not sure but... I think it works. So after... We didn't want to take on d3 because there is knight e4. And white is collecting... I mean black is collecting the g1. It still might be a draw by the way. After g4 maybe. f4. King e2? King e2? Have I blinded this? It still looks kind of good for black. But why didn't you take the black? I can just take. I mean taking must be. I mean just take. Well I wasn't... I'm also not sure that is winning but it might be. I think... f4 might still be winning by the way. What after king e2? Okay, g5 or something. Now the knight comes. Knight b2, king d4. Now I'm running away with the knight. Let's say knight a4. Knight c3 check. Ah, I cannot do that. Then what do I do? Knight d1, knight c3 again. Yeah. Wait, so let's get back a few moves. So after g5. Yeah, I'm only playing against the knight, right? That's the... That's the concept. What about king d3? King d3, knight f6, knight f2. Yeah. Okay, so I'll pass king d5. Yeah, the problem is that my knight is very bad right on d1. Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's try to play king e2. Here? Yeah, and after king d4 king a3. Okay. Do I still have hopes here? Okay, okay, okay, king... Mm-hmm. Probably not. By the way, they have played something else. They have played something else. We'll have a look in a minute, but king d3. Knight b2. And king c2. Knight a4 only move. And now, so this check here is... And I'm... King e2. And I'm losing the thread or what? Yeah, this already should be a draw. King a3. You think this is just simply a draw? No, because yeah, you don't have time to keep your knight on e4 now. King d3, you played? Knight b6. Is this really just a draw? King f2. So simple, huh? King e4. I mean, I'm definitely going the wrong way, that's for sure. Knight is 7. I mean, for a start, fxg4 might win, and this might still win, but it's still very unpleasant for white. But this didn't happen, so it's all irrelevant. Right. Well, so what actually happened? Bishop h6. What did she do? Knight d4 she played now, and knight b2. Knight b2, yeah. Okay. Knight b2. Knight c2 and bishop f4. Is it... Did she miss it? Did she blunder something? No. Yes. Because now after king d4, there's bishop b5, and I'm getting the d3 pawn. So knight b4 might be the only move, but then I can take and play king e3. d2. What? What is this? She couldn't save the pawn. She blundered? Yeah, she couldn't save it. What? So after knight b2, knight c2 might... Well, knight b4 didn't exist here? No, I take and king e3. Oh, wow. Oh, God. Oh, man. That is disappointing. Yeah, knight c2 was wrong. So there's no tricks. Bishop takes d2. She's going to go knight d4 anyway. But of course now it's really feels like you should be making a draw. Definitely. Oh, man, man, man, man, man. Yeah, so nothing went the ladies' ways today. Wow. That's just horrible. Right. So what's the best way here? Maybe g4, actually. I like g4. Maybe just g4, you know? Because if you take, I can just take. And the funny thing is that with two knights against a bear king with no pawns, it's still a very easy draw. This is just... Like, I wonder if Goonite even plays this position, you know? I think once he takes the pawn, they will agree for a draw. He played f4, by the way. f4 is slightly tricky, but actually it doesn't make a difference because it still should be an easy draw. Because you just need to sacrifice... But wait, now that there are pawns involved, if you just sacrifice your pieces for the two pawns, it's not a draw. Yeah, I didn't like f4. Yeah. Like, if you gave this position to Magnus Carlson, would he beat this guy? Probably, right? I'm not sure. In the other match, Bilal has done the business against Mari. He actually played this plan. Oh, they're okay, changed the plan. And Mari with a disappointing finish, meaning there's only one game left. Jillian, who played f4, wouldn't be the mover. So actually the man lead by three points today already. Yeah, just a blowout victory. Yeah. Very, very disappointing. But, you know, when the match was already over, it's very difficult to maintain the energy in me. Wait, did she just play knight c4, knight c4, and king c4? Yes, she did. I mean... Now she wants to bring the king, and then try somehow to win a pawn, but there is no way to win the pawn. He's putting the bishop on h4. Right. Yeah, he might still get into some trouble, weirdly. But he should be able to hold this one. And look at his clock. He's got half hour against one minute, I believe. Yeah. He went bishop b6. Now knight should reroute to e4, probably. Yeah, like knight b3. Right. But you can just... You could also play bishop e3. You can even just go g4. Yeah, anything is a draw here. G4 is a very nice way of just forcing matters, and they actually agreed for a draw. I think a very good decision, it would have ended this way. Anyhow, after knight has blundered that deep pawn, well, we have to say it was a very tough event for both of the players, and yeah. The man won with plus three today, and overall it means it's plus six, right? Yeah, plus six. Now the expected score, if you look at it purely on the rating, was plus four. So this is really a very normal result. Here are the actual individual results, as you can see. Bilal winning, finally. Ravi winning, Bobby winning, and the rest, which draws no wins for the women, in the final round. Meaning that the men win 53-47 overall, taking home £75,000 in the process, and they'll be over the moon. Commiserations to the women's team, valiant fighters, and I don't know if we're going to get an interview. Is that the idea, perhaps? We're checking if we're going to get an interview. So what we'll do, I guess, is we'll go for a quick break. Right, and then we'll see if we could get the captains, and how we'll be joined by special guests, right? Let's see, we'll go for a break, and then we'll let you guys know. So don't go anywhere, and we'll be wrapping up the tournament in just a minute. Rick, you drew with Irene Sukandar today in the final round of the Battle of the Sexis. Tell us something about the game. Yeah, it was a solid game from both of us. We entered a four-night scotch, given the team situation, especially with men being white today. I was looking to play something solid, and I don't think there were too many chances for either of us throughout the game. So that was the team approach today, was it? I noticed Joe Gallacher also played Joe Copianissimo against Antoinette Stefanova. Did you guys talk about your team strategy for today together, or...? There wasn't too much specific planning, but in general, in a team situation like this, when you have the white pieces, you want to play something solid. Rick, you drew with Irene Sukandar today in the final round of the Battle of the Sexis. Tell us something about the game. Yeah, it was a solid game from both of us. We entered a four-night scotch, given the team situation, especially with men being white today. I was looking to play something solid, and I don't think there were too many chances for either of us throughout the game. So that was the team approach today, was it? I noticed Joe Gallacher also played Joe Copianissimo against Antoinette Stefanova. Did you guys talk about your team strategy for today together, or...? There wasn't too much specific planning, but in general, in a team situation like this, when you have the white pieces, you want to play something solid, and there's a concept of playing for two results where you aim for maybe a slight edge, so you either play for a win or play for a draw, but you don't go all out trying to win and take too many risks. Kind of an intuitive strategy for last round of team tournaments. Exactly. Okay. What do you think of the format, and what do you think of the actual match itself, the format of Battle of the Sexis? Any thoughts on that? Oh, it's been great. I've been very impressed with the novelty of the format, and hoping to see more tournaments like this in the future. Yes, and we're thinking about, we're already planning another one. Obviously, we're interested in people's ideas, what they think about this, and how we can tweak it to make it even better. Any ideas? Yeah, it would be worth getting feedback from the players and the spectators. I know these days, a lot of the online spectators enjoy watching faster time formats. Obviously, this is classical chess, and games average from like three to five hours, but seeing a format where we incorporate some sort of blitz or rapid, I think would make things even more exciting. With some sort of point system, I guess, so you could have the classical chess with more points per game, perhaps less for rapid, less still for blitz. Is that the idea? I think it's very possible, yeah. Something along those lines. I would be very open to like brainstorming with different types of formats, but yeah, some sort of point system where we have a classical wrap and blitz portion I think would be very interesting. Okay, let's have a look at your game. Okay. Okay, Eric, you have a four nights defense here. You've got the white side, fairly standard position, black to move. What happened next? Yeah, this is an opening I haven't played in ages. I used to play this a lot in childhood from both sides, but decided it would be a solid choice for today. And in this position, Irene Castle. And I castled and then D5, and we entered the main line after it takes Bishop G5, C6. All right, hello, everybody, and welcome back. This is the final, I guess it's the final time you'll be seeing us for this year, here, Battle of the Sex is 2022. And I'm delighted to be joined by both Pierre Kramling and Sabina Brunello, the women and men's captain. Obviously, huge commiserations, firstly to you, Pierre. Today was always going to be a really difficult task, having black and needing such a big score. But you know, the girls, they left everything on the table. They gave it their all. How do you assess the performance of your team overall? And what are your closing words, let's say? Yes, no. I think we had such a wonderful start, but it was a little bit like that. The energy went out. And also that we were the only one who had a person with COVID, with Antoinette, and that was really a huge, let's say, yeah. It was a blow, a setback. Absolutely. And because we could see when she came back, she gave energy to the team, but she only came back for the last three rounds. So I think that we didn't have the same energy, that this was actually what was missing. And because we had lots of very good positions, I mean, winning position, it was incredible positions. And then all of a sudden, something very strange happened and this position were not, weren't even, sometimes even lost. So there were some giving away points, that's what I think. But I think again, it was that, yeah, that the energy was lacking, yeah. And do you think this was a successful, let's call it experiment, in inverted commas, the concept of the tournament? Do you think it was beneficial overall to play a tournament like this for the future of chess, women's chess as well, promotion of women's chess? Absolutely. No, I think this idea was really lovely, really, really lovely. I mean, I played some matches, women against men, but a long time ago, we played ladies against veterans, I played also a match in Brazil, 87, so some years ago, but when they picked the teams, they, first of all, the teams were only like four, five, six players. Here we were 10 players, but we also tried to match. And it's like this, that our operands, the men were a little bit higher rated, and I think the normal score should have been plus four for them. Now they made, yeah. Now they made a little more, so, and this I think was a little bit also the situation we had the last day, we knew we had to try to win. And also you play in the morning, the energy has gone, we played a little bit uphill the last round, so it's not so strange that it became a little bit more. But they really liked that the teams for a match, more or less with rating, more or less with age, but they were also a little bit younger. I don't know if this also meant that they had more energy for the game. It could be, I mean, I'll say what I'll go to Sabino. Obviously, congratulations, Sabino. Thank you. You must be very happy, obviously. I am. It's something curious that I wanted to ask you. I spoke to Joe Gallagher, who's obviously been in chess for 30, 40 years, and he's never won the prize that you've all won. 75,000 pounds, that's 7,500 pounds each, approximately 9,000 euros. Now you may have won that before in a chess tournament. I don't know, but I know most of these guys haven't actually won such a prize. Right, and actually, I think this was a big deal for us before the tournament. Yes. We might have lost the first two games partly because of this. I think for the guys to, you know, get into the mood of playing a tournament with so high stakes was, yeah, part of our difficulties. All right. And okay, we pushed through, and obviously having lost games meant that the pressure was subtly on the women, very much so. Frankly speaking, I, my feeling is that, you know, the women are very, all very strong, all very evenly matched, and I think we were lucky that we were in good shape, most of us, and we had a good tournament. What do you think that was the decisive moment or the decisive factor that meant that men won this match? We really managed to focus deeply into the chess. I think it was maybe even good for us that we lost so bad in the beginning because it became clear that we can get hurt pretty bad, and we need to be 100% on the board. While for the women, it was much harder because, you know, at first, it felt like it's easy, and then it was probably harder. And in the second part of the tournament, to me, it was very clear that we had the psychological advantage. We had more energy, we were prepared to play longer games, and we kept collecting half points, you know, here and there, those endings. You know, if you push for six hours and it's a draw, the defending side is relieved. If you consistently go and win those little half points, they're very heavy, not only for the score, but for the team, for the mood, and this is really what made the difference because the ladies are very strong. Yeah, it was a very close match. It was extremely close. The result eventually, you know, gave us, I think, a huge plus. In the end, it will be plus six overall. Yes, which is quite amazing. Considering how we started, we started getting points everywhere, which is amazing. By the way, I also would like to say, I can read the chat, and people have been saying that I don't smile much. You should keep in mind that I'm really, really tired, and normally I come to the interview here when so many things happen, and, you know, to play chess and to be a captain and watch the other guys, it's a high emotional toll. So in the end of the day, you're just exhausted, and that's why I'm not smiling as much as I normally do. But of course, I'm really, really happy, and it's a great surprise. It's great, you know, as you know, Pia might know, I bet against the men at the beginning of the tournament. Maybe you didn't know that. I think it's fair, you know. I bet against the men, I thought, wow, this women's team, they're young, they're professionals, they're going to do it. But, you know, just to go back to Pia, I think you're right. You know, observing all of the games, like I have, I think for me, one of the key factors was that the women, I think, objectively had more winning positions. They had wonderful positions throughout the tournament, and yet, it's not only that half a point was gone, sometimes a full point was gone. Instead of winning the game, the game was lost. There were at least three or four games, and that makes such a big difference, doesn't it? But that happens a lot in chess. I mean, the fact that you blunder and you destroy positions, it's really part of the game, and normally you should just recover from it and go on. Well, look, I can say this. I've spoken to all the players, they've all been super happy with both of you. I know, Pia, you've always been there every night, trying to give words of encouragement and support when things weren't going well, and you as well, Sabino, they've both sides have been over the moon with your performances as captains and as fonts of knowledge and wisdom, as slightly more experienced players, perhaps, than some of the others here. So I want to thank you both as well, and thank you so much for joining us here and battling so hard. I think everybody in this entire tournament deserves huge credit. There really wasn't, even Gillian, who had such a tough tournament, battled and battled and battled and battled, and I think all the players deserve tremendous credit. I'm very happy, by the way, sorry. I'm very happy with my team. We came together very, very nicely as a team. I already said I don't believe in meetings, but I believe in helping each other, and it was really amazing. It was very hard for Gillian to keep fighting. He had a very terrible start. He was absolutely unprepared for the tournament, and some of the guys helped. We all tried to get him to fight, and I'm very happy he got a draw on the other day. Today it was very close. Yesterday as well, it's very important for him that he drain the energy from the opponents as well, and it was looking like a tournament where he might just give up and stay in bed. But instead, he fought every day, and that's fantastic, I think. Can I also say that I'm very happy with my players. We had such a lovely atmosphere in the team. It was great, and I was very, very pleased that I could be the captain, and this was a very lovely tournament. Well, hopefully it's not the last, or at least it won't be the last, that these guys are here in Gibraltar, because this really has become the new home of chess, how the tournament will look in the future, and future tournaments will soon see a lot depends on, of course, other factors, global factors, as everybody knows, but one thing I can say is I'd also like to thank the organization, the sponsors, Laurent who's here, of course, Brian, the team. Just everybody has played their part to make this a wonderful event, and thank you to everybody at home for watching, for everybody coming in to watch the stream. Even today, people waking up at four o'clock in the morning from New York, or three o'clock in the morning from the West Coast to tune in. We do really appreciate your support and your kind words, and my only suggestion is that we, well, hopefully this continues you guys to, inspires you guys to continue with chess, to learn chess, to love chess, and remember to follow everything that GibChess is doing on social media as well to keep an eye on the updates, and I think that's it, unless there's anything else left to say, of course, big shout to the sponsors as well as you saw throughout GibInvest and all the other sponsors that you could see throughout the broadcasts. Without them, this wouldn't be possible, but I think that's it. So until the next time, it's been a pleasure, but it does, the spoils go to the men this time around. The men have won. The Battle of the Sex is 2022, but I can tell you this. This is just the start of the war. There will be plenty more battles in the future, and I hope you can join us then, but for me and also Irina and everybody else, it's been a pleasure. See you on the next one. Cheerio.