 Battle of the Sex is here live from the Garrison Library in Gibraltar. It is round six. We had the rest day yesterday halfway through this wonderful match and so far it is as close as you like. The women's team consisting of ten of the best most exciting young and experienced prospects in the world of chess leading by one point over an assortment of top talent in the men's team, again a lovely mixture of experienced well-rounded chess players. The current score is 25.5, 24.5 in favor of the women and today it is the men who will all have the white pieces. If you've joined us for the first time this is a very special event. It is the first of its kind really. It's a 10-player team match. Ten men, ten women fighting for a prize fund of £100,000. The winning team gets £75,000 and the losing team gets £25,000. So £50,000 difference between the men and women. A lot to play for and a lot of pride on the line. I'm with Irina, again Irina. We've seen some really just for me, I mean I'm a chess fan, you're a chess fan, we're chess players but the games have been so entertaining so far. No boring stuff at all. Indeed, I've enjoyed so much especially the last two days because it feels that now the battle is closer and closer and all the players start to feel a little bit of the pressure and you know I just talked to one of the players from the ladies team and she was telling me you know I wished that we would win with a better score on the previous day because now I'm not sure if we we are up to the task so you know it will be interesting. It's going to be close. Before the tournament I had the ladies down as big favorites now as you say things are much more much more close than I had actually expected but with with another five games to go that's 50 games total with 10 boards anything can happen. Now today what I suggest is we just look at the pairings today. Let's see who is playing who. All right so round six board one Ravi Haria against Irene Sukhanda that's a pretty close match Ravi had a wonderful position against Gunai didn't convert very surprising Irene lost a tough game as well what do you expect about this match here? I believe Ravi will try to play for a win in this one but I really believe that Irene's had quite a good tournament so far and yeah that's going to be definitely an interesting matchup and actually the next game which we have Joe Gallagher versus Jean Syab Dumalik looks also very interesting because Joe just won two days ago against Gunai a very very crazy and interesting game and Jean Syar herself had a few quieter days after she lost the game then she made a draw then another and I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Yeah Joe you know I spend a lot of time with Joe he's got the Swiss flag but he's English and known Joe for many years and Joe told me that what tends to happen he's a bit older he's probably I don't know if he's older than Pierre but he's in that age region and he said for me it takes a bit I'm like an old car I need to warm up and he gets better as the tournament goes on and I tend to agree with him and I think this is a dangerous game for Jean Sy because I think she's going to actually play quite aggressively and I think Joe is ready to play an aggressive game with White so that should be very interesting. Now this is an interesting one Bobby Ching against Gunai and Mamadzada the reason this is interesting is because Bobby Ching is just insanely solid I mean I didn't really know much about Bobby before this tournament but he really doesn't risk a lot and Gunai does risk a lot so it's a big clash of styles I'm wondering if Gunai will maybe try to play a more solid game because she came after three very tough games she scored half a point out of them and she was in trouble so I believe that maybe she will try just to just to focus on finding good moves and not taking as many risks as before. Yeah it could very well be interesting to see Balash Chonka another very solid guy against Pia who is solid but also she she is very good with the initiative actually Pia I realized in this tournament she can she can take the bull by the horns very nicely but she's got black. She likes the counter chances you know so every time she can allow her opponent to have the initiative but whenever he makes an inaccuracy she will she will find the best way for her counter chances. Yeah agreed so that's an interesting matchup Erik Rosen the fan favorite most people watching this stream or at least a lot of them are as a result of Erik playing he's got a huge huge following online he's pretty much the perhaps the second or third most viewed chess player on the internet with his channel so welcome all Erik fans and by the way I know we get a lot of requests in chat on YouTube or on Twitch let's look at Erik's game let's look at Erik's game we have to look at all the games this isn't the Erik Rosen Congress this is the Balloon of the Sexes but we will of course cover Erik's game and today Erik is playing white against Marie Sabag now I have to say of all the players so far Marie has been the most the least ambitious let's say because Marie unfortunately caught Corona just before this event and I spoke with her and she said it just took the wind out of me and I find it difficult to really pour my energy in and I think Erik will look at this game today and think huh this is a good bounce back spot because he had a tough loss against Marie and Muzzi took in a position which he shouldn't have lost yeah he should have made a draw and now he's white today I think he'll be optimistic so right let's see okay next match Irina Sabino Brunella against Maria Muzziciuk how do you see that one well Sabino has won three games in a row so he definitely has the momentum and Maria has the black pieces and well I believe that the man's team captain will be trying to to go for all in in this one I think so I think Sabino he's on a he's the momentum is on his side he's white and he's definitely gonna be trying hard against Maria Muzziciuk who played for the world championship uh we were at lunch slightly earlier and uh it was in 2016 she was nearly world champion she's still actually she was world champion she won the world knockout championship she won the knockout championship right and then she played a match against who you find who was actually the challenger in that moment right thank you pardon yes so Maria Klaus player on paper the favorite but Sabino well underrated Gillian Bualia against Olga Giria very uh difficult matchup I think Olga will be looking to actually win this one with black Gillian has shown that he's a bit erratic he's a bit susceptible he's taking a lot of risks and he's playing the openings which are kind of off-beat so Giria being a very solid and well-prepared theoretically player I believe she will try to win this one agreed there is Gillian there in his patented top hat uh very quiet guy but very nice guy Hussein Aziz playing Nino Batiasz really I've had chance to get to know Hussein a bit more over the past few days also very nice guy playing Nino who is a is a class player class grandmaster and this should be also another interesting one where I think Nino will be looking to win because she's had a few bad results and I think she wants to get a win today right but also I've watched the interview of Hussein and I actually encourage you to to watch those interviews with the players on our deep chess channel because they are really interesting and it was so fun that he was saying that he told his teammates guys I'm here to play very solid chess and I will be trying to make all the games a draw you know and yes I'm in two days before he he wanted actually to take a few risks and it did not go so well he was in trouble and I believe he will be back at the very solid strategy today could very well be and the final two games Bilal Balasin against Giovango Huska also spoke with Bilal quite a lot in the past few days really nice young guy with the Algerian flag there but he I believe he was born in France I think he's only 23 years old very exciting player he's he he's got a very creative side to him but also risks a lot to be honest Bilal but that's going to get him a lot of wins and he's going to suffer a few losses today there's absolutely no question with white against Ivanka he's looking to win this game there's no other result that he I believe it is one of the toughest match for the ladies team in today's game uh Ivanka had a disappointing drawback in the last game when she was winning and then she had to take the draw and settle for it so I believe it is not the easiest moment for her psychologically especially since playing against a very aggressive player that's right yeah and the final match on the board is Leandro Chris against Marcel Efromsky Leandro you know a nice very nice player solid player playing against Marcel who's also a little bit erratic I think that's also a quite a difficult game for Marcel to deal with Leandro's style so I think you're right Irina I think today we haven't seen a really big result from one team or the other and I actually spoke with Joe Gallagher and we have a little just a little like fun bet uh where I said there will be one round where one team scores seven or more really I said that because I believe there will be one round where there will be a blowout one way or the other so you think that players will be willing to take more risks towards the end or maybe even like now let's say for example and I think today looking at these pairings I can actually see a catastrophe awaiting for unfortunately I have to say the girls this is a day no I have to disagree with you really okay well no no I'm not saying it will happen all the matches have been close of course but I can see for example like if you had to ask me the predictions I would say that I think Ravi has got a good chance I think Bilal has got a good chance I think Leandro and Sabino and Bobby I can see there being like four wins four draws and a loss what happened to Lawrence it seemed like after the rest day you got to you got closer to the men's team because I felt you were more of a supporter of the latest one I am I am more of a supporter you know but I gotta support my brothers you know we're a fraternity here and we gotta we gotta we gotta stick together now everybody who's watching whether you're on YouTube or Twitch we are mostly monitoring the YouTube chat if you do want to interact with us please make the questions friendly and of course relevant to the chess we're not interested in your political views or anything like that any spam you will be booted out the chat of course and but please do engage with us and we will read the most interesting comments or questions so where should we go first I'll let you choose oh really no I believe that's not the case I believe the result is not there it's because it was also written that it was a draw after two moves so I believe it's just a glitch it has to be a glitch no so don't worry Joe Gallagher and Genzai is not a draw let's let's go to a game you choose the first one if you like let's say let's try Ravi against Irene okay well not much to discuss here so far we are still in the theory of the of the Italian game yep and perhaps things are only starting we've seen a lot of Italian in Vaikance also in our tournament we've seen it a few times but mostly was it the d4 line we've seen we've seen the d4 line here a lot we've also seen d3 a couple of times I believe but yeah we've we've seen the old the old variation but this is the gioco pianissimo the very quiet Italian game which you know is basically dominating top level chess at the moment so I have seen recently some strange ideas where white goes at some point for night a free and then black takes bishop takes a free b takes and I've never seen it before Vaikans day it was actually the first time I saw that plan yeah I'm curious are are these players aware of that I'm sure they must be and if that will be played that's going to be a lot of fun yeah Ravi certainly is I mean Ravi is a very very booked up knowledgeable in the opening so we'll see okay so we'll come back to that one let's go to somewhere else the Bobby Chen game looks interesting let's go to that one yeah because we had a that's interesting that's once again the Bogo Indian which you know a lot about indeed so you can you can walk us through this so and I'm really exciting excited sorry right because after night bd2 black has two ways of playing this one black could go for b6 with the idea that after a free black takes on d2 and then goes for a quiet plan with bishop b7 castle 94 d6 97 and so on so white kind of has a small edge because white's got the pair of bishops and will probably try for something like b4 bishop b2 and things like that but I believe black is doing fine and that's actually the variation I recommend in my course but actually short castle is also quite interesting because I believe it's more like playing for a win line because you try to provoke white to overexpand so after a free this very interesting bishop b7 move and now after e4 black goes d6 and now you kind of want to get into those kind of kinks indian structures but white's knight is already on d2 and in the kinks indian you want really to have the knight on c3 and that's that's the big difference and I believe black is doing fine here and e4 is one of the main lines and now white has a choice white can play bishop d3 or bishop e2 after bishop d3 there is actually e5 and well I believe black is doing more than fine here okay I I believe it's a very interesting choice by by gunai because with white if you make a few inaccurate moves you're going to be in strategical trouble in this kind of positions yeah because black can get a good hold over the dark squares and this knight is a bit misplaced the knight would much rather be on c3 for example in this variation and the bishop e2 is actually the best move in this position yeah exactly because it's avoiding that e5 immediately and now black prepares it by playing knight f2 d7 and the other knight will want to go let's say you play here short castle I play e5 now after an eventual d5 I can go for a5 and then the second knight from b8 comes to c5 and the knight from d7 stays very well there because I can potentially play f5 I believe this game is going to be a lot of fun right okay we'll keep keep an eye on that a nice strategic battle there what about Sabino Brunello against Muzicciak well we have a very theoretical position we have a a queen's gambit declined which turned into a slav so maria opting to go for a slav and the move six queen c2 played by Brunello of course this is one of the main line here bishop d3 or bishop e2 is no question the absolute main line and now after the black takes yeah and we get a meran basically and tons of theory but queen c2 has been played bishop to d6 and bishop to d3 another way of playing both sides looking to try to get in e4 quickly and actually after castles sorry castles did she castle yeah she did yeah castles castles in this position here again tons and tons of theory I believe Sabino was also on the other side of the board some some rounds before in this position and he played that plan with queen e6 and bishop a3 after whites b3 and bishop b2 we've actually seen this position in quite a few times now in this tournament yeah we've seen like b6 b3 bishop b7 bishop b2 in fact Sabino already heard this didn't he probably yeah yeah definitely and then queen e7 and so on and so on I'm I'm actually thinking that it's gonna be a very solid game and probably maria will not have any risks taken and actually she plays e5 yeah I mean this is a very critical variation this was seen this first came on the scene a few years ago and the point is here that black immediately looks to resolve the problem of this bishop on c8 and we get very forcing lines for example after c takes d5 c takes d5 and now the move e4 was all the rage for for a long time some very heavy computer analysis where white ends up a pawn up after let's say takes and knight takes d5 and all kinds of things happen like there's a change here and then white eventually wins this pawn on d4 but it was kind of shown that black is doing okay now maria is a professional chess player she's a world champion and there's absolutely no way that she enters this variation without having checked it for recent games and recent novelties definitely and I actually recall that there was a very recent game in the tata steel it was vidit caruana I believe and exactly that variation which you've just shown us c takes c takes and e4 was on the board and actually they were saying that white had a little edge there but now with the modern engines it's just it's just drying out towards a draw yeah unfortunately that is the nature of modern day chess sometimes even with the small advantage there's just nothing to do if you go down these theoretical lines so we'll see what happens in that one let's go to another game perhaps and let's go let's go to well lots of lots of stuff going on you choose if you should we look at Joe no Joe has got a well Joe Gallagher has got a very peaceful game so far against jens sire we have a spanish opening and uh 5d3 very popular line and d6 now by jens sire one of the ways to be combative against 5d3 and I actually really like this setup for black because black will develop the bishop from f8 on g7 so that's the most common plan in these positions g6 bishop g7 castle b5 and then try to somehow make d5 work white has got already a choice here because white might play c4 which is a more of a strategically uh complex battle or white might go for the usual plans with short castle c3 knight d2 rookie one and then bring the knight towards e3 or g3 uh somehow I believe that this line is not especially ambitious for white even though I recall some very uh good recent games where white actually won at very top level with this line and I will be very curious to see Joe in this type of a strategical battle because he has had so many uh tactical crazy games uh let's see if he tries to outplay his very young but talented opponent in the fight game we'll see what happens there all right um where should we go next let's check the game between Leandro and Marcel what was it Leandro playing white we have a um a form of uh english uh a quiet english that then transposes into uh a very well known structure uh with an isolated queensborn so exactly Marcel has voluntarily gone in for this bishop d7 protecting the knight castles bishop d6 and b3 and I think this is a very very good choice by Leandro uh in terms of an opening but black is also doing absolutely fine here because well there are still a lot of light pieces on the board and actually black will look for some uh chances to attack white's king and in the same time prepare the d4 breakthrough if the knight from d4 goes let's say to a free and on the other hand white will try not to allow that breakthrough and play against the isolated d5 pawn yeah and black has got one of those isolated queensborn positions where she's got all of her pieces which is normally really good uh you want to keep as many pieces on and of course you've got all this initiative against the white king but um it's not so easy to manufacture something and I think uh I think Leandro is doing very well keeping the game potentially very modest and quiet you know what it is like in white's position is the thing that we will have to sort of lose a move and return with the bishop from b5 to either d3 or e2 you know because the bishop the black bishop on d7 is doing fine so it basically forced me to make a useful move and taking on c6 I believe will not really be an option because well then my pawn on d5 will become uh all right and that is why I believe black might have just enough time to not run into any sort of positional trouble potentially yes uh but still of course it will be a really complicated game right indeed indeed uh so all right so we'll see what happens there that's gonna be very very interesting uh bilal against yovanka is uh or they're going very slowly actually uh we had another slav so today is day of the slav it looks like e3 e6 and it's on bilal here who hasn't moved and I wonder if he's of course if we have knight of three we have the same position we had in the um sabino versus maria game exactly and I wonder if bilal who's a wild player is actually thinking about this move here really uh it would be so funny because he has played g4 against iron in the name so and uh yeah knowing him it might be actually what he has in mind now he loves this move it's flavor of the month uh to run this jeep on up the board it's completely insane to a certain extent but he cannot do that without uh prepared it beforehand right yeah I think it would be very risky yeah but we'll see because I mean he he's pausing here and of course the main move is just just to play knight f3 or something so very interesting that he's pausing to think about uh what to do in this position right now exactly yeah okay let's uh let's carry on and let's now go to uh let's go to ballash jonka against pia kramlin because we've got a very very unbalanced game here which is good because I want to see ballash in a bit of a let's say more uh wild affair I want to see how he does he played an alipin c3 Sicilian first time we've seen this knight f6 one of the main lines push knight d5 and knight to f3 by ballash jonka knight to c6 and bishop to c4 one of one of the main lines not the only nine you can go d4 here naturally but bishop c4 well known knight b6 bishop to b3 and now the move pawn to c4 again this line has been known for years and years black kicks the bishop away and stops white being able to get the big center with uh with d4 and in the old days at least when I was watching this opening the old line used to go queen to c7 short castle um no because I think this is the move here sacrificing the pawn yes yes in nowadays white I believe probably castles but when I was as I say growing up reading books it was protect the pawn and then black had this black had this phenomenal move g5 yeah trying to kick this knight away with g4 and if you take after queen takes e5 black is doing uh fine basically so back in the old times they were actually playing really modern yeah like players like luke van vele were playing like this and other players but nowadays apparently the move d6 was played by pier e takes d6 and now this move e5 yeah I actually know quite a bit about this line okay um and I believe uh white has an edge here okay there are a few plans you could start with a4 a4 I believe if I recall correctly it should be the main move and then bishop takes d6 a5 knight to d7 and now d3 the point being that you want black to take on d3 and after take with the queen on d3 and somehow you make it more difficult for black to castle on the king side and in the same time let's say after a move like queen e7 or something like that you can go there for 92 and then the knight comes to e4 or to c4 there are a lot of wild lines I I'm not sure I'm remembering remembering it correctly but I believe that until 97 it's exactly how things are going perhaps later it's slightly different but it will gonna be a very very wild game and I really like what what ballash is doing um he castled uh this I believe isn't uh or maybe I am wrong who knows but yeah my memory was telling me a4 but perhaps uh short castle is also fine but here black will have enough time to castle no because after bishop d6 d3 or d4 yeah uh you are not you don't have to take there right you can just castle immediately because now after I take knight takes okay you're in trouble uh am I missing something uh so you have queen h5 I'm still not sure that it is that bad maybe it's not that bad but it is it is a pawn and that's something and even if you could have played queen h5 yeah but queen h5 f5 some bishop g5 yeah this is another way of playing but I just wasn't sure that this is anything too special basically for white right no yeah it definitely looks looks like a good try for white what about uh am I uh forced to take on uh to play short castle maybe I can take on d4 instead instead so short castle bishop d6 d4 and now he takes d4 yeah I was thinking about those lines um yeah I was thinking okay if I throw in a check hmm should I play bishop e7 yeah bishop e7 what if I just take like this now cd4 uh I will castle I believe yeah and on knight c3 bishop g4 yeah it seems like black is doing all right here no probably because I've got all my pieces developed and yeah there shouldn't be a reason to be unless d5 is awkward that's what is going on after bishop takes f3 I have the same trick I can take and take on h7 and then queen e4 you you want after knight d4 to take on h7 right yeah and then I just to show this line king h7 queen e4 mm-hmm it's still it still might be all right king g8 queen d4 and bishop f6 sure yeah could could still be could still be all right but white is white is the one who has the the options right after like here take take perhaps also queen d5 might run actually into bishop h6 I mean and that's just a rough guide right that's just not that's just not even definitely so yeah I mean there are things to consider I'd be curious because bishop takes d6 is kind of the move there could be that white might argue that d3 is also a move right because short castle once again will run into the same tactics right after d takes c4 knight c4 and queen d3 I believe exactly with a double attack yeah interesting that's going to be very interesting yeah that's going to be one to keep an eye out for for sure and okay let us go to a game that we haven't seen yet and the thing that jillion game we haven't seen against olgogirja so let's have a look at jillion while you oh that's already an interesting position all right so it was a name so with queen c2 and c5 yeah so classical names of c5 d takes c5 and castles knight of free knight a6 again a very old school way of playing this position actually right by by olgar g3 knight takes to c5 and bishop g2 so um jillion playing very logically just getting his pieces out knight of e4 and jillion accepting the double pawns of the takes takes and b6 and it's actually not that easy here because you might think that with that doubled pawns on the semi-open file black might be doing just really really well but having the pair of bishops if white manages to make that knight from e4 go away then play e4 himself it might be the case that black might not have enough time to attack those c pawns but I think I would take black in these types of position actually because it's just so much safer to play a position which is strategically fine and white has actually to come with somewhat in order to prove that those weaknesses are not are not that bad yeah agreed it's it's definitely one of those positions where uh you know olga is clearly saying that she uh she's she wants to be optimistic today and she can outplay jillion that's simply that if she gets a position where she's got strategic pluses she's gonna outplay jillion I guess I guess here that there is no immediate way to punish but what about the move knight g5 that's the only thing that was a bishop no you lose a piece bishop b7 knight c4 is a piece no uh olga should have something in mind perhaps she's just is she just sacrifice gonna sacrifice an exchange could that be the case knight takes g5 bishop takes a8 looks looks quite looks risky yeah but she has 132 on the clock so it's definitely she's got perhaps just uh perhaps just to move like f5 what are f oh yeah f5 sorry so f5 and if I take I take back back with the knight I believe right yeah and you could sacrifice a pawn like this this looks reasonable and maybe yeah that that looks like a reasonable and then the position will dry uh dry out towards the draw really fast and it is actually not julian's style to play like this he tries to go for more complicated chaotic positions uh but yeah very interesting one by olga and I believe also the fact that she has not spent a minute so far will uh will make julian choose something else yeah could very well be let's go and see eric rosin shall we we've got his game against marie sabag playing with what and he plays the london system I believe it's he was saying that it's one of his favorite openings oh and we've actually got the first result of the day uh sabina versus maria was just a draw yeah and actually that's what we kind of expected from the opening they've got yeah indeed we'll quickly quickly look at how that ended in a draw basically we last checked it out over here um c65 and sabino did play e4 e takes d4 knight takes d5 all forcing pawn to h6 this is the key move that was found in recent years now it looks as though white wins a pawn with knight takes d4 but black has got the resource queen h4 hitting this pawn now and attacking the knight so white is forced to play the move knight f3 and the queen simply comes up to h5 and now black's plan is very obvious he either wants to play knight e5 or knight f6 and so white plays bishop h7 king h8 and queen to f5 this is all basically well known offering the trade of queens and a draw was agreed here because after the move knight f6 next bishop takes c8 let's say rook takes c8 there's no there's no sensible way to defend this pawn because you can go rook d1 but then black gets very active with rook c2 and you cannot really develop the pieces harmoniously here with white you would like to develop that bishop from c1 but the bonon b2 is hanging and yeah it's just maybe rook c2 here is bad after knight d4 actually but black black does have a move here perhaps even rook f2 d8 no rook f2 d8 but maybe you maybe i can't remember maybe you can just go rook c5 and try and win a pawn back and after but then bishop e3 yeah i'm a bit worried that i'm dropping a pawn after bishop takes a seven even this position might be playable but yeah this isn't probably right um so i can't remember exactly why but mario would know yeah rook fd8 just put rook fd8 some something like this bishop e3 bishop b8 yeah and the pawn on d5 will eventually fall and yeah i believe it is a very good result for the ladies team because sabina was definitely on fire winning three games in a row and a draw seems like a fair result with the black pieces um yep yep absolutely fair result and uh both can have more or less a rest day okay we said we were going with eric's game so let's let's have a look at what was happening there we had a mainline uh london system with this move knight bd2 which gained a lot of attention thanks to magnus carlson who played this a few times uh at very top level i remember at the london chess classic he played like this um an early knight bd2 could i ask you something yes do you know why this system is called the london system no was it first played in london i have absolutely no idea but i guess so but i don't know i don't know the reason why it's called the london system funnily enough no that will be interesting to find out about it and perhaps some of our viewers could enlighten us on the origins of this opening's name indeed uh and just to point out what was going on in these games in in this system after the move queen b6 which is the reason why years and years ago white didn't really play i mean effectively um the london system uh used to be played more with an earlier c3 to to be able to meet queen b6 with queen to b3 and then magnus came up with this idea that after knight of three knight of six even here again c3 is possible but after knight bd2 queen b6 it looks annoying because black is attacking uh both d4 and b2 but here white has got the move d takes c5 and this was found basically and queen takes b2 i think i don't i can't exactly remember the the reason why but my understanding is that this is a very very dangerous move for black and all kinds of stuff can happen with rook b1 and uh you can get uh the queen trapped quite quite easily probably something like this and the queen can get trapped and you can get in big trouble so they don't do that anymore marie played the move which i believe is the the main antidote and uh knight to h5 is it's a really clever move because you're trying to win this bishop but apparently eric knows his stuff and just took this pawn on c5 anyway and after takes takes white is temporarily a pawn up but marie played queen to a5 yeah another pawn from c5 cannot be defended by the knight because it's pinned to the king so black will gonna get that pawn back but white is arguing that meanwhile he will be able to develop some initiative and being ahead in the development might have an edge i actually like what white's been doing so far yeah and after queen to a5 if you develop normally here is white you're not gonna have very much so eric plays the critical move pawn c4 but now there is a very big question uh is d4 a bad move because that's what i would be tempted to to calculate first because if i take on c4 then you take with the bishop on c4 and they somehow help you to develop one more piece i'm not sure that's what i wanted to do uh and if i just continue that development with bishop e2 then again you take on c4 so i just lose a move and we'll have to take on c on c4 but d4 seems interesting yeah d4 is interesting of course the first move that comes to mind is a3 definitely yeah and after you take to go b4 but queen d6 attacks the pawn and i think it's gonna be a question of has has eric done some serious work on this line for example knight b3 let's say because i believe i shouldn't have enough time to protect the f4 pawn right let's just attack the d4 one but then the position is quite open so if i take on f4 here uh knight takes on d4 i take again and now if you go for an end game i have the pair of bishops you have over expanded on the queen side there will be some a5 moves coming i don't think that will be a very good end game for white so knight takes d4 yeah yeah and it's can get tricky even even before then you know i move like queen e5 check or even bishop g4 might be yeah or even bishop g4 immediately there's a lot of things going on here but you're right it doesn't feel like that's the way so i wonder if marie will go d4 the only other thing i was thinking is can white just for example after a3 here b4 queen d6 just play g3 um and either develop with the bishop on d3 or fiancato in try and castle i believe the fiancato might be actually out of question because i might play some d3 move you know and uh i'm not sure that's gonna be fine for white i seem i seem to like this position actually more for black for some reason mm-hmm because it feels like e5 might be coming very quickly maybe perhaps even immediately yeah this is an annoying an annoying idea so be very curious to see what um yeah i will be actually changing my evaluation i said that i liked what white was doing but i believe that this d4 move will will put some problems uh perhaps i'm not seeing something well i mean why could just play bishop d3 yeah try to be uh just developing the pieces and now let's say queens queen c5 queen c5 and just castle and yeah this seems like the better way to to proceed with white could very well be not not sure about uh i could probably go for g6 or something like that knight b3 queen d6 i've always got the bishop on d7 will pretend no well you've got to be a little i mean yeah knight b3 i don't like i would just go 94 here with white probably you can't go queen f5 because of check winning the queen and if you come to h5 the queen looks a little stranger now after rookie one there are ideas of 96 so i think you actually have to be quite precise here yeah yeah it feels like bishop d3 is a good way of continuing for black after after d4 so for white sorry yeah so white should first develop and only then start creating threats yeah it's gonna be an interesting game if if marie will choose this d4 move with chances for both sides actually i'm quite i'm quite excited about this one i have to say and i saw that our viewers were saying that the london system is called like that because it came into fashion in the 1922 london tournament yeah that tournament i don't know which one that was which famous tournament that was in london i can't think of it off the top of my head but uh there you go apparently in the london 1922 so i'm i'm curious who was playing that tournament um it was played and it was called the london there you go uh so the score so far was just on the screen there if you saw that 25 and a half to 24 and a half in favor of the women so uh it's a uh it's a very very close match and today is going to be a critical round every every round is critical now i have a question for you uh do you have any lines to which you've made a big theoretical contribution and could be called after after your name i would say yes i have which one would that be of course if you are if you are fine disclosing that that secret i think there's a line in the birds opening that i was important that i found there's a line there's a there's a i would have to go through my games to think but certainly in the birds opening there is a variation and are they actually any of them already called after you know but i want them to so anybody watching who's got the ability to put that in writing please do you know um i don't have any of them called after me but i've got one line which i really want to because i've developed it myself it was my idea and i've played it like i don't know probably i have 20 games in it already so i'm actually choosing it every time i get an opportunity especially that because i want to cough you want it to be called yeah but you know somebody told me that you have to be a gm in order for a line to be called after you no i don't think that's correct that just is not correct no they're there are tons of tons of im's who have got a line i think but how does a lion get your name actually that's a good question i don't know is there a commission who decides there is a commission yeah there's a commission you probably just have to bribe them all right we'll have to find out more about that i'm curious but uh there have been some famous players of course who who've never had a line named of them for example have you heard of the caruana variation not really have you heard of the carlson variation interesting have you heard of the napomneshy variation no exactly and that's why i believe it might be so special to have a line called after you it would be it would be special but it just would feel like you're staying in the history right exactly when you're gone people can still play your bull mugga line the bull mugga variation yeah i would love that let's see let's see if we can make it happen all right all right what else is going on is there a game we haven't visited yet um did we check the game between hussein and nino probably not hussein and nino oh no we didn't let's have a look oh it's such a solid solid line for white no i'm not sure i mean the position on the board is has got a bit of life let's have a look so we had a four nights game and scotch four nights and actually uh bishop d3 followed castle castle yeah castles castles d5 and here hussein plays a slight sideline which i really like that he he played this because the main line here for years was to take take and develop the bishop to g5 and after c6 now in this position when i was growing up it was always this move and then suddenly the quiet move h3 got very popular a few years ago in any case black is doing fine against both but here hussein plays a very interesting line the move bishop to d2 what is the idea of this one does white has an immediate threat or idea here is e5 already a possibility e5 might be a threat but my big question is if you take on c3 i take back and you take here no i or what's the big idea i actually have to say that i know nothing about it but it looks like queen h5 or is there just a five gonna happen queen h5 really i don't know i was just trying to make it work but i don't see much after f5 actually i don't see anything even queen g5 yeah no queen h5 is a terrible move queen h5 is is is not the way so what's the idea after takes takes a knight takes e4 is it just to take because this is very very very dry i seem to recall now something takes takes and some bishop if bishop e5 or bishop a5 or something but it can't be i think i've seen it somewhere already and what was slightly better there yeah but my memory isn't so great here yeah me neither i actually don't think i've seen this move which is but nino played rook to be eight actually right yeah she did and i'm just apparently this is uh just a line but um how much better can white be here and the answer is surely not that much better but maybe nino wanted to keep the position basically a bit more alive so she played rook b8 which is a clever move because it protects the bishop which is important because sometimes there are some discovered attacks exactly so rook b8 rookie one and who's saying actually played uh the move a3 here which i don't like at all i have to say i like it you know why i don't like it because i believe that the bishop on before will have to go back at some point anyways did white actually have to spend a tempi on it oh i see um he really wants to make black take on c3 right that's that's the point right so what happens if black does take on c3 so takes bishop takes takes and now we've got two options again of taking on e4 let's say we take this way knight takes e4 ah well bishop takes e4 d takes e4 and then and then rook takes e4 is a possibility actually immediately even oh rook takes e4 immediately yeah that that does it's a it's a bit funny isn't it yes but okay black can take take of course you cannot take because of the back rank but oops i can play a move like bishop e6 but yeah rook a4 yeah who knows it should be all right but white is definitely the one playing for for a win here so i believe nino might not actually take on c3 you know yeah she might not she might go what about a move like bishop c5 will white then play a move like no well now i think oh no e594 sorry after bishop c5 i might be too worried about the f2 square okay so here probably we're just gonna go h3 and the point is you can't take on b2 because knight a4 right it's a double attack so um so what am i gonna do then so oh sorry bishop c5 h3 all right let's assume i play um but now you want to go for e5 right yeah now now i might be threatening so let's say you go bishop e6 or try and get your pieces out i go e5 knight d7 i feel like i've succeeded here yeah actually i like how white has progressed here but maybe maybe it's still all right for black should be okay for black still because i want to go for those maybe not immediately but eventually i will want to go for f6 right oh i don't know maybe because the f2 pawn might become a target possibly but i don't know with the rook on e8 if f6 okay i meant something like knight f8 and then f6 possibly because if i allow you to play a 4 and f5 then i might be in trouble even though it will not be that easy for white to achieve that exactly i mean here the move that screams out to be played is queen h5 knight f8 and now i've got bishop e7 if you try bishop g5 right yeah and i was just wondering if i go king h1 with the idea of running the pawn i can't move it now because it's pinned i was just wondering if if you can take you probably can it's a bit annoying yeah my bishop on e6 is doing a fine job protecting f7 maybe something like this is even possible yeah i i haven't made a bad move with black why should i be in trouble right exactly so i'm not exactly sure um after a3 and and nino's having a good think here bishop d6 might old might also be an option in order to stop those e5s that might actually be better perhaps because once again white will have to get an answer to that bishop h2 ideas and after king h2 some neg4 queen h4 coming like this very typical attacking idea yeah and probably white will have to play quite in the same manner with a3 then some queen a3 bishop g5 the pawn on b2 on the other hand will be hanging here because you haven't got knight a4 anymore exactly so some serious considerations there for nino jrb in the chat says the 1922 tournament in london kappa blanker one with alakine second and some other top players maroxi yates uver bol bolubov reti taltuk over rubenstein and vidmar so basically an all-star tournament i'm a bit embarrassed that i couldn't remember that tournament i'm getting confused with some buddhan buddhan tournaments around that time and others but apparently in that london 1922 tournament lots of london systems so good to know and what am i looking at here mr eric rosin has he prepared something spicy at home b4 so marie took back on c5 immediately no that cannot be preparation and why not of course it can but look how much time he's taken to come to this position that's okay he might be bluffing pawn to b4 now let's understand this so attacking the queen there are obviously two ways to take that pawn if you take with the queen you run into pawn takes on d5 and now suddenly this knight doesn't really have i say it doesn't have a good square it can come to d4 but why is getting some initiative here after rook to b1 looks like you force knight takes f3 pretty much right queen takes f3 and i really like this for white because the next move is going to be bishop b5 check so anywhere the queen goes you're going to throw in this check and then black has to be very careful simply not to be losing immediately here a move like c4 yeah knight c4 and already it looks like curtains for black because after queen c7 i'm going to throw in this move pawn to d6 oh yeah and if you take i'm gonna take take and take here i'm not worried about even queen c queen e6 check i'm probably probably just even good after king d2 but yeah you could have played knight e3 i could have played knight e3 but i was in fact i haven't worked this out till the very end after check and king d8 felt like this was winning though maybe not yeah perhaps but there was no reason there was no reason to do this exactly but in any case it's obvious that white is getting this huge initiative what about knight takes b4 yeah that's the move that felt more reasonable and now i'm sure eric's idea is to play knight b3 yeah this one uh oh yeah i'm not sure how to feel about it because first i considered queen to d6 yeah queen to d6 but then i did not like so much a3 exactly a3 you kick the knight away if it comes to c6 once more we gain time hitting this knight so you probably have to go somewhere else a6 yeah and now again i think if you're eric you have to play in the spirit of the position and take on d5 anyways because we're not worried about queen xf4 because once again bishop p5 check at least stops black from casting and in fact here i wouldn't even be uh concerned with white whatsoever i would probably just think that i'm close to winning here is white basically from a practical perspective because the king never finds shelter and we're only a pawn down so i love it i absolutely love it i'm gonna cheat very quickly and not only do i love it as my spidey senses say i have been confirmed just flicked on the computer and the computer also loves it which means i'm surprised it's a surprising move but i promise you i think this is home preparation but it can it be i mean queen c5 wasn't forced what about the d4 move could he be yeah but i mean queen c5 well if you know this line with white and eric plays the london system all the time there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that he's seen this move before no doubt no doubt in my mind no but a fantastic resource and it might it might be just a big shock for mary because until this moment her opponents were you know trying to be uh containing her in a sort of way and here eric just goes for the point he just says i want to beat you today just incredible and i fear for marie now because uh this is a very unpleasant moment you're facing somebody who is clearly aware of the lines and now as black you have to calculate and it's really unpleasant because you look at two or three variations you see all whites gets all this initiative what is the best and i i actually can see marie spending like i don't know how long she's spent already but i can see her spending another 10 15 minutes at least in this position so it's going to be a tough one for marie today definitely yeah um let's go to another position which looks interesting i'll tell you well we'll go back to bobby cheng against gunai because in fact something similar to what you mentioned is on the board we last saw bishop to e2 like and this move knight fd7 bobby cheng played b4 and indeed e5 and d5 as you said an a5 in typical king's indian style fighting for the squares bishop to b2 though keeping hold of something and now queen e8 by gunai mamadzada she's trying to get the queen active because after castles f5 the queen might come to g6 right although i'm not entirely convinced by this though it's something about it it could be all right but i'm not 100 sure you know the only thing black has to be careful about is most like c5 by white but here i don't see a real threat is there any threat after c5 not not exactly right no c5 is is very logical trying to collapse this black position and sometimes the knight can come to c4 and there are lots of different ideas here after c5 is definitely very thematic um if i take on f5 what is black's main idea is it to go knight f6 um yeah it should be a move which we try even though i'm not sure if after bishop d3 everything works out because i don't want to give that point away for good but perhaps there is some queen h5 here no who knows could be yeah this this this is this is this is certainly possible isn't it i mean yeah this is definitely a worst version of the just old indian or kings indian anyway for white and that's exactly why this a line with short castle and bishop e7 has become so very popular and actually black scores hugely there black has like 50 more than 50 percent and with black that's uh that's huge unbelievable yeah and i i think this is one of white's uh how to say stone or uh somehow against the bogo indian yeah indeed uh very interesting as i said i don't know i mean lots of lots of different ideas here for white so bobby has got uh got to have a good think about what he wants to do so no one one idea is to somehow try to bring the knight from f3 to to d3 but then black might close up the king side um yeah that would be interesting i quite like this move 91 i think that's a very valid valid move here because you never you know you're never entirely sure that these f4 moves work uh because yeah even even now bishop g4 might be an idea yeah and you cannot really calculate you know 20 moves ahead because you will start an attack on the king side with black but meanwhile white will try to open up the queen side and you you cannot really be sure what's going on there um yeah i like 91 91 i think it's a good idea but perhaps black could try something different maybe try to take on e4 and play something uh with knight of six or i don't know even though well now you've got the four squares white so yeah you know simply bishop d3 and queen c2 i don't love this for black it feels like a king's indian where your bishop on e7 is is much worse than when it's on g7 and i don't know it's the sort of position i would be happy with with white if if this ever happens i i get happy here with white yeah uh we're gonna have to see that what gunae chooses i also seem to remember that instead of f5 there was a very nice instead of all this queen eight f5 there was an interesting plan with just c6 you know trying to first fix the pawn structure on the queen side and only then decided to go for f5 or not but uh yeah we'll see how this game develops and will be keeping an eye on that yeah i think this is probably a good moment for us to go for our first break of today so we are an hour into the action and we have one result we saw earlier the draw between sabina brunello mario musichuk following a very uh well-known line in the slav which normally ends in a draw so no surprise there but we've got nine now very interesting games ongoing we'll be back in a few minutes with more of today's action so don't go anywhere see you shortly see you in a minute back to round six of battle of the sexes here in Gibraltar we are in the opening stages of today's round we've had a quick draw early on if you've just joined us we had to draw between sabina brunello mario musichuk in a very theoretical line no surprise there meaning we've got nine games still going on and before the round i said i thought today was a great opportunity for the boys and i have to say irina sorry well sorry to say but i'm liking uh my chances with the boys today because i'm looking at the remaining positions and i see at least two positions which look very difficult maybe even three maybe even four positions which i'm starting to really like white so i think the girls have got a big challenge today and i'd like us to go first to the ballash chonker game against pier cramling we were having a look at this in the break very quickly let's check it because it seems like ballash has a very interesting opening preparation here one which i was not aware of even though i'm playing this line with white myself so yeah i'll have some homework to do here it seems yeah let's have a look let's get straight to this position we last left it around this move i hear b3 um actually no sorry slightly earlier after e5 castles uh interestingly and surprisingly pier did not take back on d6 with the bishop she decided to take with the queen i think she was probably afraid of those ideas with d3 or d4 and she did not want to allow the queen come to d3 but here another surprise waited for her i believe the move b3 right well this move is very well known in these alip in positions i mean this is one of the most well well known ideas because with the queen on d6 now you get hit oops by a by an by an important tempo bishop a3 to f8 and then then the black scheme will not be able to castle anymore if you allow that bishop a3 and that's exactly why she played bishop e7 here yeah bishop to e7 now ballash played rookie one and now i think pier probably made a mistake i think the move c takes b3 is actually quite serious blunder but also you know like from general point of view taking on b3 and allowing white to come with a pawn closer to the center should be even a good strategical thing right even for example if the tactics would work just fine for black but here actually the case is that white gets quite quite a nice initiative after a takes b3 um queen to c7 and d4 right yeah so a takes b3 so now the a file is useful and here pier did not castle because after bishop to a3 you win a pawn with white for example after queen e7 very simply you can take and then take which is crushing for white so pier got out the way immediately with queen to c7 and now ballash played the move that felt most natural to me which is to try and open the position while this king is yet to be castled with the move d4 and i have to say i was very very concerned here because after the move e takes d4 and now knight takes d4 this is the position we have on the board the problem black has got is that if you now try and exchange a pair of knights i can play queen takes d4 hitting this pawn and after castles white once again has got this fantastic double attack idea yeah it appears in so many lines and you know now thinking compared to the lines which we tracked a bit before with bishop takes d6 instead of queen takes d6 yeah it seems like black has lost a few tempest on queen d6 then queen c7 right and it might be the case that black's king will be in big trouble in this one yeah and it actually as it turns out also after e takes d4 knight takes d4 ballash played quite quickly and understandably but white has also got the uh incredibly curious knight to a3 which is a move again you see a lot in these alipins and the point is that uh you're threatening to come in with the move knight b5 so if you get super greedy here with black you're going to regret it because after knight b5 the queen would have to go away somewhere it depends where it goes but let's say the queen goes to well let's say the queen goes to d8 and now at the at the very least white has got the move 96 check yeah somehow taking advantage of the pin over the e file yeah and now bishop f4 and your king could be in big trouble here as black right but i like knight takes d4 this is a very simple way of playing for white and i think pier now has has to realize that she can't take on d4 because of this tactic it's a two move tactic and very easy to see and i think she will castle here and in this position after castles um it's not clear to me exactly the best way to proceed with white uh well um some moves you might consider probably are linked to attacking the h7 pawn given that black's knight is uh not near the f6 square to protect it something like queen d3 or queen h5 might be uh among the candidate moves trying to provoke a weakness in um black's pawn structure on the king side whatever moves would you think of here well you also have to consider knight takes c6 here because you can't take with the queen because your bishop on e7 is loose so you have to take with the pawn and obviously now i've damaged your structure and now for example if i could successfully play bishop b2 c4 i would be very happy with white but for now i probably have bishop f6 right somewhere exactly and what yeah b8 did castle and now it will be up for ballash to to find uh a way to pose the most problems for black yeah somehow we have with black quite few pieces on the king side and somehow it feels that both whites bishops are looking towards that flank i'm a bit worried here about about black's king actually yeah and you know there are more there are slow ways for white to play here which probably get him a small advantage for example can you consider the move bishop to f4 here you know i don't like it so much because you trade a few pieces or yeah but i take and now i'm threatening to take on a7 so i gained some time but here perhaps even 95 might be fine sacrificing the pawn and then trying to get the bishop out on g4 yeah yeah it looks like i should be all right with black now i don't know i mean it's a pawn and if i consolidate with white it's it's one of those where you know if i play h3 c4 on the next i might just be a pawn up or or quick queen d2 is also in the air but but you should uh should uh be careful about all sorts of mating okay here after queen d2 i might take on d2 no take on c3 no oh sorry yeah sorry let me go queen e1 which was my yeah here i was trying to make something like bishop f3 work but i believe you're you're in time here no because after g takes queen g5 uh yeah probably my attack doesn't work king h1 e4 you've got queen g1 no queen f1 queen f1 yeah yeah that shouldn't work so i mean you know that's that's just one idea that that comes to mind and for sure it's an idea that ballash will be looking at and again it can't be the only idea somehow i would try to keep more pieces on because you know in those positions of course you get the pawn but it seems like you should be having something even more dangerous for black here no could be could be no no i'm not liking the chances of the lady steam in this particular game yeah okay well look let's uh continue and uh yeah man's team seems to definitely be having chances today but but there are still nine games in progress and anything can happen there games just started who should we be checking the next one for now we are seeing a nice image with ballash trying to figure out his way in those lines uh and also we've got julian and olga uh actually might it be the game we should check the julian and let's let's just go to a full screen for the moment let's get an over a full picture of this playing hall so people at home can wow but yeah this venue we've got the garrison library is such such a nice one and i believe it is a unique playing hall i've never been playing in in such a playing hall before myself and yeah players are exactly in the middle of the history here and i hope that they will be making actually history too in these five remaining games uh all right so we see olga uh having a look at her teammates uh games um yeah i believe she is uh very comfortable today she has prepared quite well we will be checking this this game in a while uh now we've got a arena on the board playing against uh uh who is she playing is it ravi like against ravi haria and uh we'll be getting the the games up in a short while yeah for now let's so let's enjoy this beautiful view of the playing hall we see leandro is walking as well yeah uh i mean uh it's uh it's a very special place somehow this this playing hall and actually uh i'm i'm kind of i'm kind of wishing i could play here to be honest i mean i would i would love to play in a in a place like this and also they they did something really important you can see some heating on the sides there now you may laugh but you can also see on the back of some of the chairs that uh some blankets have been provided because it is an old library and things have been a little bit chilly in Gibraltar but that's exactly how the books should be kept right if if i know anything about libraries is that they have to have a certain temperature for i believe so right okay so it's like with paintings and all those things which uh which need a certain way to be kept and i believe that's the reason why it's quite chilly in the building even though outside there are like 15 degrees or 16 degrees and actually today is uh the first sunny day in Gibraltar yeah right it is it's the first time that actually any sun has appeared in the past week and as i might have said this on stream but every year i came to Gibraltar at the end of january and i've been coming since 2009 sure there've been some windy days some rainy days and some storms but there was always a lot of sun and i used to love the thought of going and actually to sunbathe before the games go down to the Caleta where this used to go go to little beach catch some rays and then go and play my game because you know vitamin d is very good for your chest right and a good tan is really good for your chest really yeah having a good tan increases your rating by like 25 points i was always looking and yeah it was just i can't believe it actually the past week was just rain pretty much every day and we have some sunshine and you can see it in the playing hall today i think the players are also happy to get a bit of sun all right yeah and uh this is the close-up game between bobby ching and gunai and we actually see uh the camera that bobby played the c5 move which uh which we were discussing and gunai played night f6 uh yeah quite uh quite a logical continuation i believe white might be thinking about some queen b3 moves uh sort of preparing night takes e5 you know then d6 check that might be or maybe bishop c4 with similar ideas another thing might be some night g5 going for the e6 square yeah that's what i was thinking actually that was my initial but then you have to calculate night takes d5 as a and then there's some weird wait can't i oh there is that night on d2 usually you've got the night on c3 and you can take back with the queen on d5 but it won't be the case here yeah and after night g5 night takes d5 you then have to start getting crazy because night takes h7 is a move and the knights are sacrificing themselves and yeah that's gonna be a lot of fun this game i believe right um please do uh keep keep messaging us in the chat of course i want to uh reiterate and you know who you are please keep it clean this is a family-friendly show so no silly jokes or silly comments please and uh you will be banned if such comments are here feel free to make those jokes in your own time but not in the chat thank you very much and uh we've got a close up here of yuvanka huska oh she's got quite a quite a nice time advantage on the clock right yeah she does actually uh she she does but her position is hardly one to uh let's say get uh get our saturday night dancing shoes on and go and party she's got a what i would say is a nice winter's day position yeah and sit with a nice cup of cup of like hot chocolate by the fire by the fire and play this position for the next few hours but she's not looking to uh to go crazy a lot of people in the chat are wanting erik now we will get to erik i promise you very very soon once we've just sorted a few things out erik is playing uh marisa bag and um erik really looked like he had a very interesting position yeah and that before move was just i don't know either fantastic preparation or fantastic inspiration you know one of the two uh yeah and i believe marie will be uh struggling in this game i see that somebody says that erik has lost already his advantage uh we we will be able to to check it shortly but uh for now we we should uh just try and guess the moves from the camera i guess right yeah we'll get the the main board back in a minute but erik here with a slight time advantage um erik rated 23 56 which i think is massively underrated actually erik of course doesn't play that much over the board chess but a very very dangerous opponent and his position also at the moment looks i would say well i'm not actually i think what maria has done is i she went with the knight on a six yeah and she she she's pinning this other night now i think if you're erik here you need to find something pretty soon a move like queen to b3 looks like a decent move but i tell you what we'll do in order to uh get the analysis board back up and running properly we're going to take a very very short break so don't go anywhere we'll be back in just a couple of minutes with the remainder of this round so stick around see you shortly we welcome back to round six of battle of the sexes uh before the break uh no other results but there have been some serious developments on the board and arena it looks as though who's saying as is uh got a little bit careless uh in a in a relatively quiet position um he he allowed nino to play one of the basically one of the only tactical ideas in the position right and we actually checked this uh uh line before yeah where black would play bishop d6 and uh after right we'll we'll get there we'll get there in just a moment we have got the uh the board but we're just gonna go this in a moment and by the way erik has played the move queen to b3 we're gonna have a look at that in just a second as well and i can tell you that this move queen to b3 was the first move that i thought uh why it should be playing because you kind of look towards f7 right you look towards f7 and you threaten bishop b5 check so well we will go there in a moment let's quickly check the who's saying as is game though because it is the position which is the most critical i think for the men uh as things stand and i believe he might just have to resign actually in a few moves and that would be a huge surprise for the most solid player uh so far as is hussain yeah like i wonder if we can get the board up uh for the moment we'll see if we can do that uh let's see if can we get our here we go all right so it was in this position here that uh hussain played a3 you said you didn't like that and after bishop d6 who's saying clearly concerned about the fact that this uh rook was hitting the pawn so he played b4 but he completely forgot yes actually that h2 is also a weak a tactical weakness for for white and actually that's exactly what nino tried to exploit in this position by playing knight to g4 exactly knight to g4 just hitting this pawn and incredibly in this position here after a 13-minute think hussain just took on d5 he said well it's not mate so i've got nothing to be worried about nino took on h2 the king now has to go to f1 if it goes to h1 uh sorry hi the knight f2 wait it's just losing the queen uh knight f2 just loses the queen simple as that so he puts the king on f1 and now i think this is the move he missed bishop to e5 yeah and he is in desperate trouble because first of all his king is really unsafe on f1 without an h pawn to cover the h file and now queen h4 is a big threat because queen f2 then will be made queen h1 will be nearly made and i believe there might be the case that only one move stops immediate mate in this g3 probably yes probably g3 and this is what we were looking at trying to make a tactic work and it feels it feels bad but i can't see a a direct way to to to win or perhaps there could be queen f6 just trying to to hit f2 queen f6 94 uh yeah i missed this 94 actually yeah this is why i didn't go for this immediately because after queen f6 94 i just didn't i didn't see a clear route so let's see if we can do this this is a nice tactics exercise for everybody at home what if i try to go no i will not try to get crazy i just i felt like maybe i could play knight f2 but maybe i could go for net h2 instead yeah i was trying to make this work king g2 and some bishop g4 and if i go bishop e2 don't you run in trouble with the d5 perhaps not so yeah not that easy it felt like black should be just winning but let's take a moment to to try to make it as accurate as possible all right what about bishop i can't i can't see it but i know there's something i know there is something here i just can't see it yeah i've got another idea okay it's quite cool what about queen d7 yeah i was looking at this move as well because now i want to give a check on h2 and then the queen will be coming to h3 and there will have definitely a mate i think that's the solution i think that's the answer yeah i really like that move yeah it's i'm struggling to see a way to maybe bishop e4 here trying to bring the bishop the bishop to g2 but now there's at least a check on a6 as well so i mean again i'm not sure quite how to organize it and the order but you know there are f5 okay f5 maybe is a bit too optimistic yeah but i mean just as an example like check king g2 king g2 and now can we do this anyway what after king takes and queen h3 yeah that's a that's a good one because g3 is hanging yeah because g3 is and the bishop from d2 cannot go to f4 because it has to protect the knight on c3 exactly and now if you go for example knight e2 it feels like i have half a move here to to make something work again i don't see a you know an absolute clear victory but my my instincts are telling me what about bishop takes e2 okay bishop takes e2 do you take me the king yeah king takes but it it just take here right or take one a1 even or take one a1 yeah that's it that's it just take on a1 yeah you lose material so queen d7 might be the move assuming that hussein plays the move g3 i mean what else do you play here because queen h4 is just a winning threat for example if you take here queen h4 is immediately resigns because i'm threatening here i'm threatening here and if you protect i always have this check so you you kind of have to go g3 don't you yeah i don't see i don't see another way and i think hussein just realized what he did he must be really frustrated of playing that a3 move in the first place um somehow bringing blacks bishop towards where it wanted to go anyway and then missing missing the idea of knight g4 yeah he must have played a3 instead b4 oh but actually actually that's good news for the ladies team because it seemed like they were under pressure in some other games yes well let let's go to those other games because uh let's let's go back to eric rosen because eric uh was uh had a fascinating idea in the opening with uh this b4 move which we saw just before the break brilliant move gaining time uh taking the initiative and after knight takes b4 a3 uh the knight now came to a6 and here i'm extremely surprised that eric didn't either play knight to b3 which i thought was a pretty decent move or c takes d5 immediately he played the move knight e5 which is still okay um queen a5 now by marisa bag trying to pin the knight c takes d5 g6 and now i really like eric's move queen to b3 it's a very smart way of attacking the f7 pawn because now white threatens to play d6 and then f7 is hanging exactly so d6 is in the air but also bishop b5 check and after bishop g7 you don't really want to go d6 now if you're eric because well you can take or you can castle so i'm pretty sure his plan is to go bishop b5 check exactly and now black cannot really cover has to go king f8 only move now the king is awkward and now the big question is what do you do here is white because if you could castle you would be effectively winning but your knight is hanging on d2 now actually the first thing i check is if i can sacrifice that knight but i really don't think i can i really don't think that knight is probably unnecessary right uh to take so so many risks because white is very comfortably better i think so but okay so what about just playing the move king e2 actually i was considering this one as well black should probably do something like knight to c7 or i don't know somehow trying to get those white pieces go back perhaps yeah perhaps knight to c7 should be a move now the bishop on b5 is hanging and what now bishop to c4 might be an option a4 might be an option yeah i mean i'm not hugely in love with knight to c7 somehow you wanted to go for c5 i don't know i feel like i want to do something a bit more another option would be to go for bishop f5 but then you might have to consider actually or no g4 is not working so so far no g4 looks i mean g4 bishop takes but even that is not clear right i mean you can sacrifice pawns but i mean if i just played for example rook a to c1 looks very logical or maybe sorry rook h to c1 the problem is that black's rook on h8 will struggle to enter the game for a very very long time because you need like four moves to get it out and still the pawn on f7 will be hanging on the way yeah you've got to be a bit careful yeah you've got to be i mean maybe black's i aim is to go bishop f6 king g7 that maybe that's but i mean just to give you an example now knight c4 comes and now you have to put the queen uh to d8 and now and now g4 is coming definitely g4 can come now for example and that looks decent you can even take actually and play you know on on these on these weak squares here uh if you're like perhaps even a move like like queen b7 is a possibility but also g4 even uh even now might ah here you've got to bishop e4 yeah you've got to be got to be a little careful with g4 but there are so many roots here for white um right and yeah as i say if you can resolve this question of the night king it would be a funny looking move to play yeah it's okay well eric is going to have to uh calculate that out and i'm sure he's gonna come up with some uh decent i ideas um to try and to try and you know develop develop his because if he is able to get the rooks in very quickly here it's going to be very difficult for murray right let's move on to another game where the ladies seemed like they were in trouble the game of balash chanka versus uh pia crumbling uh it uh ah there were some developments here after an id4 castle yeah he did take he did take on cc yeah take and he did play an early queen h5 you know black has to play g6 because uh there is no other good way of covering h7 and after queen f3 95 followed bishop to h6 very logical rook to d8 now it definitely looks like white is better here because of the weakness of the dark squares around black's king and also the pawn structure on the queen side is not exactly ideal for black so even the end games might be better for white even though we don't really want to trade queens in these types of positions so what do you think uh balash is considering here well i think he's just wants to play the very standard knight he to get fully mobilized because taking is no longer possible because queen takes covers the knight and you're threatening mate so what what about just knight to d2 here threatening perhaps knight to e4 and probably black should try a move like but yeah it's not easy to suggest i was gonna say something like bishop to f8 but then i was worried that after the trades the dark squares might be even weaker and actually that might be very bad uh and also i struggle to find a good way of developing the c8 bishop if i would have two moves i would play here bishop b7 and c5 but unfortunately i've got only one move to make at a time wow yeah this position looks a bit unpleasant i have to say for black i mean maybe it's not actually that bad objectively but but the feeling a human would get is really unpleasant i think so because 94 c4 is just an idea for example if you play i don't know bishop e6 i mean it's difficult if i play 94 uh let's say you go a5 and i can just play c4 and c3 then yeah and queen c3 exactly and it might it might be over actually that's just the end of the game actually because you can't really stop queen g7 because bishop f8 runs into knight f6 and then a discovered check will follow and we're going to win material anything like this could happen so this this can turn very sour very quickly for pia after knight d2 and as i say i don't really see an idea for her because if she goes f5 it's just it's so loose it's it's it's just it's just so loose yeah now the dark squares are suddenly also weak i could even consider moves like knight to c4 yeah i like this move yeah it's just but also c4 and queen c3 is still oh yeah this is still unpleasant this is still in the air right maybe now she can go yeah it's just so loose queen c3 a5 even some bishop g5 might happen now actually bishop g5 yeah i don't like it it looks very very loose so i ballash clearly with some chances good chances i would say oh he goes for immediately yeah well if this works this could just win so let's black will still have some or maybe black wouldn't i was thinking that after knight before queen c3 there might be a move like bishop f no bishop f8 is just losing the knight on before so f6 or what don't see another way to defend against mate f6 and now i mean isn't it a bit too early for white to play c4 just like that probably i'm not i'm not very in love with this move hmm perhaps we don't see something it could be the case uh well i believe that pia has to play knight before because knight f6 seems terrible after bishop to g5 and then all kind of rook takes e7 will be threatening sooner or later so i believe it might be the only sensible way to to retreat the knight right yeah so let's let's try it uh once again knight b4 do we have anything else maybe not really no nothing else really makes sense here yeah bishop b4 but then yeah it doesn't make a big difference ah bishop b4 here i'm not sure if it's if it's better and now queen c3 just like this yeah but somehow it seems like we really wanted our knight on d2 to make the threats even more dangerous yeah bishop d6 but you don't do you want to take on h2 no but i might play moves like bishop e5 or taking on e4 yeah well i have to play something like bishop f3 i guess you know you might oh i can't go bishop e5 now actually this looks quite good for white it is a good play maybe something like knight to d3 given that white cannot really take on d3 yeah that's a good move it's a really good move yeah i'm not sure i love this c4 immediately yeah it feels just it feels a little bit premature doesn't it yeah okay all right well let's see how that one develops maybe a slight break there for the women now eric rosin we're gonna we are gonna go back there because a critical moment and eric did decide to go for d6 now i don't know i mean that felt premature to me exactly i i thought about this move but you know after a bishop takes it seems like well his idea is he wants to throw in this vision tsuk it's interesting bishop b5 check but is it after king f8 and i'll take on e5 or on e7 on e7 let's say it looks better and i'll have takes e5 i guess rook d8 or something but you might you might have some problems after knight c5 even no yeah after knight c5 all right so you still have queen c4 all right yeah but then i will start with yeah rook d8 is just so natural exactly hitting the knight on d2 now let's say rook d1 perhaps but now now you could go for a knight c5 knight c5 or bishop g4 or bishop e6 it looks already loose for white yeah yeah i i don't know why he went for d6 i mean i'm not saying it's bad because i obviously we can't be sure but looks very premature so king f8 yeah i i don't know i don't know maybe he wants to take on e5 here and keep the d file closed but you know you still have problems to solve with that knight on d2 because it's pinned and we're actually he did take on e5 yeah we actually have this position on the board now but you know i'm very excited to see eric forcing marie you know to have a full length game today because she made quite some rather quick draws and today she's gonna she's gonna calculate her way out of it i saw some questions here about bia and she has had a marvelous career she's still among the very top women's players in the world i believe she won the european women's championship a few times so i think it was definitely two times maybe even even more and i think she reached i'm not sure where it's semifinals of the world championship in the knockout format she has she has been fantastic and i don't know any other player in the world who has had such a beautiful career and who still plays at the very highest level i believe it could be maya chibur danica if she was still playing but she actually quit professional chess i don't know like 10 years back i believe or something along those lines but actually it was funny because pia was telling that it would be so nice if there would be our you know ladies from the same age with her you know who would try to play on and try to show that you could play chess until any age and do it very well at a very high level and yeah i'm i'm admiring her actually so much me too and she's a lovely woman right um all righty so yeah we have fire on the board here rose and sabag very unclear difficult to say maybe i still would take white i'm not i'm not sure what about the moves like bishop e6 here what do you do here my point is that perhaps i could even go for some king g7 at some point not sure do i do it immediately or no because now uh i don't want to take on d6 as the rook on h8 will be hanging right i think this move probably helps white the bishop e6 one yeah because the queen now protects the knight and eyeballs is diagonal now white is ready to castle and uh you can yeah i i think i will have to agree on that so not bishop e6 what else no it's not not an easy position here for neither of them yeah interesting so once again knight c5 runs into moves like queen c4 knight c5 queen c4 but you can also do this again right queen b2 yeah why not i was hoping to to go for ah but again you want to castle you just want to castle but i might even threaten e6 for example after a6 i probably don't i probably here would just retreat the bishop but you know i you do have to start looking at moves like this yeah and suddenly the rook on h8 is having a really hard time yeah and on f6 uh like d7 doesn't or d7 wait is d7 magic it might work but i mean but still there is no threat yeah like even well no no this i mean i can take and maybe go here or something i don't know but it feels as though if i get castled as white i'm gonna be i'm gonna be doing okay and actually i don't i'm not even sure this is necessary so um still some very practical problems to solve for pia cram uh for uh marisa bag let's go to another game let's go to joe gallagher we haven't checked his game out for a while let's check how that ruilopas uh developed uh because as we remember there was a d3 line and just had played d6 which actually went for the plan i was mentioning with j6 d4 quite terribly b5 yeah this is all well known bishop b3 uh short castle i believe yeah it's important to note that knight takes e4 runs into the very important idea of bishop d5 hitting both knights oh now bishop to g5 rook p8 is a bit of a mysterious move very unusual yeah mm-hmm what uh what was maybe she wanted could she want to go before what would otherwise be the idea unless b4 well i think it's sometimes because she's worried about some some pin with bishop d5 might come might come um which is a bit annoying i see possibly but rook b8 is a bit unusual and she spent 11 minutes here which to me shows that she's not really that's like she hasn't played this position that often okay so rook e1 h6 the bishop comes back still there is not much tactical going on here like it it's a slow game so uh you don't need to know you know everything move by move in these types of positions just the plan some ideas and t takes e5 is a very unusual one isn't it not so i mean not really actually i mean i've played this with white and black this particular system and this move is always on the cards uh but it seemed to me like the idea of this keeping the tension in the center for white was to make life more difficult for black and they say that when you take the tension off then it's a sort of relief for black it is but only if you have a way to actually fully relieve because for example here the most natural move is to play knight bd2 because you know now now this might be a threat but after knight bd2 knight g4 is a problem and that's one of the ideas behind rook b8 is that bishop d5 no longer pins the knight and now for example you can just go knight e7 wait but what about moves like d5 now that the rook has gone from f8 no immediately sorry uh instead of knight d2 after rook e8 d5 somehow saying that i'm not sure no is there knight a5 and c6 coming right away no i don't think you want to go d5 also e4 i mean i understand this bishop a7 but in general you don't want to play d5 here i was hoping for some knight bd2 then yeah not sure probably after c6 black is doing yeah c6 or again knight g4 winning the because it reminds me of that line do you remember uh the long ruille oppas without h3 where you get similar kind of then ruke 93 ruke 3 well perhaps i'm just it's a bit different yeah i think it's a bit different here no i think this is fine no i d8c5 is you like this yeah i've played it um i played it a few moves earlier in this line against um german guy what's his name lampatt in in isle of man actually something it was a few moves earlier but the the idea is the same and the point is that if black now plays the move well he took with the knight it should be the best move no because i think so trading a pair of pieces before deciding if to take d takes or not looks like fair to me yeah because the knight on c6 was running in trouble after sorts of bishop d5 every time right right exactly so taking and the point is that if you now take back with the pawn why does got a very pleasant position because the c5 square is actually a serious weakness and here for example i don't know whether trading first or going after let's just say white goes f3 i'm not sure about f3 because maybe i have enough time to play queen is seven and c5 or or is it anything wrong with that because like you said the c5 square is really weak but maybe if i manage to okay queen d2 i do want to take one h6 sure i'll take if i can and if you protect i might go enough to because i have bishop f8 but this looks all a bit synthetic from your side i mean if i go a4 c5 yeah okay i take it takes i just don't like that light squared bishop you've got on b3 because after c4 it might be um okay after c4 it's probably okay for black bishop b6 probably probably okay for black but it's a little bit loose rook a7 and i double but i don't see a reason why black should be worse here rook b8 i don't know i would take white all day here really yeah i would i would you're not worried about that light squared bishop no i think it does a good defensive right controls d3 and again i mean feels as though black has given up a lot of space but i probably i i mean no i definitely get what what you want to to achieve here if you would have a good control of the c5 square i would definitely agree with you sure sure yeah and but anyway i mean all of this doesn't really matter because uh shantzai took with the rook on e5 with rook takes e5 and joe played f3 anyway now we have a slight change in the structure so things are very different bishop to b7 knight to d2 and now of course if black is able to break with d5 successfully then should be doing fine she played c5 okay the knight came to f1 queen b6 and the bishop dropped back to f2 very logical the rook came to d8 okay and the knight came into e3 and now shantzai played queen c6 which is a it it has some ideas perhaps there's some ideas and joe has just played the move c4 that's that's one i like actually yeah i like this move because if you take i can take with the knight if i want i believe actually c4 was already afraid um if he wouldn't go for it himself c4 and then d5 maybe exactly so i really like c4 and after uh b takes c4 i believe his idea is to take with the knight let's say the rook comes back and in the worst case scenario you have the move knight a5 and normally winning this bishop is quite a big achievement because now the light squares are very weak but even this should be still fine for black because of the dark squared bishop right probably i mean i would go rook b1 here and but i mean white has to be a little bit better here at the very least i would say i mean it has to yeah and and it may not even be the case that it's joe's idea for example joe's got some very interesting ideas like bishop a4 here and now queen b6 runs a4 yeah because now queen b6 runs into knight takes c4 so i have to play queen c7 and now i can play knight takes c4 again let's say rookie seven let's say bishop g3 as an idea but i'll put the rook on e6 oh you put the rook on e6 to protect okay yeah that makes a lot of sense and it's a very complicated position because we see that the pawn structure in the center is really unbalanced and black has the weakness on d6 but for now it's only one weakness and we know that it's not enough usually and what what did it happen in the game she went all the way back to e8 with the rook rook eight that makes sense actually also makes a lot of sense because now perhaps she wants to go away with the knight from f6 threaten the pawn on b2 and maybe try to make use of those dark squares you know because the bishop on g7 is probably the best piece in the whole position actually right knight d5 isn't something we want to do with white i guess no i'm not not entirely sure probably not though because after takes if you take with the pawn and now queen c7 then suddenly this bishop is really bad this bishop is really good c4 is coming knight d5 definitely feels premature so here i would expect more of a move like i don't know queen to c2 by joe trying to bring on the rook to d1 yeah but what about moves like ah now if i play something like knight h5 now you will have knight d5 yeah when the knight moves i have knight d5 always and i might even just bring the rook in anyway and say well this i'm not really that worried about knight f4 i don't know if i want to go g3 because i allow knight h3 check but you're right i've always got knight d5 yeah yeah i somehow wanted to bring that knight from f6 to e6 in order to get to that d4 square but i don't see ah actually maybe i could go for a knight h7 not knight h5 trying to bring it to g5 and then to e6 oh i like this plan knight h7 oh wow with the idea knight g5 knight e6 i think it might be anyway it's still a very complicated position we've got almost all the pieces on the board and it seems like it's gonna be a really interesting strategical battle here and i'm quite quite curious to see transya um solving this type of problems because usually we we are used to see her more on on the tactical side um all right so um we'll see how this game will develop yeah we will and okay let's move on to another game then and wow look at this move by marisa bag we just have to go there sorry we just have to go there so look at this move now is this a move that erica's missed let's just go back a few moves we just saw the move f takes e5 before and marie played bishop d7 looks like it loses a piece it doesn't because after bishop takes d7 you've got the move queen takes e5 check hitting the queen uh hitting the rook and the king and then you take back on a one with check at the very least and it's probably winning so eric decided to take on e7 and after king takes e7 white is seemingly in a huge trouble here white might just be lost because i mean maybe he's got some a4 or a castle oh no no you just take on b5 right so the the bishop won't be five is on pre if you take on d7 i still have this move queen takes e5 check hitting the rook and the king so how do you guard this bishop with a move like a4 but now now some rook d8 perhaps rook h2d8 yeah and i'm still suffering here because i'm threatening a nasty bishop move and this knight is on pre and knight c5 is coming and the king is not really in trouble and it all uh looks like uh it is getting out of hand basically for eric and well i mean okay yeah here we'll have some tough questions to ask here bishop d7 was a fantastic great move a fantastic move and this is exactly the chess i was talking that marie could play right those amazing moves that resourcefulness is exactly what characterizes marie's chess and i'm very happy to see it today actually this game is going to be a lot of fun indeed yeah all right let's uh let's move on and let's go back to the nino game yeah because this was also fantastic wow we lost well in the end after a 33 minute think which is a long time hussain played the ugliest move ever seen in human history the move pawns at f3 i mean he to play this move must have given him physical pain in his fingers when he was sliding that pawn up the board weakening all the dark squares around his king a sign of desperation and nina simply played queen h4 great move because when you take on g4 and that's actually what happened you can just take back and the problem is mate is uh on the horizon if you move the queen let's say i move like queen to c1 i could even yeah exactly that was what i was going to suggest it's a very mean move isn't it yeah bishop g3 is just curtains yeah for hussain aziz i mean but it's it's a total fiasco for white yeah and after bishop takes g4 he went for rook takes he five asking for a bit of uh you know pity really because i mean probably this is winning for black straight up like oh sorry takes takes takes takes is probably still good for black or sorry yeah for black but maybe there are some chances so i wonder after rook takes he five might the big question is can nino just take back might be the case actually because if you go bishop e2 now i've got rook f5 check what about king g1 what queen f2 and rook h5 right right is mate and if you go bishop f3 it looks i mean okay let's see takes takes which check let's say let's say check here king f2 king f2 only move king e2 runs into this and mate so that's over so king f2 i think you could even play something like rook e8 perhaps maybe you can bring a piece in but i wanted to see what was going on after let's say check king f1 king f1 yeah i don't have a you don't have a rook g5 you would love that move right no maybe this i mean rook e8 might just be very good for black actually we're not material down yeah we've got a rook for two piece no it has to be over exactly the king is the king is busted on f1 sooner or later it's going to be a mate and yeah nino went for rook takes e5 yeah this is the good practical well done nino yeah this is this is the correct way yeah um hussain had a really bad day today happens to everybody of course yeah but yeah bishop e2 rook f5 check but what is there anything else knight e2 uh what about what about just rook b e8 yeah bring then taking everything on yeah it's just it's just it's just hopeless yeah i don't see a way for for white to survive this one and uh yeah that will mean that the ladies will probably score first today i agree i think this game is going to be i think this game is going to be over in the next 10 15 minutes yeah i think this is this is a catastrophe for hussain and today we see that his strategy of being very solid did did not work for him no it didn't he just mis misplayed it and he got a bit uh what's the word he played queen to c1 okay you still need to find a winning a winning idea instinct is telling me just to bring the other rook into e8 but you have to be sure that bishop f4 isn't dangerous because thereafter rook e1 i just take and maybe i will have some compensation yeah enough material yeah okay how else can we do this one perhaps no i don't like maybe maybe there's a little bit of fight left here might be you know i was thinking no but g5 is too much of a funny move shouldn't shouldn't be the way could be a good move could be a really good move just stopping all the whites but i don't like that the rook is no longer coming to h5 you know perhaps here some who knows maybe some king g1 or something and then the knight can jump to e4 i'm not sure this is but who knows uh what else how are we winning this one um would we try to sacrifice something else the moves like i don't know bishop f3 bishop h3 yeah i was i was trying to make that one of those bishop moves work but i didn't i didn't see it you know i'm i don't like that after rook b2 e8 there is bishop f4 uh do i miss something there which one uh rook b2 e8 now yeah and bishop f4 yeah is there a way for black to well now maybe even something like rook h5 not sure about rook h5 because then i want some queen f6 maybe and then queen g4 you know just play around yeah you still cannot play queen d2 because i can at least give a check and take on a1 maybe you can try to cover with the knight no you cannot yeah i think rook h5 might be a good move okay not not as easy as we thought right but um still feel as though nino will find a way here that's my that's my instinct but and indeed it is nice to see nino uh having better days because she started uh not not so well with the losses then she won um before the rest day against julian and today she might win another one and actually let's check out uh another game yeah we're gonna have a look now at the belal versus uh yuvanka game which we haven't seen for a while we're gonna go straight to the to the position on the board and after a lot of maneuvering i have to say i really love what yuvanka has done i think she's got a really respectable position here yeah it's actually a dream scenario you know because often you get i mean you i get to this kind of structures from a queen's indian uh when white plays with e3 and then i go for this d5 plan then i bring the knight to e4 and now actually it will be black who will be attacking white's king after moves like f5 g5 and white's counterplay should be on the queen's side but i don't really see it and also the e5 square it's very important that it's covered because many times white tries to go for a knight to e5 you know and try to make black weaken himself with f6 or something yeah i like how yuvanka is doing here but well there are only 22 minutes for each of them 22 25 on the clock and the game is just getting interesting and i'm a bit worried because yuvanka has been having some troubles handling her nerves during uh during titanau during trouble right she has she she has had some issues just played king h7 improving the king and playing slowly and bilil is also going to have to find some kind of plan here and you know it's not easy at all to see what that is maybe he wants to actually play the move knight to e1 is it possible to then kick this knight with f3 yeah the only problem is that the knight from e1 doesn't have great perspectives no it doesn't but i don't what about a move like f5 after knight e1 should be uh like any black's plan yeah okay so f3 now where should i put the knight i could even consider knight could i consider knight g5 you can consider it for sure because somehow if i go to f6 maybe my knights are struggling right okay so knight g5 so you don't want them stepping on each other and maybe now a move like let's say uh let's say queen to f2 you want to go knight f6 perhaps yeah knight f6 yeah i have very very nice control over the e4 square right yeah i have to try and get my knight to d3 here i feel right ah but then i will be able to bring the other knight to f7 and cover the e5 square even if you even if let's imagine you already have the knight on d3 yeah you will uh but at least then like i don't know at least but it's very difficult to okay maybe i go rookie too but it does feel all a bit shaky yeah definitely because at some point all right c5 is premature here because maybe i open up your bishop but i could consider something like that maybe later or what should be actually the plan for black to break through because yeah all the pieces stay really nicely but if you want to win you have to do something so right h4 h3 maybe at some point some could be i mean there are a lot of ideas here i do like black though i have to say i agree with you i think i think black is doing well so all right so great news for uh for yuvanka fans let's go back to the bobby chang versus gunai mamadzada position because things got a little out of hand but it looks as though white is for preference here we just saw the black knight is still on b8 why why didn't it develop i don't know but i really love bobby's last move knight to d2 hitting this bishop and after d takes c5 you've got two options you can take on e5 or you can take on e4 but actually you can take on c5 you've got a few options and look at that knight on e3 it is yeah a fantastic piece because it both protects g2 it protects d5 it's perhaps the best piece white has on the board and if we would just be able with black to trade the knight from b8 for the one on e3 that would be fantastic but otherwise you cannot really compare the two of them and that's probably why white's position is preferable here yeah that knight from b8 is quite sad but what do you do after d takes c5 do you take on e5 or do you take on i don't i don't know it's it it's uh it's there are three legitimate moves here no b takes c5 probably isn't great because then you take with the bishop and threaten to take on e3 then a mate on g2 will be coming yeah probably taking there is not on his agenda i would expect either knight takes e4 or bishop takes e5 yeah quite like bishop takes e5 actually because then we hit the pawn on c7 even though now bishop d6 shouldn't be good because we'll just take take on c5 then b7 will be hanging so which move sorry uh bishop takes e5 yeah then i was thinking maybe something like bishop d6 but then you can just take and take on c5 and then take on b7 and queen takes b7 and claim that you're you're doing well i'm not sure yeah then i will take the bishop if you allow me perhaps i could have done it even before taking on b7 seems like that knight on b8 is really struggling but it could be that white has something even better here i wouldn't be surprised all right well we're gonna leave bobby to do that one i do quickly want to go back to nino's game because uh hussein has decided to just uh well nino played the move rook b to e8 and d takes c6 and now i mean that the king is so so open here and there are various ways but black has to choose and be sure that that he's winning right i mean the rook rook to e6 just looks like the move i would play here just threatening to come across and then if the king goes you can check and then rook h just to illustrate here you can give check you can then give check here and and mate the king looks as though you've got a lot of you've got two rooks a queen and a bishop yeah and no direct defenders the rook on a one is doing nothing you can just as well take it off the board actually yeah it doesn't help in um guarding white king yeah but maybe 94 i think i could even take on e4 here no maybe but uh take again are you trying a rookie too ah rookie too oof yeah that's a nasty move yeah that's that's good yeah there are so many ways aren't there i mean it feels as though the position is just falling apart for for white all these pieces and an open king and look at nino she's so focused here she's definitely gonna find the right way to make it i think so i think she's gonna find a way meanwhile i think uh well uh with there's a game here that we haven't checked out for a while chrissa against Efroinsky let's go there because we've really not seen this forever right it was that um isolated pawn structure uh i remember you said you liked what white's position and actually how the game developed i think indeed white white has done quite some progress here yeah white has managed to exchange a couple of minor pieces off the board which is always a good idea and okay my cells pieces are still active but white has got this uh fantastic d4 square under control the better bishop and the better knight potentially and so but black is at least a little bit active here yeah i think white white is slightly better here but yeah perhaps not too much maybe maybe it's not so much what about the pawn on a seven is it free or wow could be why not if you take i just take so that's there might be some queen of six maybe and now oh you want to just take and i have to take with the pawn yeah sorry queen queen of six i don't know otherwise it doesn't make sense to just leave the pawn unprotected no yeah you cannot take on a four because i can take yeah that's probably yeah that's queen of six that's a good good spot well seen and what else could white do probably a very um typical move would be rook d1 but then you have to be careful about bishop takes e2 and then knight c3 exactly so rook d1 bishop takes e2 bishop takes e2 and jumping in on knight c3 yeah it seems like white lacks like one tempe to be fine i mean to be fine to be better yeah all right uh uh in the meantime let's uh joe gallagher is he playing a blinded today he might be he might be playing a blinded today because he played queen c2 which is the move we were looking at the knight came to d7 by jenza and now i love his next move a4 love it joe gallagher looking to secure some squares but wait now if i look at the position yeah i have a problem what if b4 well that's a5 yeah that's the key yeah because if you still have the white squared bishop yeah it's a bad piece right but you're just in time to play a five bishop a4 and trade it yeah or just keep it there as a as a pinning mechanism reminds me of some leco game uh where he he did something like this and this is a bit unpleasant because well here jenza had to move her rook again bishop a4 that actually happened already wow queen c8 is on the board and wow joe now played the move 95 and i think joe is playing a really nice game here but wait what about bishop takes okay but now no but now i think this is bad for black because you take with the c pawn the rook has to move again let's yeah and now i'm looking at this a6 pawn i'm so close i wonder if i can play actually i've got bishop h4 as well coming well got a lot of ideas got a lot of ideas no definitely but it's not easy anyway to still break through for for white i've got this very nice bishop on 87 for now like but that bishop on a4 is really annoying because i cannot really play comfortably some rook a8 and f5 because i'm always pinned there yeah very interesting yeah for example a move like rook a2 well now maybe c4 i want to yeah c4 might be a threat actually yeah maybe you could just play bishop b4 or no just rook c1 maybe rook b2 c1 rook a2 c1 sorry rook a2 c1 i i struggle a bit to evaluate this position to be honest yeah it's it's not an easy position to evaluate at all uh yeah but i really like this a4 a5 plan maybe not so bad all right let's see uh a long long way to go there let's check gilin's game because we haven't seen it in a while oh yes it's already an end game it's an end game i think we should just look at it here and you are absolutely right uh irina that uh uh you know basically gilin went for this very passive way of playing and now irina is has got the classic free roll so in other words she's playing for two results either she's gonna win or she's gonna make a draw and no other result is really reasonable um yeah so she is playing for just two results and we're gonna see if that's gonna be enough i actually don't like gilin's last move at all this g4 you know in the position we have different colored bishops when there are still rooks on the board you don't as a defensive side you don't want to place your pawns on the color of your opponent's bishop because then it's easier to attack them and actually moving here the pawns is also quite uh risky because black pawns actually to create a past pawn that's the idea yeah okay perhaps gilin has a some concrete idea like rook d4 or something but yeah it seems to me like g4 shouldn't be shouldn't be the way to play this one but it's difficult i mean he's also kind of running out of moves here to some extent it's it's it's really a not an it's a play a move like bishop d3 after g4 yeah just not allowing your rook to d4 then i could try some g6 and f5 and suddenly it's much easier for me to create that past pawn i i i definitely don't like this one if there would be no rooks on the board it would just be a draw immediately but how to trade them well i don't think you can maybe some rook f2 to make ah but i can still play g6 but then maybe some bishop d6 ah but the pawn on c3 will be no i dislike greatly white's position actually maybe the computer could hold it but i'm not very optimistic about gilin's prospects in this game actually yeah yeah it's gonna be a very very long struggle here it's just a case of whether olga finds an interesting plan and she can have a good think and we'll see um we're gonna go for another break uh so we're gonna be back in a few minutes uh still nine games ongoing and after what looked like a rough start today to the positions for the ladies they do what they do best make it difficult for men um no no none of that they are bouncing back as they have done and uh now hey i was really confident before today but i think the ladies are going to actually win today yeah yeah i think so because nino is gonna win marie suddenly marie all of these great positions have suddenly really gone south yeah so let's see back in a few minutes guys don't go anywhere see you soon pretty welcome back this is round six of battle of the sexes live from the garrison library in Gibraltar and uh in the short break some amazing developments uh before we go i mean some of the games have just caught on fire so we're just gonna have to uh well we're gonna have to try and catch them all before things get really out of control but one result has come in uh since we were on break and that is the game between joe gallagher and john sye and i think it's a fair result um joe got a little edge but he probably didn't find a way to manufacture anything tangible i think that's a pretty fair result and that means that we've got a draw in joe gallagher against john sye now but things have gone crazy in the game between hussein and nino i mean we've got let's move on to that one yeah things have just got completely out of control because it seemed like nino was simply winning and something unexpected happened nino blundered yeah nino somehow blundered i think we have to take it back just a few moves uh here and it was around if we go back further it was around here yeah this position here after detakes exactly detakes is six and we thought that the move rookie six would probably look like a good move didn't it bringing the rook up but instead she chose a bit of a strange move she played uh queen to f6 yeah this move i didn't quite understand because the king is able to find a bit of shelter so queen to f6 check king g1 king g1 queen takes c6 yeah a little bit slow right capturing a pawn okay the queen went from another flank you know yeah yeah it didn't feel right queen f1 looks like a good move to me and now rook uh rook 8 to e6 right rook 8 to e6 correct queen to f2 all right covering some dark squares h5 and now hussein just decided you know what i'm going to take uh take a pawn here yeah queen takes a seven and the past a pawn now if that gets running is good and the problem is nino just has to check mate black here uh white here because otherwise white has got two pieces for a rook and the king is safe king g1 is quite safe now yeah it's safe it's safe so okay king so bishop f5 by nino rook to f1 rook to f1 okay bishop takes rook g6 and now the point is you're threatening mate so the rook now blocked with rook f2 bishop takes on d3 and it's over to hussein who's not taking immediately because he's i think he's seen the move queen d4 here as an interesting uh tzvisiansuk and probably a very good one as well hitting the rook and the bishop unless here black has got some miracle move like bishop f1 which i can't i mean i don't believe it because yeah just hitting g2 right but then could you just take you just take with the king but i'm just wondering if if that benefits black in any way and it probably doesn't right so and he does play queen d4 he does play queen d4 i i actually have to say i like this nino with one minute 45 on her clock for 15 moves ladies and gentlemen completely out of control for nina yeah this this is this is the i i mean if she loses this one uh this is a catastrophe because she was minus five or minus six which is completely winning and nino just not she's not um on form is she she's she's just not and i fear for her now no what else can go on so queen d4 let's assume she keeps the rook with a move like rook to there have been some moves made here but i don't see no because there is no longer a bishop on d3 right uh judging from the camera oh ah she played h4 sorry uh sorry no so what sorry abigabond she took on d3 hussein took c takes d3 h4 and queen d4 after all yeah exactly takes h4 and queen d4 and nino with h3 now uh but perhaps there is some knight e4 you know yeah but hold on a second wait wait wait i can i take on e5 take on e5 yeah king f1 rook takes f2 king takes queen g2 king e3 and you just want to queen the pawn yeah h2 that's probably good yeah that's good okay so he can't do that right so he has to go 94 yeah i believe that should be the move right feels correct but at least now i'm a bit i have some checks i don't know but oh i don't have to complicated position with the pawn because the rook on e5 is hanging for now but also wait there's also no there isn't sorry 94 94 has to be the move i think and maybe some rook h5 here trying just to keep things complicated still extremely i mean nino can still win this position but goodness me it's a bit tough on the clock you know because she's got only one minute against 14 oh and that's not a position where you want just a minute on the clock right well yeah but that's uh if she doesn't win this one that will be a very very big miss for the latest team just huge huge huge and uh what about well let's keep an eye on this just in case but let's go to another game meanwhile now ravi harry that's the game we haven't checked in in a while and it looks as though well simply put that iran is completely dead in the water here she well firstly in this position here ravi can take an exchange but i mean it looks like a position which yeah yeah it's just it's just lost for black i'm afraid because even if i take the exchange you've got only one pawn for it with black the bishop on b6 is out of play the king is still struggling so even oh he played 97 check by the way here let me just put that on the board here as well so 97 check king goes to h8 that after king h8 he's got queen d3 that's it and there is no that's just the end isn't it queen d3 is just immediately the end yeah you could still play some bishop by five but then i just take one of five and i've got a piece up no iran iran iran can resign here that's it and and and she does and a huge win disappointing game for iran i did say actually i think that was one of the hard games for the women today and it looked as though iran was just uh well 25 moves is obviously a bad loss for her i believe this is one of the shortest uh game which ended uh not in a draw in this tournament so just 24 moves for for ravi were enough today to win against iran oh what what a tough what a tough one for her yeah really really tough oh let's try to check out the game between uh eric and yeah let's go to eric and marie because wow i mean oh and look you could see on the camera how ballash is congratulating his teammate yeah ravi the first one to score for the men's team today yeah absolutely let's go to that eric rosengame because the position is absolutely wild what is that so he's he's a piece up for the moment uh but but there are a few but the king is stuck in the center on e1 the rook is on h1 how should how should black continue here well the natural move is either queen d4 or queen c3 and i guess against queen c3 eric i mean you can something tells me that you shouldn't play rook d5 here but i i'm not exactly sure why not so rook d5 perhaps something like queen c1 queen c1 check bishop d1 and maybe there or i don't know if you included or maybe you can just go knight c7 as black just force the rook to make a decision oh wait but why not rook e8 check am i missing something ah rook e8 check that just wins sorry sorry that's that's good that's really good yeah so i believe marie's gonna play something they are both on just four minutes on the clock yeah uh perhaps white could try to avoid all of that by castling but then there are two ponds white's two ponds down maybe he still has some chances here though oh yeah i was thinking he should castle here actually but yeah theoretically i guess it should be winning and she has just played queen c3 yeah and after castle she will be taking on d2 perhaps with the queen and then the bishop on e2 is hanging i think but eric has to play that and just go bishop c4 and hope basically yeah because still the pawn on b7 is hanging right but anyhow it looks like marie is the one playing i don't want to jinx this one yeah because we've jinxed a few today already right we we jinxed nino big time i feel pretty bad about that one um right if we jinx olgagiria into losing them we really can't ever talk about chess again can we we should quit yeah yeah exactly yeah but yeah i i don't believe that will happen all right let's so let's check another game perhaps where should we go um yeah but as i say this position i i think eric is is basically i don't know if it's objectively losing but it is uh it is really unpleasant it's unpleasant let's go to uh actually uh leandro kriss against marcil uh if ormsky because the position has either wow this should be a draw draw probably yeah yeah because now the spawn on d3 is one very difficult to get how do you get it actually because if you take on e4 right i take and you cannot leave with the rook from defending this well you can or that's that's the point i think you can and what if i take and i just take and i just try and make a draw take take take and then i make some luft g6 yeah yeah and then i just uh but that's this is not easy yeah this is not easy well you could probably just bring the king and that should be fine yeah yeah i don't expect leandro to lose yeah that's that's not the most exciting position he did take on e4 so leandro has actually just admitted that uh the position is yeah yeah yeah okay let's go to the game between um uh gunai yeah bobby cheng against gunai mama tzada because we've got a critical position on the board knight takes c5 and bobby cheng is not taking this piece directly now i had this board in the in the corner of my eye for it's been a few minutes so he's got a move here which i don't understand could it be that gunai offered a draw and he's taking his time to think could be could be because i don't see any other legal move apart from taking this night back do you right no no oh wait i don't we've had some moves and we haven't here we go there's been an update all right so b takes c5 i guess followed bishop takes c5 right uh b takes c5 bishop well a lot has happened unfortunately uh can we yeah so what happened here so bishop 965 let's go back to move uh we'll go back to move 20 uh yeah and we actually see another draw agreement between landro and marcel as we expected that that rook hand game um yeah they just agreed a draw straight up right okay so in this one bishop takes c5 what is going on queen takes b7 quite logical yeah so why does a pawn up okay knight to e6 queen to c6 pinning the threat is knight f4 perhaps queen c6 and now queen to h6 attacking this knight from e3 knight to g4 and now a very interesting move knight to d4 yeah i mean she found this move knight to d4 incredible incredible move what happens after knight takes h6 well that's basically well how ever she can take the queen and now when the knight goes back to yeah it's a pawn it's a pawn and but it's uh it's very drawish because there are pawns only one one flank exactly we've got this different colored um bishops exactly i think gunai has got a really good chance of drawing that's actually the position yeah that's the position yeah so i believe this one's gonna end in a draw i don't see how bobby can make use of his extra pawn actually i agree i agree okay let's move on to uh now let's check in with pier cramling playing black against balash chonka and pier has managed to well it looked as though she she kind of survived at some moment and now she's got this position but white is still better here white is still better definitely white is better because of the better pawn structure so black has this weak pawns on a5 and c6 but i believe it's all the worst is already behind because that rooks on the e file are just really nice they're both protecting a5 and also at times perhaps the rook can't think about going to e1 yeah still i believe that pier is gonna defend this one against against balash do you i'm confident i'm not that confident i mean she's got a really bad bishop she's got weak pawns on c6 and a5 balash just played how do you use that rook a2 exactly the move he just played yeah because now i'm threatening just rook d to a1 or rook a to d2 or rook d to a1 hitting the spawn on a5 yeah that's a very multifunctional move right no i think this position three minutes for pier cramling eight moves to make but wait what if i just go back with the bishop to c8 because there is no use of it on a6 okay rook d to a1 rook d to a1 you really want to take this pawn i was hoping that while giving it maybe i can get you know some sort of a compensation but not sure how do i do that because if queen b6 you can still take this pawn maybe i should just go for this don't i don't like it maybe bishop five trying just to and if i take on a5 rook a5 i was hoping for some bishop before but i'm not sure if i should do that immediately yeah perhaps just rook takes a5 what do you take back with the rook or the queen queen queen takes a5 yeah that's not as easy as i hoped because now if i take on a5 you take back i mean this is just a pawn yeah it is yeah not not easy at all yeah rook a2 is a very good move and she actually played queen b6 immediately yeah and now what is the difference now if you play rook d to a1 for example i'm not sure i think i'd probably rook b8 right is it and i take on a5 rook a5 still looks bad the bishop on a6 is hanging and uh also you can also think about after queen b6 a move like rook to d6 i thought i don't know this it's a bit dangerous now because you allow me to play rook a1 yeah rook a1 king h2 how how dangerous is it really maybe i can go for something like queen c7 yeah and then i worst case i can take one of six but if i go c5 for example i think that's not that bad do you like rook a6 maybe queen takes a5 an egg might be bad all over here actually i mean lots of options and ballash ballash just went for rook d uh rook d to a1 which you can't you can't blame him for just playing this kind of very safe zero risk chess and i think pierr is just losing well i think losing is a bit really i mean she's losing the pawn definitely but if the pawn goes and then c6 goes it's just all over isn't it no definitely but i hope she will find a way to to hold on to that c6 pawn you know i was hoping to be able to trade the bishop somehow because then the rook hand games might have a drawing chance there you know yeah but that's never gonna happen no i i it wouldn't be surprised me if this position was just over and talking about lost positions i mean nino what happened nino batz yes really let's go there we've got an unbelievable position on the board and i think she i mean what is this wow what am i looking at here b6 rook takes d2 now you can just take the rook take the rook this is what happened so rook takes rook rook takes the rook b7 and now you can't go rook b2 because of knight b5 and you win so you have to go rook d8 and now a6 and it a5 sorry or knight a6 or knight a6 or whatever oh no just a5 is good what did she do no she it's just it's just over oh no just any any move here is just winning b7 is good rook d8 a5 a6 it's just there's just nothing to do yeah she's gonna be very upset today and and now not just saved by yeah incredible saved by hussain totally dead it was really sloppy of nino to let that one out of her hands because she would if she would have that position against magnus carlson she would win but perhaps she relaxed a bit too soon possible yeah she thought that anything would win yeah and now it's suddenly all over yeah yeah absolutely terrible for for nino yeah yeah absolutely absolutely terrible and that means that if nino loses which she will because after rook d8 just any white move that is good knight knight a6 is good a5 is winning i mean there aren't there were just i know a5 yeah sorry no a5 rook d1 and rook b1 a6 is still it's just over these pawns you just can't stop them yeah a5 is good and nino knows that was the look of the look of can i resign and poor nino yeah poor nino yeah me too me too but that that was such a beautiful game by far you know it was it hurts it hurts immensely i i would say it hurts and if if the man will win like that today's match i really see the ladies team in a in a bad spot well because at the moment hussain is going to win balash chonka has got a great chance of winning and ravi has already scored ravi has already won bilal by the way looks like he's got a great position all of a sudden let's check let's check that yeah let's let's go to bilal uh this is the position i mean i i don't know what happened here because wait we really liked black's prospect so just yeah it went a while ago yeah it it looked great for yavanka and i don't know what what has happened but why can't i take now on c5 let's have a look i believe i have to capture back with the root now i can probably take with the rook or queen but let's say i take with the queen actually yeah because you would like love to trade queens and then it will mean that you won't have to worry about my queen getting to f3 and but it's not so easy because your king from g1 will struggle getting to the game right even though the born is on a dark square the born is hanging i mean i'm but he didn't do this he played the other move which is rook takes c5 of course i mean you don't have to take with the queen he took with the rook which is probably better she played queen he said oh oh oh rook takes h5 check what it works it works oh no rook takes h5 check is end g takes h5 queen takes h5 check and if you block queen h6 queen f7 is mate in two and king g8 queen h8 that's it oh no oh no that is i mean if i saw that in two seconds bilal has to see it right oh no yeah definitely i mean it's just and you can't there there is no move it's it that's over oh just double check triple check how could things went so terribly wrong for the ladies awful in just 10 minutes everything it was insane just insane it all i don't get it it's it's it's it's crazy and he and he does it of course he does h5 and oh no and yuvanka already understanding it's over and queen takes f7 maybe she understood or i don't know it doesn't really yeah and she will resign now yeah and that's it and oh yuvanka in really terrible pain actually we predicted that that's gonna be a tough game yeah but yuvanka was doing really great after the opening yeah she was doing fantastic now that means just like that we've got bilal winning we've got ravi winning we've got hussein winning bobby cheng is a pawn up balash chonka is a pawn up it could be the seven three day it really could and i didn't think it would be possible given the positions but there has been a total collapse from the women's team and there's no explanation for it really because i mean everybody had a lovely day yesterday and you know uh yeah this is actually something i i really did not expect you know i thought you were just too optimistic and yeah nino is resigning i guess what what a game poor nino absolutely devastated for nino because i you know what i really wanted her to win today yeah she definitely deserved it and she could she could have been the one to win in 24 moves herself you know and suddenly she was a bit sloppy she didn't find the direct win and i'm i'm quite quite sad now and i see that nino and hussein they are discussing something but i believe hussein also understood that he was completely busted of course he understands yeah what a save and it's even it's not even a save it's a win yeah it's not even a half it's a full it's a full what we call the two point the two point swing basically for a team match let's carry on let's go back to balash chonka because that game has yet to reach uh the time control and balash has just got a crushing advantage here uh nino with uh just sorry not nino pier with uh one minute bishop e6 on the board balash has got um every trump in the position so is there h6 possible h6 might just be good because king takes h6 queen takes f6 threatens rook h5 mate oh yeah that's that's that would be terrible if a rook h5 would win one more game today yeah and balash with one minute 50 okay after h6 she can go king f7 and hold on a little bit but yeah so the question is do you need to go h6 yeah not sure not sure he's gonna do it isn't he he's gonna do it he's a bit nervous i see balash no he he's such a wow i mean he's a he's one of those guys huh he's the smooth the smooth operator g3 and just say okay make a move pier this is a very useful one because the king might go to g2 in some cases it's a good move what can you say yeah yeah it's it's just good it's just good chess it's professional chess yeah and it's very interesting that uh that all the all the guys are doing so well today nobody actually looks like they're in trouble anymore only eric eric was struggling let's check that game out well let's let's let's go there after because we've still got some games that that that is uh that is a clearly great position for marie but it's not clear that that she could win that well she probably has got really good chances but that's reach move 40 let's stay with this one rook d8 on the board and uh yeah perhaps she wants some there is no piece to jump on d4 maybe what else i mean i i don't know i mean you've got a lot of c5 a move you would be considering here for sure because then if the queen doesn't guard the a6 square i might go there with the rook bishop d5 maybe here no so you're still protecting it yeah so what what else um h6 could still be a move here even though after king of seven it's not that easy what about queen no queen a3 or yeah i was thinking about it but rook d2 i don't want to let you get active um i believe white should try to organize a past pawn so i have a b5 or c5 and then b5 something along those lines really yeah i think so no i was i i i didn't want to exchange it i wanted to actually just win c6 by force but maybe it's just not possible 45 seconds for ballash and not i can feel the nerves from his play and rook c5 was played was it no he goes c5 i mean i don't mind this move i think this is just fine yeah she will probably go for queen c7 or will she go to b7 no b7 queen b7 runs into b5 right right and then there are problems yeah she'll go queen c7 she does queen c7 and now they have to make the last move to reach the time control so i expect it to be a solid move right something like rook a6 not taking rook a6 a move like queen a1 also exists here yeah threatening to go for rook a7 and then win the queen but then perhaps black would and now you can go rook a6 for example um and now and now the point is that but wait it's not it's not over after rook a7 i've got rook b1 but i just go king g2 all right and now the the rook hand game is actually very bad yeah because you take this point and these two points are oops are running exactly yeah queen a1 is a smart one will he play it yeah he did i'm not hey i'm not so bad huh they they say in the chat that i can play chess sometimes huh all right yeah there you go queen a1 great move balash can get up and call himself down and by the way gunai has just i don't know what's happened but it looks like she's toast as well how so i mean let's have a look at it it looks it looks oh bobby played was two seconds on the clock he played king g2 but i didn't like king g2 but maybe she's okay now because he got there just nerves goodness me yeah f takes g3 but they still have to make one more move even though this one is going to be easy right well i mean i think now she should make a draw basically but uh well i mean bobby can still play of course he's got an extra pawn and a knight but but the bishop is good here yeah the bishop is good i i expect good night to hold here yeah if bobby doesn't lose on time ah but he just made the move king g2 which is actually the last exactly the last move ah so he's fine yeah bobby is fine he'll get 30 minutes all right what else is going on let's is there any match that is uh any game that hasn't reached move 40 no i believe they all did yeah okay they all reached move 40 so let's quickly check in on the gillian uh bylia against olga giri game and nah it's it's probably just just lost for a while oh no this is over i mean olga found a way to win a second pawn i told you that that g4 move looked very very risky to me oh and pia has resigned i think no yeah well i mean it was losing queen a1 or she lost on time or something no it couldn't be that she was losing queen a1 pia yeah we discussed it she resigned here pia it was queen a1 completely losing yeah she she she she probably found rook d7 rook a6 or something no she couldn't have resigned here why no she lost on time look it's she lost on time she forgot to make the last oh she forgot to make the last move well i don't i think the position is winning anyways i i don't think it's a big i don't imagine things could have gone more wrong than they did yeah i mean it it but pia was i mean balash played a really nice game he had control he's a control player he likes to uh always never lose sight of of of the position never overextend he just nicely he just plays in a nice pace i really like how he plays no it was definitely a very good game by chanka balash and unfortunately that means that the lady's team is going down uh minus four so far today but that's a huge score but bobby is not going to win now against gunai i don't think the only hope well there's hold on olgagiria is going to win and marisa bag could win so it could check her yeah yeah let's check so eric is oh eric is defending again a rook hand game with a pond down he's had a lot of rook endings isn't he yeah always he's always had to lose not to get so well for him no but this looks horrible this looks really bad yeah it should be lost because white's rook is very passive on a one if it would be the other way around let's imagine white's rook would be somewhere on the fifth rank b5 or c5 and black's rook would be on a6 then white would have very good drawing chances but like this with a pond down yeah i believe i believe eric will struggle a lot today and actually how interesting that uh two players who looked like they were playing for winning you know because i believe if he really wanted to make a draw marie wouldn't mind uh judging from her games from uh the first half of the tournament but he really wanted to have an interesting and spicy game and he attracted her into it but then somehow it didn't work out so well he lost control at some point and now i believe it will be very difficult for him to save this one that means that uh the ladies are likely to score two two wins today and then guiney versus bobby will possibly be a draw and then it will be a plus two score for man today which means that they will go ahead in the match by one point right they're definitely going ahead in the match today that's yeah that's for sure um the men will be winning but it's really critical you know but also i feel for pia because even though if she uh if she had a bad position losing on time is really unpleasant just forgetting you know and you could see that you know everything went wrong today for the ladies just everything yavanka blundered made irine had a just a bad game it looked like and oh yeah and nina from a totally winning position going down like that yeah awful yeah so uh that that might change the course of the match so far actually a lot of a big momentum swing i mean the men were uh they started badly rounds three and four and five three was good four was good five was normal and today really and the women are gonna have to uh dig very deep and be very uh but why this big difference do you think it's connected to the way they spent the rest day because it seems like the men are doing fantastically well after it and this is the other way around for the ladies i don't think it's to do with the rest day uh i just think it's to do with the individual pairings or just randomness basically uh interesting yeah that won't be an easy an easy spot to to go from after such such a difficult day yeah well i mean if olga wins and if uh marie wins only losing minus two on the day is not actually a huge no it's it's not but wait if then the ninos game would go the other way around then the match would be even yeah but it didn't it didn't and you know uh obviously losing uh and it's it's getting well we've still got a lot of games left so it's not totally critical yet um let's go on the game of uh julia yeah let's go there now has he got any drawing chances at all here after rook h6 because i mean i don't think so no two puns two puns are just too much and they are too far away from each other you know this f7 and b5 i believe even he should be quite quite careful not to get his rook trapped uh what did olga play rook h4 yeah i believe she yeah bishop d6 this is very logical now he protects the pawn on h2 and if i was black i would consider most like bishop to e6 actually with the threat of playing b4 and b3 because then the rook is covering the b4 square oh but she threw in a check here she played rook to e4 uh am i missing something uh why rook e4 ah perhaps she wants to go with the king to g4 yeah i like rook e4 yeah and also the bishop might come to e2 and protect the h5 pawn i don't think i don't think julian has chances to save this one but why are they playing so fast why are they playing on their minutes uh because they should have reached time control but it seems like they did not get the increment did they yeah because i believe they get it when they uh when they when they run out of time yeah so they've i mean they've both got an extra 30 minutes basically right okay so yeah this looks like pure suffering for for julian i i i don't expect the hold here um yeah erica is also suffering and guine will probably make a draw so she just played king to f3 not allowing black's king to comfortably go to do towards that pawn but now i can just give bishop e2 check exactly and after i say king f2 or king g3 doesn't really matter ah but wait i might not be able to play before here yeah because the bishop takes the rook takes and now take even this one is not easy to hold because of rook b2 but theoretically it's a draw yeah yeah but she's never gonna do that no definitely she's not gonna allow that one well she could play here after bishop b2 king f2 and move like bishop somewhere bishop d1 first and only then before because the rook cannot come in time to stop this pawn from running yeah i believe you know even even the bishop end games might be might be winning because these two pawns are just too far so if we imagine the rook's go off the board it's still well let's say like rookie six here for example all right um wait after bishop d1 let's put a move like king g3 rookie six rook takes king takes the king is just climbing towards this pawn and then even if the bishop manages to stop it then i can go exactly around that and normally the rule yeah normally the rule is if there are three files separating the pawns um then it's winning because you cannot really keep that uh the bishop on a diagonal so that it stops both pawns right exactly and then plus you've got the additional pawns still remaining so it's yeah it's not even a it's not even close right so uh did she play i don't know she's taking her time they've got their extra half hour now yeah and uh where else can we go so we've got this go let's go back to the bobby ching uh versus gunai gain yeah he still has the extra pawn but it's a pawn you know which even if we trade pawn for pawn and then with black i sacrifice uh the bishop for the other remaining pawn rook and knight versus rook it's quite an easy draw on on their level it really is so but the question is the point is that you can't get rid of the pawn like let me ask you this question if magnus carlson was playing white here yeah how often do you think gunai would make a draw out of 10 games 10 oh no no because i genuinely don't see a way for white to try to do anything here i disagree if you say that she's got 30 seconds only on the clock starting from this position and she has to play it against magnus then i think magnus would have i don't know maybe three games out of 10 but i mean let's try let's try this one i'm no it's not 10 out of 10 i promise you magnus is magnus is one more drawn positions and it's so drawn like this yeah sure okay rook h5 for example wait it is it is black to move i'd like to move i could actually play bishop d6 okay bishop d6 i have to be careful about this one so i'll go rookie three and how are you actually making this knight come back we'll see i'll need to find a way i can put the pawn on g5 wait i can just play rook d8 it would be i should just be careful not to put perhaps the pawn on h5 because then you might be able to attack it and the bishop won't be able to protect it so let's say i play just to move like h6 to see how you make progress okay let's try okay knight knight b6 let's try your point is that after bishop c5 you've got this intermediate rook f3 check all right how should i continue should i keep the rook here or should i put it on e8 let's try to force you okay rook f3 check king g7 okay let's try knight uh 95 95 maybe rook f8 rook f8 rook b3 let's say and let's say i just stay with rook f7 king g4 you're going to h5 but i will have rook f5 still all right i could even play a move like rook a7 okay rook b6 bishop where bishop b5 rook e6 let's try i don't know actually no sorry yeah i'll go rook e6 yeah so bishop d4 let's say okay my point is that after king h5 i still find with rook a5 so here i'll play knight f4 knight f4 where are you going well i'm moving around you know i'm trying to make my job easier all right so um rook b7 let's say okay i'll go uh rook uh rook a6 okay threatening this one bishop e5 okay knight h5 check king h7 okay let's try king f5 bishop g7 kind of running out of ideas yeah i believe if you manage to bring the king to h5 probably i i would say this is my i mean obviously that was just us playing blitz and randomly going off on a tangent but i would actually say that in this position here i would expect gunai to draw less than 50 of the time really yes against magnus against magnus and against bobby and against bobby i expect her to draw 75 percent to 80 percent of the time yeah well actually you've got a point here because we have to consider the fact that people get tired at some point and if we remember the game um the last game from uh before the free day uh where sabino won against olgagiria what looked like an end game with huge drawing chances for olga uh with olga just blundering in one move then yeah you could see that's happening here as well but yeah somehow i really i really believe that gunai at her best you know she wouldn't lose this kind of positions to anyone but i'm not sure how she feels right now i don't know how you know because she lost a few games she might be a bit disappointed so yeah you might have a point in that yeah and you know you only need a construction where you know the knight lands on f5 and the knight and rook combination is very unpleasant and if you make an inaccuracy suddenly you are under pressure and the and the position could get out of control so so well i mean i i still think she's big favorite to make a draw but i really think that uh she actually played this bishop d6 yeah he's gonna go rookie three here yeah the point is that uh it's very difficult to get to the king if we imagine in this position the knight on f5 the rook on the third rank and the king on h5 then yeah you've definitely made a knight a nice progress then the pawn goes to g4 but i i think it's quite difficult to achieve that one all right let's see if bobby makes any progress now in other news who else have we got going on well has erics rosen's uh chance is improved and the answer is uh possibly possibly yeah i mean the exchange of pawns there feels like a pretty good result but but it's quite quite easy for black to actually make progress in this position because you place the rook somewhere let's say if it's my move in this position i just play rook f4 yeah cutting cutting off the king and then i bring the king towards b4 then eventually i'm gonna win this pawn i agree could just be over actually perhaps oh yeah the problem is that you cannot really come away in the same direction with this king because the pawn on f2 will be hanging and if you move it to f3 probably it will be what erics gonna try because at least the rook from a3 will protect f3 and maybe i can come with the king but there perhaps i could start moving the f and g pawns creating a passer and it's quite difficult to to defend this one yeah totally agree no i i don't see any practical chances here for eric i mean also marie is an experienced class grandmaster exactly who has played many an ending and this is i wonder you know did did eric just wake up the beast in in marie because she was making a lot of draws may this change the course of events for her if she wins this one well i think he went really he went for a very high risk thing and at some point he played this d6 move which i didn't like um i think he was a bit just premature basically and well i like eric's move he played king f3 somehow not allowing black to to play ruca 4 so so easily perhaps marie should have played actually ruca 4 on the previous move because here after king g3 she could have she could have gone actually for it and then bring the king it might have been slightly more precise but even so the king cannot really go too far because it will have to guard the pawns so probably here a ruca 4 anyway you can go ruka 4 you can go uh you can go anywhere rukh 4 is an idea also all right rukh 4 is actually a nice move threatening to play rukh 3 yeah but you will have to play king e2 i guess king e6 i know the king comes all right let's try to hold this one what if i play what should i play at all uh let's say rukh e3 check king d5 and rukh f3 rukh f4 is that right i've got to be careful is it winning if no i think you might run into some troubles if you if you give up the f6 pawn yeah what about rukh f4 king e5 is fine of course but let's just try rukh f4 i'm just curious so you're saying that here all right so king f3 king 5 yeah king e5 but i also want to just quickly check that king c4 doesn't work king c4 king f4 king b4 you know it's the f pawn so i might be um it might be a bit king b5 uh yeah that not on b4 because you get checked f4 a4 king e7 a3 5 a2 f6 a1 yeah and f7 now this is the one where i think the king is too close actually queen e5 check because you have to get to the corner yeah and now king c6 you're too close check on uh no wait wait wait i screwed it up i screwed it up go back sorry i screwed it up a1 queen f7 try queen sorry queen e5 check king all right maybe maybe not king e8 king c6 oh that's the way queen d7 mate sorry that's it well done the king is too close king c6 yeah cute oops not that one just the mate is happening yeah well known so even that might win but that's a lot of calculation involved and you really need that no but i mean either it wins or either it wins or it doesn't right but i mean this isn't just never gonna happen anyway because she will never she'll never risk throwing it away like that yeah definitely she actually played king e6 immediately here which also makes sense of course but that was yeah a funny a funny pun end game yeah but i was curious that after rook f4 in that in that variation uh rook takes f4 g takes f4 king f3 king f king e5 might just be easily yeah it's it's probably okay i will have to go no it's just easily easily winning yeah no but we just wanted to illustrate yeah even if you go like uh completely completely in another direction you could still win that even with so many imprecise moves because actually it gave white some hope to survive that right yeah by the way i see at the corner why jillian has got that ending we were talking about where they trade rooks they traded rooks and let's check that one out um well this one is is is really just not even uh how or is it i don't know she will just go away with the bishop bishop f1 okay king the uh bishop f1 yeah no i'm pretty sure this is uh this is a theoretical win you even have the h pawn of the right corner you know i mean the bishop is of the right corner so even if you manage to give the bishop for these two pawns it's still lost so um yeah perhaps there might be some you know and she actually went for bishop f1 yeah that's the correct move yeah yeah i see i see close to zero zero chance and wow gunai has set up an incredible kind of concept here which i completely didn't see oh wow the knight is trapped is it so if we go back yeah let's go to that gunai game if bobby had so gunai played here rook to a8 yeah he had to go knight be six here why didn't he why didn't he go knight be six i rook a three oh yeah yeah that's the point very this is clever and now you cannot really go away and avoid the trade of the rooks because then the g3 pawn is falling oh yeah that was a very clever right that's really if that works then i'll take everything back because if that's if that's a forcing variation where you can't actually but is it after rook a6 he just played rook to f3 and now oh the knight comes to f6 sorry i'm not sure perhaps there i have some bishop g3 tactics after king where um good question because if you go king g6 i might go rook f6 check myself king g7 and now here maybe i just play a move like h5 oh oh that is a nice trap you want to play h6 and then my king will be very uncomfortable and if you play h6 it's uh yeah h6 all right then you have rook g6 now rook g6 king f7 and then i can get oh because otherwise it's made yeah well yeah yeah this is made exactly oops so you have to go king f7 and now at least i have knight e5 check wait you can't take on it sure i can take the pawn but i just wanted to release my knight sure knight e5 and then for yeah and if you go there now knight c4 is completely winning immediately yeah right so actually i i'm sorry i i i take it back um after rook a3 so king g6 might be already already in precise so king e6 but now i can just go knight f6 and my knight has left the building what about rook a3 now i can take and take on h7 that's the point yeah right the two so the two pawns exactly takes knight takes it might be still not easy to to win this no that's easy it's easy yeah it's easy all right the two pawns is really easy with the knight so i have to be careful after knight to f6 then what should i play well you should probably play something like h6 maybe i could go for rook a7 actually i don't want to move this pawn unless i'm forced because now maybe i'm threatening some rook f7 at some point okay but i'm gonna go knight e4 threatening rook f6 check sometimes threatening rook f6 check what and again i cannot play rook a3 because of knight g5 check that's frustrating now all right let's say i play actually h6 here i go knight e4 and now king e5 i'm actually a bit worried that even knight e6 might work at cases yeah because the rook endings are really bad with your king cut king g4 right now the king comes to h5 actually i might still be able to draw this one no i think it should be probably not draw yeah oh do you i don't you don't think no what about move like rook ah rook f6 gets into rook e3 what about something like okay king h i need to somehow get the g pawn for the h1 but i'm not you're never getting that you're never getting that yeah maybe rook a6 okay king h5 let's say king e4 okay on i no rook f7 this is over because even since you go to g7 well not even that i can just go g4 g5 and i'm i'm i'm getting all right i'm getting my my lucena so i it's it's it's bad i think it's bad i think it's you know after rook f3 king e6 knight f6 this is no there should be something come on it cannot be lost like that of course it can no yes i mean it's not lost but it's very unpleasant all right so let's try it again rook a7 94 okay let's say i'm just i'm just i'm just what yeah there is no i'm just that's the point let's say bishop e7 bishop e7 okay trying to sort of guard these squares okay i like it i like it i like it i do like that move now if you try something like king g4 maybe i could go but it's so interesting so if you go king i was thinking rook a5 not rook a4 okay all right does it make a difference rook a4 rook f4 but maybe then king e5 i don't know all right should we try rook a4 that yeah sure why not i wonder if i can just go rook f4 here though yeah this was what i thought maybe king king e5 95 but but what no yeah ah no you're missing ah no you're not i was thinking that after she takes a four if i had the move king e4 then after knight h7 there is bishop takes h4 i get the pawn but unfortunately i don't hear but wait i cannot do anything i'm sorry okay she went rook a so we got this in the game so nine of six rook a7 is is actually on the board and uh yeah actually the plan which she chose might it still should be a draw no i think i think i played it well here um but after king g4 perhaps not rook a4 okay you want to go rook a5 okay now let me ask you about 95 i think 95 has to be should be a draw should be should be but is it how easy a draw is it okay 95 let's see i i want to use this at the very uh sort of last resort now but here i have probably these ideas of the pawn end game now rook a7 okay king h5 and rook f7 or wait i just lost it the pawn end game is lost actually yeah 114 end game is lost yeah because this pawn on g3 is still there right exactly and here you just go for g6 exactly all right so i cannot afford a pawn end game all right then whatever drawing ideas oh wait rook g7 okay um i'll play rook f6 check and now it's very important where do i place my king normally you should go for the active move in the rook end games and not to stay passive but i'm not sure probably it's not the case here king h6 immediately wins i mean not immediately but yeah and now just rook a6 or something yeah rook a6 is good yeah sad one yeah you're just a bit offside here it might be actually winning then i'm not sure how to defend this position exactly i don't know the best if but if you go active king for example rook f6 check sorry where yeah like here so rook a uh maybe oh wait we are being silly here okay there is rook a1 okay and you are not winning this one rook f6 check king uh king e5 rook h6 now now rook a7 this is a better version yeah much better one but even this you know there are some lines i can go let's say for example king h5 even this i'm not sure you're drawing really no this should be a draw really okay wait i'm thinking show me the money show me the money oh wait i i will come up with it so i need to place my king fine so i cannot actually go to f5 because then after rook f6 check you've got king h6 exactly so i have to make a neutral move like rook b7 and then your plan is to go g6 at some point no my plan is i want to improve first i'm gonna go g4 first maybe not g4 maybe just uh let's try rook a6 rook a6 yeah what about rook b1 now king uh king h6 no then i just uh what do you do rook check yeah ah king g7 rook h5 or king f5 but i also have king f5 king f5 rook h6 is nothing no no i will just take the g5 point okay i've got i've gone wrong there okay so not but you could uh you could play here you shouldn't allow me to go on b1 i believe i was thinking that you should make g6 yeah i yeah maybe maybe maybe i can but it doesn't feel like what about g4 g4 is interesting let's say i still keep keep now let's try rook uh rook uh rook f6 rook f6 now i go anyway here yeah no i thought that you should try somehow make g6 is g6 not working here because i must take and now i go and now you should take with the rook i believe no king is also interesting i mean it's very close yeah and it's gonna be no the the rook and pawn is gonna be dry i believe why no i don't know king g5 rook a8 or something and then you've got rook g6 i don't know it's close because the king is weird yeah the king the king is strange definitely i don't know you can lose these positions quite easily i mean that's the good news for bobby is that he's got all of these possibilities of getting into these rook and pawns which are definitely not simple yeah that would actually be good news for him if he gets into some end games with practical difficulties for black because you and i will go down on time and um probably he should try one thing another and then make her be really low on time and only then go for a different end game change the character of it at least that would be what i'd try and he actually played the 94 moves yeah we might actually get this in bishop e7 and as i said i bobby feels like the sort of player who doesn't want to go 90 5 check here it feels like he's got a more clever play this one yeah but this was what we were looking at i'm so curious how this one is after 95 but i don't think he's gonna do it he's good he's a more slow player no but if it's if he knows it's winning he's gonna play it because it just would mean a win on the spot but you see black's king is bad on e6 because it's cut now it should have been on g7 yeah if the king is on g7 here it's a different story i think but i think he's gonna go like i'm trying to think can he play a better move here let me think but we actually didn't find a way to to hold the rook hand game let's see king g4 yeah he plays king g4 improving he goes for the safer this is this is correct yeah rook a5 or rook a4 that's actually our line yeah it's gonna be our line sure all right we'll get back to it let's let's check how uh let's check yeah let's check eric quickly nothing has really changed there oh so he's thinking so they got this position with the rook on f4 the king on e2 that would have eventually happened and uh yeah eric's taking a lot of time he's probably realizing uh he he cannot hold this yeah it looks it looks hopeless for eric and jillian as well is is very close to to losing and um i'll tell you what we'll do we'll go for a very quick break and uh we'll be back it looks as the games have still got some legs in them i mean the eric game jillian they're gonna be playing for a while longer so we're gonna go for a very very quick break and when we come back we may have an esteemed guest in the studio uh so we won't be too long so we'll see you in just a few minutes maria you had a quick draw today with sabino tell us something about it uh today my preparation was really good i managed to check many lines this morning and probably my opponent wasn't in the mood to play and he he he was okay with the draw but for me it's also strange to struggle with black pieces therefore we made only 17th moves because sabino's won three in a row before this he's the top scorer yes true he's strong and especially this tournament i think he's leading among all the all the other players and you're one of the top scorers on the on the women's team so this is top board today yes looks like okay let's have a look at the game okay maria let's have a look at your game today it was a slav defense what happened next yes i i played night bd7 and i always make this move at this position yeah this is standard slav oh this happens sometimes okay so we look at all the standard moves in the slav variation i think that my opponent didn't prepare the eighth smooth e5 he told me after the game about it and it's really hard when uh you are not prepared to play with the opponent who is prepared for this okay so it's understandable is it is this a minor variation of the slav do you think i think he has the dc is this is the main move and of course some bishop c4 b5 and then white chooses between bishop d3 or bishop 2 but e5 is an interesting line and they white what should know how to create problems here yeah yeah so did he have a long thinking or i think he knew the main line the main lines but i mean to create problems it's necessary to know the side lines of course yeah yeah okay so capture capture e4 another possibility was to play bishop uh or knight b5 sorry yeah knight b5 like bishop b8 de but of course e4 is also possible which is quite an unusual position in any opening really to have all four center pawns all together in the center it looks nice yeah okay e d knight xd5 knight xd5 and i think after h6 it is a critical moment for white they have plenty of moves here like h3 rook d1 b3 also yeah they can play whatever they want but black should equalize i think okay so it's quite a nice uh but my opponent went for the line where we exchange the queens yeah yeah yeah now the pawn is hanging so it's necessary to defend it checkmate threat yes queen h5 to play and after bishop h7 we change the queens does he have any any alternative to queen f5 otherwise this bishop will be trapped of course yeah okay so all this happens your opponent offers a draw yes he offered a draw and the position is pretty much equal after knight h6 so you've broken his streak of three straight wins yes they go draw with black it's possible to say so so it's a it's a good thing for the for the team i guess when you have black uh in general it's black uh playing with black is harder so the draw is a good result especially when the opponents have equal ratings have you looked at the other games did you check the other games uh only a little bit but it's more convenient for me to check with the screen rather than yes rather than just looking around the board yeah okay thanks very much maria the sexes in the router and we've got grandmaster no internet master all right my international but master but thank thank you in advance you've definitely played today like a grandmaster i have to say thank you looks like a very smooth victory right just a second sorry guys well i don't know how smooth it was because at some point i i felt that i let the big part of the advantage go away but it was still uh comfortable for me so uh i played the the alpine sicilian for the first time in my life now i can tell that it was my plan against maria two runs before because i had no idea against the swashing off so okay it's a playable line and the the line we got was what i checked the last so usually i go to lunch at half past one and it was like five minutes before when i realized i haven't checked this line and i have to and it's probably i think one of the most critical lines against the the alpine so and all credit goes to my norwegian friends ian sarbassian christiansen who had a chest of a course and i used this one oh really so you used his course today yeah uh because like main line is d4 here or classical lines sorry cd and then then d6 and it's quite hard not to crack so instead i i decided to play his line bishop c4 and okay i checked it in five minutes so i can show you the the main line i think queen d6 is one of them right yeah and the point is that in the game the e5 pawn was quite weak so instead black could play first bishop g4 to to bring the bishop out of the punch and only then play e6 so h3 bishop h5 rookie one and okay 95 i can just take and it's bishop f3 queen one so i think the best is black could either play slowly with e6 bishop e7 but i get the same plan with b3 and maybe a slightly better structure so castle is like main move b3 and knight sorry i think queen f6 and i tried to show but i cannot recall the whole 93 95 is the main 95 i still take and if black goes for knight takes i can just sorry i can just sacrifice the queen bishop d1 and i have really good compensation and my next move bishop d5 almost trapping the queen so wow that's a really interesting line and i have to say that being myself an alapin player from time to time i i might want to check that course out yeah yeah so instead black plays b5 and now if i move the knight knight c3 is stronger so bishop e4 bc queen 2 and at the end there will be some perpetual 95 g4 and it's crazy stuff so but okay if someone plays this with black okay i can only congratulate for the draw all right uh what about the e5 move did you did you know anything after it not much i think i i remember the plan that i have to break the punch and with b3 some 93 and then it should be good it's okay castle must be natural what about here because we thought that bishop takes d6 looks more natural yeah that was my first thought especially that pia played the queen this e5 first so i was like okay the logical follow-up would be to take with the bishop either d3 or d4 maybe d3 is more forcing because d4 there is the option of cd just one line i want to show is that if she castles at the very least i can win a pawn with bishop a7 so instead yeah okay let's say d3 takes and it's not easy to castle of course now so let's say some bishop queen exchange doesn't give too much so queen e2 and once again you can see the same problem that the e5 pawn needs protection so some some plus so queen d6 was played b3 must be natural bishop e7 and i think rookie one was a clever way to start because okay i can start with queen e2 but one point is that if bishop g4 comes h3 black takes whenever black takes it's fine for me but at least i think i managed to take back in one go so i don't have to play queen e2 first and the other point is that cb ab that i left my other point that i left my queen on d1 is that now i can either play d4 or even bishop a3 no yeah i think i was going to play d4 first because if i come here don't you win a pawn here as well i'm not sure queen f6 bishop takes e7 yes queen e2 doesn't i know what you want 95 yes and you i'm getting mated here i'm not sure it's made but yeah at the very least there is knight f3 and okay i don't want that so yeah i can play queen e2 instead here but i think better for me is to play d4 first because it's really forcing she takes and now this one yeah and okay yeah let's say something like this queen d4 is probably queen d4 because you know a lapin and games are usually somewhat better for white so queen d4 and small plus i want to play against this knight on on b6 yeah and what about queen c7 in the game you played d4 anyway yeah i i thought about knight e3 also trying to bring the knight to b5 but actually it doesn't bring to myself actually i believe that was the first engines line uh at least it yeah yeah i believe so and how about castle how do i follow up uh not not sure actually uh perhaps uh perhaps something with d4 now and then the knight can ye and then uh then knight b5 intermezzo yeah i thought so but queen this queen d7 yeah maybe it's something similar to what i have just shown but here i already wanted more maybe i i don't have more but d4 she has to take i guess 94 she cannot really take because next move by a bishop f4 and it's crushing so she castled c6 and here i think like what i would want to play is to play queen somewhere and then c4 and bring the bishop to b2 yes but i cannot do it because queen d3 okay f5 never really worked g6 so here my king is not on h5 so i could play theoretically c4 because if i can cut the knight out uh that's great yeah but then there is bishop f6 and i felt that uh i have other priorities compared to this because if the bishop gets back then the bishop f5 also comes with tempo all right so here everything looked quite smooth for you g6 queen f3 knight to d5 um bishop h6 root d8 yeah it's only move because i don't know if you check this position rookie it is losing actually uh actually we didn't why why is it c4 knight b4 queen f6 oh wow that's that's very pretty and now there are issues on the back rank right because f6 running to rook e8 maybe otherwise you can't really defend against it yeah yeah so or any other knight moves runs into knight f6 and other than that i just win win a point i see so rook d8 forced yeah and here lauren's told me before i came to the studio that 92 is other other possibility and actually i considered it but i was like if i can get this c4 and queen c3 and all the weaknesses in her position then uh then i must go for it although 94 92 i go for 94 then c4 knight f6 it was really tempting to go for for this one as well i think i i see nothing wrong with this one so nothing wrong but i was like okay it's it's more forcing tonight right knight b4 and here okay other option is to prevent the idea that could have happened in the game but i think i give too much time for her to consolidate with bishop f5 and right so you played you played i think very very well up to uh actually the last point so bishop b4 a5 did you think that she had any better uh chances to compare to what she played yes we we found out one critical point was here probably almost impossible move queen e5 oh wow that looks so that looks very risky because yeah for like i don't know three reasons one doesn't work because bishop d5 95 right and uh compared to the the game that could have happened knight cannot take on e7 because there is a background mate otherwise it would be fine so i could play bishop f3 i don't play for structural one more structural advantage because uh if i take then there is a weakness on e5 i play for a time but i think she has just king f7 and i have no follow-up clear follow-up and yeah knight does a really nice job defending on b4 right so my main idea was i think to take and actually the point is that let's say i play knight d2 trying to bring it to f3 but then there is bishop f5 and i cannot take twice on e5 because there is bishop f6 so knight d3 knight c2 coming so my love it was a better yes yeah yes we what i wanted to play lost was to play rook a5 first because if bishop f5 and i take with the other rook at the end so that's that's fine but there is a very cute tactic i think it works that there is knight d3 bishop bishop takes and now bishop b4 and everything is hanging oh wow so white should play something like yeah rook d1 and then bishop f5 and black is very much in the game so probably i have something better i didn't see but okay to queen to play queen e5 you have to calculate a lot of lines so right so other than that later on in the game did you feel there were any other chances she played a5 here knight d2 i was already really happy here i made a mistake in a sense that nice on screen that i spent 70 minutes on knight f3 which i wanted to make in 17 seconds instead but i was like i can play rook e2 then i double and whenever she takes on e4 i take back with the knight but somehow he didn't really want to work out for me for maybe i just hallucinated some nonsense but rook f3 also seemed like a nice move yeah the issue i had with it that bishop f8 was i thought and we discussed that she could play c5 and it's similar to the game that what i wanted to play what i was my first thought is just to play rook e3 then double i defend against threats on d3 and i don't see how i win but i don't see how how she improves her defense just play okay h4 some alpha zero stuff and how she defends right the pawn on f6 is quite weak and the king is a bit exposed yeah and also i was a bit up on time so it's a pleasant very pleasant situation so rook f8 and yeah here the issue is that maybe it seems anti-positional but f5 is some sort of a threat right so knight d4 seemed like a good move and after rook 8 bishop f3 seems like your pieces are doing very well yeah and here i think instead of queen d7 she could play maybe it's your line rook e1 and then queen f7 or what we discussed is just to bring the bishop back yeah this was also what i was trying to make work bishop c8 in different scenarios but it seems like she's still struggling to bring it to the best positions right yeah for sure but next move rook e5 and once again it's not so easy so what i played in the game knight c2 here it's she's like too tempy up compared to the game so it still must be somewhat better for me but nothing decisive and after that uh yeah i you have this really great line that uh if i take on a5 then it's losing because queen d4 first it's important right queen b4 and c5 and i have no good moves oh wow because uh if she starts with taking here uh sorry rook takes then it's a mistake because if knight d3 i can exchange queen e6 maybe then there is even rook e8 at the end so i'm not sure but uh again she takes on d4 i take back and now you miss the rook on e8 there is no c5 but instead she starts like this queen before c5 and i have to give up some material because like i would have to play i don't know queen impossible moves but i will lose my rook i think so so you played rook d1 instead yeah rook d1 queen c7 and here i think uh it's a good moment to play knight c2 because if black could get her queen to e5 and then to c5 she can stabilize but knight c2 and she's not in time and around here i think we discussed in several moments that she could play c5 and try to sacrifice the pawn and get a heavy piece hand game where there is a drawing tendency so let's but she but she did not play c5 she she continued way through yeah yeah she she gave up her a5 pawn but was left with a bishop on basically a pawn on b7 so like let's say i just want to show that something like like this is uh black would be really happy if she could put his pawn back to f7 right uh but okay it's not the case and she could do it later uh okay let's say even here maybe i don't know what was the last point where she could gave the pawn uh because here i guess her idea was that c5 was uh an idea that that it's always in the air and then i want to take the pawn right but of course her idea was to put the bishop on b5 and here it's not easy to to break through yeah so you played here look to a2 queen b6 i have all the time of the word so what about the final position if you could get to that one did she did she lose on time there that was a really strange situation because i made move 40 i stepped up and went for a walk and came back and i saw that she made no moves but got the time on the clock so there was a problem probably with the clock setting that uh and then came the arbiter and said that she didn't make move 40 so and what do you think about the final position if we could just get to it do you think black still has any chances to hold because we actually liked this move queen a1 a lot as after rook d7 there can be rook a6 yes yeah i think that's that's lost because uh as the modern saying goes i threaten with the russian thing which is invasion with rook a7 so there is no way even pia said that when she realized she lost some time that it's all over now so i saw rook ba to be the best chance because as you mentioned if uh rook d7 i have rook a6 and after bishop d5 only way to to save the pawn you have no good way to to take back so i thought rook b8 was somewhat better because if rook a6 i think she can take so instead i was like it's move 41 so i can decide what i play but it must be winning that i play rook a7 i take maybe i can include a6 first probably with rook on the on the board you never take so first i include uh and okay this must be winning so right because b5 is coming and then eventually the king is also a bit in trouble right pawn it's fixed on line squares i just so i want to show one variation uh that was quite uh yeah here if she goes for bishop f5 i don't know what would be the reason but it's quite uh i think beautiful that i can play h6 if she takes queen f6 and if there is no back rank make then actually i made so okay at least there is no rook h5 mate which would be the case without it probably that that's why i thought that uh bishop f5 is an option so she plays king f7 and then i can take on f5 all right and then bishop h5 bishop h5 and it's either mate or or i win the bishop so all right so a very nice game like i was saying when i was uh off the meek you played like a grandmaster today and congrats on that do you have any gm norms one one one i have and i think i missed by half upon twice so so are you hoping to get one here in this tournament uh well first of all it's uh the main point is a team event so i would be happy to read the team wins uh then let's say i make norm and the team is second but uh okay why not both so i will try all right so great to see you being so optimistic thank you for your analysis uh it seems like your team is having a great day so far it seems like you're gonna be winning with quite a good score uh best of luck for the next games and uh let's let's have a view of the playing call and be back shortly and number six of battle of the sex is just a couple of games left uh while uh ballash was going on for his game uh the result we had expected oligogiria did convert her winning uh opposite color bush bending meaning at least there's a point on the board a full point for the women today and with two games remaining it's not going to be the only point because marie sebag is completely winning against eric rosen um in fact i see well it's just a very easy win here marie in the in the existing position so eric is gonna lose and um that means there'll be one game left bobby chang uh king g3 good move played by marie sabag here uh just threatening mate and after king f1 the idea is that she wants to go rook f2 check king moves and then rook takes f3 and the two pawns are uh just a very easy win you don't even have to think anymore right so well yeah we're expecting this one uh yeah eric eric can resign now right yeah eric and you can't take on f5 obviously because it's mate in one so right so he plays king f1 yeah and you just go rook f2 and you can play on autopilot there because you can't you can't actually do anything too bad um so disappointing for eric you know losing a lot of these endings but marie definitely will have deserved the win today yeah she has played some really nice moves in the opening it seemed like she were she was in trouble so uh very very well played by marie and indeed she goes for a rook to f2 check i believe we'll see the variation which you suggested on the board yeah just don't make your life difficult when you're tired and when you've had a long stressful game like this with you had to work very hard uh you just make your life as easy as possible there's no there's no there's no added points for being pretty it's just uh you know winning prettily is is just uh an extravagance yeah it's an extravagance it's it's just much easier and you know you take on f3 rook takes a4 and then you can literally just play rook b3 threat and mate and and then the pawns run and then the pawns run yeah there's just zero chance gunai on the other hand let's go to her game because she has still got some work to do playing against bobby chang i feel as though gunai's position has improved somewhat being able to have the pawn fixed on the h5 square but it is on a light square and if a light if a knight lands on f4 sometimes sometimes you can just lose that pawn on the other hand it will be difficult to land the knight there because my bishop's gonna be on e5 probably um on the next move after king g6 i expect that to be played because the king wants to be closer to the pawn right yes uh so gunai's taking her time i'm not sure is she really considering king g6 it can't be the case right probably not i mean the king should stay closer to the pawn but then again it's i mean i'm not sure how much of a difference it makes right um so okay gunai with three minutes and bobby with three minutes i think this game has still got another she does go to g6 i think this game has still got another 20 minutes half an hour in it actually definitely definitely if if not more actually yeah it could be more yeah but uh i'm a bit surprised actually to see gunai struggling uh that much during the last few rounds because well she's a really a really good player she is actually a star of women's chess because she has progressed a lot she has had a great performance in last year's women's grand prix here in jubraltar where she took actually the third place and uh it's been uh it's been a tough event for her so far yeah it has it has she definitely has to hold this hand game in order to receive some kind of a confidence boost and then tomorrow with white perhaps it might be slightly easier for her to uh to handle that one because normally it's more difficult to play with black against a well-prepared opponent right sure yeah and bobby now um trying to think of a construction obviously the knight is an ideal on d2 but uh i don't know i don't see actually how how he can try to maybe something like knight f1 knight e3 but after knight f1 perhaps i've got bishop d4 yeah so my point was that after knight f1 i want to try and bring it to f4 but here black can stop can stop this by playing bishop to d4 and the knight on f1 will actually be a bad piece so uh yeah what else do you see another route for i mean just knight c4 knight c4 so how are you gonna get to f4 well i can go the same route knight e3 knight g2 knight d5 and so on so bishop d4 let's say okay and oh i've got to be careful that i don't run into bishop g1 right yeah bishop g1 and then rook h2 would be would be a slight okay i've always got g4 but it's an immediate draw right so actually i don't know how or why bobby allowed this pawn to get to h5 so easily felt like somehow the king is already on the other side because it was cut right right he plays rook d3 king to f5 yeah and this is this is great defense by gunai she's so showing really excellent defense right so uh actually eric tried a stalemate idea i think we will go uh to to his game here he played rook to b1 a typical i mean eric if you watch his online games he's he's he's famous for this stuff oh really yeah he's famous for stalemate for like all of these stalemate tricks the only problem is that when your opponent hasn't got one second left on the clock the stalemate tricks don't really work yeah so here rook b1 would just be a draw because the king has absolutely no moves but after g3 now when the king moves marie would take on b1 so eric just resigned and yeah very good a very good day for marie here right yes a very very good day an important day so her first win of the tournament right she has had only draw so far actually yeah so her first win is is really great and um yeah means we've got one game left night b3 by bobby cheng and you know it's one of those where you should be patient with black here and try not to to run too long time because with three minutes on the clock it should be enough to to make the most precise defensive moves but also i feel like white knight is not exactly one on a good route here because i don't see how's it gonna get to f4 exactly yeah i mean maybe the next move by white is to play rook d5 uh rook d5 check can just be met by rookie five probably right exactly yeah i'm i'm getting less and less optimistic i think that bobby had to do something a bit earlier um and it felt like maybe he just got a bit complacent and allowed this construction with h5 so good night just played bishop to e5 i really like this move because it's somehow limits the knight from b3 he played knight c5 where is this knight going yeah i don't know what about a move like rook to c2 maybe then rook f3 check uh-huh and now after king g6 now we can try and try and make some so let's try knight d7 here knight d7 what about bishop d4 now knight f8 check knight f8 oops i have to play king h6 because king g7 would run into 96 and it's a four yeah so king h6 and i'll take care of that bishop g1 idea exactly uh rook f7 you're being very tricky now rook h7 is a threat and it's gonna be actually made and the only defense is bishop g7 right yeah 96 96 so you've you've made some progress bishop e5 rook f5 rook f5 rook e2 i guess probably but i i'm feeling it's still fine i believe no actually if i go back instead of rook f5 what if uh no rook i rook f5 the point is that i also have this rookie free with some of course you'll get this rook on g5 but i'm not sure that knight on e6 has a way to nicely come to f5 let's go back a couple of moves when i had you with so king h6 i tried rook f7 bishop g7 97 yeah tricky very tough yeah it's difficult to imagine that black will lose this one but yeah we've seen that if you get to those types of positions where you've got only moves left it might be might be a problem but uh oh wait can i can i has less than a minute already king g6 yeah let's see if the clock plays a a roll here uh so which is the position we have on the board so knight c5 on move knight c5 yeah and king g6 king g6 immediately that also makes sense oh look she's shaking i don't she's shaking yeah well you mean physically she's physically is she yeah i think she might just be cold it's colder in here today now in this in the evening you don't feel the cold i'm surprised yeah i have you have a lot of layers oh okay you have a very warm jacket okay okay okay so king g6 on the board all right and what is bobby gonna do yes do something so he tries 97 completely fine and uh but wait here with the rook on e2 you don't even threaten anything right there's no threat so what should i be doing bishop g7 perhaps try to dominate this night all right but here you've got maybe rook d6 okay king h7 and what what do i do with this yeah it's not easy just keep on maybe that's the the technique here is you have to try and dominate this night right yeah i really like this bishop g7 and now that i have the king on g6 rook f3 doesn't actually make so much sense she played king f5 now he's gonna give a check yeah and she has to be careful okay let's go to this position because i think she has to be careful now 97 king f5 yeah because if i go rook f3 check and you go king e4 i think that might be a mistake because maybe now i can play knight takes e5 and after king takes e5 for a moment you're cut now it still might not be enough no i believe it's not but let's say i go g4 oh no this is just uh it's an easy draw yeah the king is too close yeah no it's an easy draw now yeah we have the pawn on a tribe already it's difficult to win this one uh wait rook f8 king yeah okay you could try something like rook f8 actually no no i was yeah i mean probably i do keep the knight and bishop on but just in the rook and pawn ending if i go king takes a now rook f8 all right so you want to go for rook a8 yeah i need to be able to protect it yeah so i have to play king d6 i guess now rook f5 but here i can play rook e5 and it's a draw are you sure yeah well the king and pawn is a draw that's that should be a draw right king f3 i should meet with king f5 so king e6 let's say yeah that's gonna be king f2 king f6 yeah so there are three squares between the kings it's the long opposition and because it's the h pawn it's it's a draw so what do we have yeah it's probably a draw he played something else he went back and now she played rook c2 yeah he wants to give check and look he's quite low on the clock 23 seconds also very low maybe a bit nervous here he gives the check king g6 king g6 now i really think he needs to go like knight d7 he needs to go knight d7 here we might actually get that line that we saw 97 bishop e4 or bishop g7 even or bishop g7 yeah 97 bishop g7 i really like actually gives gives what really no all right 10 seconds yeah 10 seconds only yeah he knows he has to move 7 knight d3 okay also fine oh that's a good one because she has to keep probably the bishop on the h2b8 diagonal no probably not to allow this knight come to f4 even even then but yeah she should probably keep it on that diagonal so bishop d6 yeah bishop d6 good move now she's keeping control here really nicely yeah and she is back at one minute 43 i believe i believe in gunai's defense here look we see pia following the game um yeah it must have been a disappointing loss for her today well yeah but if gunai draws she'll be quite happy i think with the is it possible to be happy when you lose well because this is a team match it's really more about the team the team king f5 and she's defending very well and bobby really out of ideas here can't even get close yeah now if he allows some ruxi free knight e1 might actually be a draw immediately yeah knight e1 so the knight might try this route actually but here i could play bishop c5 maybe no knight takes c2 oh wait oh it's hanging sorry for that so i have to move the rook right yeah you have to move the rook and where do i move it rook d wherever any any square ah perhaps i could be smart and play rook a2 that's fine i guess she wants to go i guess he wants to go knight uh let me see knight f3 is clever careful rook a3 knight d4 check you've got this one yeah and rook e6 and i win the piece all right so there are still tricks there are still tricks so knight f3 rook a2 knight f3 um yeah knight e1's a good try actually by bobby actually yeah might be what about no i don't really want rook c5 played okay he's gonna go knight f3 it's not even a debate and then she's gonna go rook d5 classic this is what she's gonna do yeah seems like a very good a very good try and then he's gonna play like rook b3 rook c3 or rook b3 she's gonna try here whatever he does it's it just it doesn't really matter oh she didn't she played wow she played bishop e5 knight e1 rook c5 knight f3 bishop e5 oh well i mean it's fine because the king and pawn is just a draw yeah we've seen that yeah some some couple of minutes before it seems like bobby is did he win a game here i believe he made a lot of draws i don't think he's won a game i don't remember i don't think he has won a game rook e2 okay now so far he he's been very solid and today was quite a good chance for him to yeah to score his first victory but it seems like you nice defense is just it's just good bishop f6 now now what's going on oh they need new score sheets yep they've reached the uh the end of the score sheet bishop f6 27 seconds here for bobby and i guess he's gonna play uh something like wow again it's so difficult because his bishop is dominating the knight rook f2 perhaps i don't like that he's going so low on the clock rook a2 also fine because you could just get a brain freeze at some point you know just completely panic or something and you know actually i know this kind of a rule that you should never get lower than 10 seconds on the clock in a classical game what's that why is that because then you could you know anything could happen so it's not acceptable they say to to go lower than 10 seconds i've been low a lot of times rook c3 hold on but now if i give this check which one rook a5 what about king g6 king g6 and i've got no good moves right and he actually went for it the check and she will play king g6 definitely there's no upper move yeah i don't see this one going wrong for black because after 92 you've got rook e3 even right 92 it sets up a nasty trap but yeah you can't you can't really go wrong here yeah king g6 played yeah there's there's not she's she's just holding very steady right so knight back to e1 my goodness it crossed my mind actually because now he wants to bring the ah okay that's clever and the rook is controlling that's actually very clever yeah that's actually very clever so maybe she should go oh that's actually very clever she's got one minute 32 that's a clever clever he found she should attack the rook perhaps bishop d8 i was thinking so yeah to then be able to go bishop c7 yeah that's clever but maybe i can go rook d5 i'll attack the bishop right after bishop and rook g5 check and king h6 and now i need some kind of knight of five check knight of five check would be nice okay 92 no i could how do i how do i get out no maybe i can no no i can go king g2 king g2 king g2 to play knight of three next but then ah all right so i will have to be careful here yeah now i'm if i get my king back into business but i could again play moves like bishop d8 you cannot really keep rook d5 here bishop c7 knight f3 you've made some progress actually okay rook c2 check king f1 oh sorry i'm blundering a pawn oh yeah i'm blundering a pawn damn i have to go yeah king h3 rook back to c3 though exactly now rook f rook f5 king g6 no problemo i rook g5 now i rook g5 now no so i'm not gonna play king g6 i should not allow that i could pretend that i blunder and play bishop d6 yeah that doesn't really work um but yeah i can't i can't make progress here it's so annoying because now i have to rook f6 king g7 when you take the bishop and you take the knight yeah but uh but let's see okay rook d5 is actually on the board rook d5 yeah this is the position on the board all right so and she's got like 16 seconds or something like that she's she needs don't lose on time bishop c7 played as per our idea and knight d3 and knight d3 sorry we didn't this is obviously a very good move why because now you can bring the king uh-huh so she might go rook c2 here but you cannot bring it to to close because the pawn on g3 will still be hanging now no but at least i can you know no because rook g5 check exists there's all kinds of stuff what about the move like king h6 king f6 oh okay well it's okay but hold on i i'm a bit you're getting nervous yeah i think it's okay yeah i think it's okay because now she might be threatening king e6 or something all right but then i you still have ruby you're still having this happening right yeah so why it isn't really risking or anything yeah this hand game is really interesting and uh if i would be on bobby's place i would also play it you know until i run out of moves because now of course you have to you have to and it might get down to a very um slight score difference uh in a few rounds that game might actually matter a lot exactly well you run zero risk here is white so you just try and play around but it's it's not easy it's not easy to play around here right and pia she's she's yeah pia is just such a what a captain she is she's amazing right she's the best and you know i'm actually looking now at the results and i believe this is the day with the most decisive results uh until this point i think we've never had such a massive uh decisive games moment right king g2 finally played with five seconds left on the clock so he's getting close but he's okay he's not following my rules no no i mean after king e6 he always has rook c5 as a bailout i mean he's never right he's never losing but he has to be still careful king e6 played but also gunai has to be careful because now the king is really far away from protecting this pawn so she can't allow white uh consolidate here because then she might not have time to run back so is rook d4 forced if white wants to continue the game i think so yeah of course it is it's the only move and he plays it what now bishop b6 bishop b6 is a move oh wait wait what uh rook e4 check wait this is getting rook e4 check king d5 but why not rook b4 ah rook but then i take on d3 and then it's a draw then it's a draw i know rook b4 rook d3 rook b6 check are you go rook uh rook d6 rook d6 wait it's getting a little king of seven king of seven uh king of seven sorry i know after i take six i've got rook d5 and i'm going to protect my pawn yeah she goes bishop e5 bishop e5 yeah that might be also also actually yeah now you're actually forcing these rook and pawn endings no this is a good this is a this is a really good move no this is this is an immediate draw what worked fantastic gunai so resilient he he really didn't he played rook d8 but now you can just go like bishop f6 ah bishop e6 knight f4 check sorry you've got to be careful so bishop c7 all right bishop c7 is the correct way and probably he will have to go rook d4 back exactly and he has to go back no other moves what a game yeah fantastic fantastic resilience from the young mamadzada who is uh impressing me every day even in her losses yeah you know i've noticed that it's uh she she's not in the best of her forms right um we could see that but still she fights so well and yeah and so well and yeah very a very good job she does yeah i believe it's the sign of a very good player because like they say about magnus you know that even when he is out of form he still makes a lot of points exactly yeah i believe bob is gonna just repeat it right there's no point in playing the rook hand game yeah yeah and that's actually gonna be three times i believe no i believe it's just the second oh is it rook d bishop c7 rook d8 bishop c7 rook d4 probably bishop b5 will be the third third could be the third one after bishop b5 oh he gave the check what he wants to bring it to e3 and pin himself wow king d5 i know king d5 he can then move the knight no wait where do you move the knight because g3 is hanging king okay and then you are you i'm not sure you can take there oh wow really i don't know because the king is cut perhaps you can but maybe you don't because you've got a lot of checks here right rook c2 it might be still a draw exactly but this one yeah i mean it's it's it's how do you play here no no no i mean it's it might be as well winning for a while it's not clear to me she played king f5 yeah king f5 was the other move oh but that is that will mean that he's gonna still try for a few moves here rook e3 probably right rook e3 but he's kind of pinned but yeah he can go rook e3 here for sure by the way the last pawn move was on move 59 so we are now at 76 yes so if it gets to 109 is it a draw yeah yeah it is i wonder if she knows that i think she does what about bishop b6 here rook f3 check can i go king e4 knight f2 check is it dangerous no it's probably king d4 only move now i take knight h3 yeah and then i got and then i goes to f4 nulus yeah there's some danger there is some danger so how do you play here i don't know poor good night on the on the on the end of these it's it's even though she's showing great resilience it's it's no fun yeah it's definitely oh and when you are playing this once with black you'd love to be able to force a draw and it's so annoying when you're open and keeps finding chances and it's definitely even more difficult with with seconds on the clock and she's down to 15 seconds now 13 12 here we go nine got a final move good night don't get nervous six oh the nerves four three six okay she kept the she kept the but now but now rook f3 check it's over because the king has got no good square it's over bishop d6 big blunder rook f3 check white wins it cannot be rook f3 check maybe white wins okay let's see rook f3 king e4 is nine f2 king d4 okay i let's try this takes maybe the opponent game is strong oh yeah 94 check wins the bishop it's over it's come bishop d6 was a huge blunder and he's seen it he's seen it all big sigh of relief bobby chang is gonna bring home the bacon for the boys horrible horrible horrible wait for a game to finish terrible yeah the rook was just unprotected and she knows there's no king move king e6 knight f4 check wins king g6 knight f4 check wins king e4 and now very simple knight f2 check rook king d4 rook takes c3 and 94 at the end and it's not even it's not even close that is horrible heartbreaking terrible terrible day for the lady yeah everybody was plundering where it seemed that they were better or the game with that in the draw i don't know did we jinx it again i i don't know i might my heart really is very heavy for for gunay and that's enough and she's very disappointed you fight so hard five hours five and a half hours six hours and then you you know it's just a horrible horrible horrible feeling and bobby chang he's not proud as you can see he's he kind of feels bad about winning like that but you know you've got to take your wins when they come when you play tough opponents and you know gunay is just so incredibly tough yeah um i'm i'm so you know i might actually feel like crying right now because it breaks my heart to see the ladies in such such a tough situation now and they were fighting so well up to this point and today it was such a disaster let's have a look at the results then from today's round if we can get those on the screen yeah be great all right so ravi won against tyreen joe a drug and jensaya bobby just won against gunay balash with a very good win against pia eric was the only one from or was he not no actually there were two games won by the ladies eric lost to to marie sabino a draw against maria and julian lost against uh olgagiria as is hussein turned the game around and actually from a completely lost position he won against uh nino batse ashvili bilal won a nice game against yovanka and actually it seemed like yovanka was better at some point but he managed to turn that around as well and leandro we've a draw against marcel so uh yeah this means that for the first time in the match the men's team is leading by two points and the score is 31 to 29 yeah so the men take over the lead for the uh first time since since the beginning of the match yeah because the the the women team they got off to a great start they were at plus six after two rounds men clawed it back in round three clawed it back in round four little blip in round five and now the men finally taking the lead but it's only two points it's only two points there is round seven eight nine and ten but it might be psychologically not so easy to to get back to have the great mood they had on the previous days it will be challenging and it will be very interesting to see if the ladies can make up for today's loss tomorrow yeah and what we're gonna do is we're gonna get the team captains hopefully in with us for a uh basically a quick chat and thoughts on today um so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a just a very very brief break and uh we will be back in just a couple of minutes with the thoughts of hopefully both team captains of course pierre will be desperately disappointed but it'll be interesting to hear what how she plans to uh to to to be there as well really as as a mother figure for the team because she is a mum for that team a lot of the the players playing very young and some words of wisdom i think would suit them uh very very well so we'll be back in a couple of minutes don't go anywhere see you in a sec hello everybody and welcome back to round six of battle of the sexes we're not actually going to be joined by the team captains uh so we are going to be joined however by the last man standing today and uh he's still standing because he won a critical game against uh for me uh when i look at the women's team and women's chess in general one of the big talents of women's chess kunai mama zada apart from the fact that she's uh uh incredibly gifted she's got a talent which a lot of players don't have which is this tenacity and she's very stubborn and she's very very hard to beat for a young girl i can't confirm that to to to to defend like she does it's impressive but you got through in the end firstly how are you feeling how how how was the game yeah well basically it was like a very long game and it was a dead draw for a long time but i just kept playing on and she just blended this one thing at the end she had like three seconds on a clock and she just randomly made a move and um yeah i mean it's a huge relief actually this is the first classical game i've won in about nine months so wow i was because obviously we knew you hadn't won here but nine months that's a long time yeah wow okay it yeah it doesn't it doesn't feel good to win like this so as i said to you bobby i think you've got to take your wins when you can in a tournament like this so uh you ended up winning the game now what i suggest we do is we we have a very quick look at the game in the critical moments um i'm sure people at home would be interested in hearing your thoughts so the opening uh well we already discussed and we know that this is a popular line to go d6 of course d5 is yeah she never she she mainly plays us love so i i didn't really prepare for this at all i just knew this setup there should be two at night if d7 is clever as well which is i had this in the world cup actually oh okay yeah i played castles here which i checked it off for the game apparently i'm meant to play b4 so which is what that's yeah that's all i knew okay and then you've got to and the reason you do that is because you're now in time to meet e5 d5 a5 yeah exactly and queenie eight i think she just it was a very interesting idea i yeah i mean she's got like lack of space but she goes for this f5 right and um it's quite interesting i mean it looks like it shouldn't work but it's not so easy over the board right so c5 i thought was critical and yep should be a night of six and then okay maybe we can go through it quickly because it's a long game but um yeah so okay there's there's heaps of options there's heaps of options yeah there's so many alternatives in every move right um you took and when night c4 i mean this also oh you looked at okay no this is um imported through so we didn't look at any of these lines these are just imported lines yep uh yeah takes takes okay one yeah yeah so night c4 okay yeah i expected takes bishop e4 i expected yeah 93 and then i thought i was doing very well here because i'm threatening night g5 and when yeah which is very annoying so she played queen g6 and then so queen b3 makes sense queen h8 yeah i thought i was doing really well here but then i after 92 yeah i thought i was doing well here and she was like down to 20 minutes yeah then she played dc5 and i couldn't find a move like yeah we were looking i thought maybe critical is to go some f3 i was spending heaps of time on this f3 bishop f5 and i was thinking g4 here which wow looks kind of i mean looks very dangerous but the point is if she plays bishop d7 i can go knight dc4 this is one point and it feels like a sort of computer line that might be very strong but i i don't know it was hard hard to play yeah it's hard to play but i have a feeling maybe the computer will think this is very strong but i'm not sure okay but yeah i took only five and i knew this was sort of leading to a like i saw this line where it leads to this end game where i'm a pawn up but it's it's very um it's very hard to win but i just decided to play it safe i didn't want to open my king too much with this g4 yeah i'm sure i missed heaps of things here i could look the position looked quite good but yeah i mean this is all forced this is all forced and then yeah i was i was thinking about rook d1 but then i didn't like um queen takes e4 queen takes d7 and i think she has queen f4 here and then if like yeah now i'm i didn't really want to take too much risk here she's got bishop d6 next as well i didn't i really don't want to lose this game yeah no losing this yeah i was down to like maybe 10 minutes here as well so i just played knight c5 i knew this was leading to this pawn up end game right so all of this is almost forced isn't it you get i don't know if it's forced but it's very natural yeah and this should just be a draw i mean it's opposite color bishops and right firstly i need to trade the queens because my king is sort of weak right so so you pin you do this and then she has this yeah some tactics but it's just all simplifying tactics yeah simplifying tactics and oh yeah was that nice yeah yeah this is cute so to show taking here would be a huge blunder because not not a huge huge well this is a draw right yeah it's just well it's just an immediate draw yeah it reminds me of what game was it the martial martial game yeah vaguely yeah vaguely um but yeah that's an immediate draw so of course you can't you can't play that you have to take the queen yeah bring the knight back and we have this ending yeah this this should just really be a draw because like any like the only trades that are good for me is if i trade my bishop for her knight right but um like yeah i mean trading the rooks just makes it pretty dead draw trading the knights obviously but you did manage to do that you managed to trade yeah she she was very long time like rook d8 was definitely a mistake okay she must have missed 95 because now yeah when you have like two minutes here it gets very uncomfortable right yeah so rook d8 was a big blunder huh i don't know if it's a blunder but yeah it's definitely inaccurate she has lots of moves there's a new g6 she can play anything anything h5 yeah anything no not h5 probably not h5 h5 95 but g6 looks sensible doesn't it yeah i mean it should just be a draw should just be a draw but you managed to get yeah actually yeah because this is very uncomfortable when you have two minutes left right and rook d8 because it looks like i'm borderline winning here after bishop e7 rook e1 yeah you've got him i don't i don't know if i missed something but yeah i also had like two minutes here and look i'm not sure if h4 is best because because she can't move a rook she can't move a bishop her next move she can't play knight c6 because of bishop b5 so basically next move is knight f5 and then move the rook oh but then i've bishop f5 so she has to play like knight f5 and then knight d6 and then move the bishop but i mean i have a few moves to do something like i felt like this is like my one chance but i also okay there's no king f1 that looks like a good move to me yeah i didn't i didn't see yeah because maybe now yeah so when she plays knight f5 i take it and i have a better version of the end game right i don't allow this f4 but okay it was very i mean h4 is so natural yeah so h4 knight f5 and then i couldn't see anything okay i went takes takes would be five and king of seven um yeah we said i can't take that one yeah and i played g3 and i thought maybe i'll get some good end game where so basically i'm dreaming of some end game where i play like g3 f4 you know king g2 and then i keep the rooks on and then that pawn on f5 will just drop it eventually but she played f4 which is very good move really good move was it yeah this was really good because she only had like a minute left and um yeah so now i now she trades the f1s and then i'll get the same game where uh like it should be a draw but i can play i can play on forever yeah yeah it's yeah it's not it's not comfortable it it's not pleasant i mean she defended very well she defended extraordinary i thought rook a8 was a really good try yeah rook a8 i have to actually but i thought rook a8 because after i give a check like in the game sorry i played rook d3 rook a6 and now after check she gets her king stuck cut off on the f5 because if she plays like king g7 i have rook f6 yeah that's what we were looking at and i don't know if this is winning or not but i think it is like she probably doesn't want to allow this yeah i don't know like neither side can move here but i got like h5 h6 exactly and she doesn't want to play h6 so yeah so she got her king stuck on the e file on the e file which even then it was probably just totally fine yeah knight of six rook a7 we can probably speed through yeah we can speed through here king g4 which she would like she has to be careful after king g4 because i'm threatening knight g5 and yeah king takes and that that end game must be winning that end game is bad so rook a5 is a very good move and now i'm like stuck for ideas i just moved around rook f1 we looked briefly yeah it's just a draw because takes takes rook h1 yeah rook a rook a i can't go to the h file i my only winning tries to go like g6 because if i go rook f6 king a7 rook h6 she just goes king f7 put the king on g8 uh yeah that's just a theoretical yes so i have to keep i have to keep the king cut off so my only tries to play um g6 takes king g5 but then she goes rook a8 yeah and she's in front yeah she's in time like well in time here like yeah yeah she gives all the checks yeah like even if my pawn was on g4 even g5 i think it's no on g5 yeah g4 is yeah g4 is g4 is still a draw but g5 is winning yeah okay so yeah 9g5 didn't work so okay so you couldn't try that so i just i just moved around rook f1 doesn't improve my position at all right i'm just making a move like if she plays rook b5 i have no idea what i'm going to do so there was a bunch of but yeah h5 i thought that's good yeah i get i mean it's sort of like she doesn't have to do it no maybe there's nothing wrong with it there's nothing wrong because actually in the in the game she she did really well restricting yeah yeah because if she gets her bishop to g1 i just can never move right basically i have i have to keep stopping like bishop d4 bishop g1 exactly so that's what play kind of revolved around and then okay i mean like there was this line here with rook c2 you probably saw check and 97 yeah and then bishop d4 and then knight f8 and then king h6 yeah and king h6 and now i thought yeah yeah i saw this yeah yeah i saw this but then bishop g7 yeah and bishop g7 and there's nothing here right yeah yeah this is it was but it's quite cute that you're both friend we're both we're both trying to same kind of mate which is very unusual yeah um yeah i was just shuffling around i was just trying to stop bishop g1 i was just trying to keep the game going right and then i mean she could just repeat but she chose not she chose i don't know why but it's totally fine i mean it's still totally fine i mean even around here i mean 91 was a really good try 91 she has to be careful yeah rook c5 rook c5 is fine yeah probably fine okay i mean every move is fine but knight f3 bishop b5 is still fine this is still fine yes it's just a draw it's 91 again yeah 91 again was nice yeah and now she has to be careful again yeah now she has to be careful because she yeah she played bishop g8 like when i played 91 she had like two minutes and yeah it's a tricky move and i think she was reaching she was about to play rook c1 here which i think is just losing up to 93 yeah i'm pretty sure she she was like reaching for the rook and then she stopped but i think she was uh bishop bishop g8 is good yeah bishop g8 is really good i was really annoyed when she she didn't play rook c1 and then she actually played the correct she played bishop d8 yeah you have to hit the bishop yeah this is another ship yeah and now now you have to uh it's a block yeah king m6 is really good actually i didn't see king i thought she was gonna play king h6 when i still can't make progress but then she played this and i thought this is probably gonna be an immediate draw because she just keeps attacking my rook that's what i thought as well we were in the game but actually it's not because amazingly it's not because bishop e5 um so what she played and what was wrong with bishop b6 is it b6 no not a four not a four check ah not a four check so you have to keep the bishop there right yeah so rook d8 rook d8 she attacks yeah i went back and the reason she didn't play because like originally i thought after rook e8 check king d5 is just a draw but um because the point is rook e3 king d4 exactly but actually i can play rook c8 here it's not so simple rook c8 yeah because if she takes i think that the game is losing actually no i think it is really not a rook c5 rook d4 and you were offside sorry yeah exactly and i was i'm not sure i know rook i think the rook e3 holds but it's very close it's close huh it's very no rook she's seven no i know yeah it's very close maybe this still holds but you don't want to go for this you've right so she yeah but it's much more natural just to bring the king to f5 right which is what she did right so she went sorry king f5 yeah and then i played rook e3 and then she yeah she had like like 30 seconds and here she blundered and then she she went down to three seconds and just made a random move i think um because she can just play rook c2 check and i can't do anything like rook c2 king f3 rook c3 i literally have no moves yeah and unfortunately for gunai she played bishop d6 and now i couldn't believe my luck actually she runs into this fantastic idea of rook f3 and only has king moves that run into checks and then yeah obviously this is just mate and if you come here then you lose the rook and if you try and come over here and protect the rook as per the game she resigned after knight f2 because here you can just win a bishop the bishop d6 was a horrible blunder and you know that's what happens sometimes you uh you just get tired and uh make a blunder at the end bobby i mean uh an important win um important for the boys as well yeah yeah we had a i didn't really see too much of the other games but i i think we did pretty well really good day uh means that the boys are two points ahead uh well done on your first win and uh now the ball is back in the court of the girls to see if they can stage a comeback yeah all right this is the first time i've taken a lead i think that is the first time in the match so well done uh and uh thank you again it's been a it's been a long day thank you everybody for uh for staying with us for the whole day but we are back tomorrow the action does not stop same time same place are the girls gonna be able to recompose themselves and get back into this match or is the floodgate's gonna really open and uh boys start to take a big big lead going into the homestretch see you tomorrow see you then thanks again and uh have a lovely evening cheers