 Okay, Eric. You drew with Irene Sukandar today in the final round of the Battle of the Sexis. Tell us something about the game Yeah, um, 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 through throughout the game Mm-hmm So it was a that was the team approach today was it I noticed Joe Gallagher also played Choco pianissimo against Antoinette Stefanova. Did you guys talk about your team strategy for today to gather order? 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 you aim for maybe a slight edge so 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 intuitive strategy for last round of team tournaments exactly. Okay. What do you think of the format? 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 yeah, I've been very impressed with like 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 you could put 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 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 you again. 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 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 takes takes Bishop g5 C6 and this has been played tens of thousands of times In the past and then after Queen f3 Black has a few options here. Remember when I was a kid I used to play this move Bishop e7 is what my coach taught me Just to break the pin But these days I think the current trend is to allow white to take on f6 I think the two main moves here are Bishop to d6 and h6 Irene played h6 going for a Kind of a queen list middle game most already approaching end game where black has a bishop pair Yes, slightly compromised pawn structure on King side And from here I played the move Knight to e2 Which is a very typical positional maneuver the Knight is completely restricted on c3 by the black pawns and When I go for knight e2 the idea is to put the knight either on d4 or g3 And then eventually to f5 to get kind of some positional pressure on King side So the game continued from here And then night before 94 it's I guess a More concrete move because of course I'm threatening pawn c6. I'm also having ideas in matter 5 and I was calculating here okay Irene played rook b6, but there's a line Bishop to c5 Which perhaps is the most critical line, but after Knight takes c6 rook takes b2. I can Essentially force some simplification with rook f2b1 and if we trade rooks You know, I mean you can just look at the black pawn structure. It's It's like the black pawns did not go to the dentist for a while Have a lot of missing teeth. Yeah I think there's a move rook b6 to instead of rook takes b1 So it takes b1 back here. Oh, yeah, I wrote b6. Maybe is a better try for black. Yeah Yeah, I thought that there's still some Some eventual simplification I guess I can't take on a seven because rook takes b1, but I'm okay. Just trading rooks Get my other rook to be one and like all blacks pawns are isolated and I think my idea would be rook b1 night before and I Think only white can play for a win in this position. Yeah. Yeah, right. Okay. So we don't go into this rook b6 drawback of rook b6 for black is after 9 of 5 essentially getting Forcing the trade of bishop for night. So black is conceding the bishop here and then we enter this absolute bishop ending which It's not the most exciting Definitely had more exciting games this tournament But especially after yesterday's Crazy crazy game against ansaya. I think I needed a game like this to stop the bleeding Very sensible. Yeah, so it just carries on so yeah, we can zoom forward Um c4 maybe on my part wasn't the best move So a lot of the past pawn, but I think the position is still very much heading towards a draw c1, yep and Eventually I got the rook to the e-file And they come off for your trade a5 Yeah, and ultra solid Yeah, so If a4 here She looks like an attempt to create some pressure. I was even thinking of b4 b4 Well, which just gives a pawn, but it enters a completely Dead end game after yeah after it takes takes takes white just has a fortress bishop d3. Yeah, yeah, so a4 wasn't played king f8 was played or c5 first a4 and then king f8 and Yeah, I don't think there's much more to talk about here. Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you