 and welcome to round eight of Battle of the Sexes, Gib Chess 2022. We're here of course from the Garrison Library bringing you this wonderful tournament which is really playing out to perfection in terms of keeping the drama and the excitement for what is pretty much the first of its kind, a men versus women's tournament. The score is very very close indeed. We've got three more rounds to go so anything can happen but it's been the men who started off very very badly and have just slowly come back come back come back come back and have won four actually they've won five rounds in a row now they won rounds three four five six and seven and beautiful comeback for the men that means they are winning 37 33 with three rounds to go which is 30 games so you know it's not a catastrophe for the women yet there's a four game difference if they have two great days they're already back in it or even winning so the stage is very much set I'm with Irina as always and Irina I will say that we have to give the men some credit I wasn't a believer I have to say I was not a believer before this tournament I looked at the men's list and I thought you know some guys on there that are not professional like for example Joe Gallagher doesn't play that much Eric Rosen even though he's an internet superstar he doesn't play so much over the board Gillian as well you know so a lot of guys there and I looked at the women's list and I thought wow they're all professional players they all study they all work hard this is going to be a one-sided event but it is not the case and so far the men are showing what they're made of and today they've all got the white pieces so it's a big big day for the women they have to keep it close today yeah yeah I definitely agree and actually today we have our favorite Gibraltar star I believe Antonetta who's been one of the players playing most in Gibraltar she unfortunately had COVID so she had to to isolate herself and now today after two negative tests she's back to back to the match and we are very excited to see her yeah it's absolutely brilliant to see Antonetta back of course losing her after round one was a huge blow for the women she's experienced she's strong former world champion she's also a bit older than the other most of the other girls so she can give them support and to lose her was for me a big big moment a momentum swing in favor of the men she's back today is she going to be the heroine and be the one to save the women and make them victorious I guess we'll have to find out yeah indeed let's have a look at the pairings for today the individual matchups so first board we've got Hussein Aziz against Maria Muzichuk what do we think about this game here actually I believe that this is one one game where the ladies will try to play for for a win with the black pieces because Hussein has had a tough time in the last two days he won one of the games but actually he was lost there and yesterday he he lost again and I believe that Maria one of the best scorers right in the women's team will try her best to bring a point today well Maria is just the top player in the women's team as well she's the number one seed she's number six in the world for women obviously just a phenomenal player and yes I believe also she'll be looking to win but I know Hussein and I know that today he's not interested in going crazy I spoke to him yesterday he said you know what I've had a couple of bad days I'm gonna play solid if she wants to attack me if she wants to try and blow me out the water then fine let her try because then I'll try and counter attack so I expect a very solid approach from Hussein today right next we have Leandro Crisa versus Antoinette Stefanova and I'm very curious about this game because I believe Antoinette really wants to play and of course she was following the match and I believe that today she will try to make a difference and yeah she's got I hope she's got the energy and the freshness but we'll have to see about that she hopefully has that in her favor of course when she got tested positive we were in touch with her every day and apparently she didn't have two bad symptoms it was very mild so theoretically she should be in decent shape unfortunately though I will say it's not the best pairing for her black against Leandro is an annoying pairing he's a solid guy he's a very solid player yeah I mean she would have for example if she had played Eric today or even somebody like Bill L who's just a bit more wild I think she would have preferred that so to come back to play Leandro I don't think she's going to be too optimistic about trying to do something but the important thing is not to lose definitely yeah next game Eric Roseningen's Gunei Mamadzada now this game should be very good to watch because Eric has had an up and down tournament won a couple lost a couple you know well lost a few more than he won but he won a great game against Pierre Kramling which he'll be very happy about and Gunei unfortunately started off so well and she's hit a brick wall recently right I am really surprised that she's having actually such a tough time in this tournament but actually that can happen even to the best of us and I really hope that today we're gonna see an interesting game here I think Gunei is going to go for it so I think that's going to be a very very interesting game against Olga Giria that's another very interesting matchup because Bill L is such an aggressive player and Olga is exactly the opposite I believe so we will probably see a clash of styles here right absolutely it's a real clash of styles and Bill L is on the ascent he's really won a few nice few games in a row he's high on confidence actually he scored four and a half out of five in the last five games amazing he's just one and one and one and Olga also is doing very well she's keeping it steady so I expect her as well to give him a very tough time and Bill L will go for the win but he also understands that Olga will not be able to let's say his tricks won't work against Olga so he's he's gonna have to be a bit more refined in his approach Balash Chonka playing white against Jhansaya Abdul Malik well this is one game which I expect to see a lot of fireworks because Balash has been doing so fine in the last few games he won some important ones and and I actually believe he's one of the only players who who has real chances for a GM norm that's right I believe he we have to get confirmation and maybe we will because today's game is quite relevant but if he wins he's got just a fantastic chance to get the grandmaster no definitely and Jhansaya is a very interesting player and actually yesterday she had her chances to bring a point against Bobby and all right she didn't she didn't bring it in the end but today she might try to to see some chances yep exactly let's see Sabino Brunello against Pierre Kramling now the flags are wrong there so we'll make sure actually there's a whole load of flags the flag situation is is a bit uh yeah yeah but that's actually uh somewhat funny well I believe uh that this will be well we'll change that we'll change that yeah Sabino against Pierre the captains playing against each other yeah it might be interesting it is interesting I mean again stylistically they're not so far apart I would say they're more or less aligned but Sabino with white has also seen that Pierre past few games she's really underperformed she's she looks a bit tired she looks a bit out of shape and I think Sabino we'll see you know this is a chance to maybe put the pressure on we've also then got after that Bobby Cheng against Irene Sukunda Bobby again survived a tough position yesterday I would say and definitely with white today I'm for sure he's going to be optimistic to play Irene who also past few games she was struggling really struggling yeah so big chance for Bobby Ravi Haria again Ravi has been the cat with nine lives here Ravi has won a few games that he shouldn't he won a really tough position against Marcel yeah I mean he was just he was pretty much dead and with white against Jovanka oh this is also a tough pairing for Jovanka the only English battle yeah definitely that's that was what I was gonna say that it will be an English class and I'm I'm very curious about that one yeah I think that's a good good spot there for the boys and Joe Gallagher also white against Marcel Frinsky and I spoke to Joe last night he was very disappointed because he did miss a win against Irene he had a moment where he could have won so he was a bit disappointed but in general he understands he's playing quite decent chess so I think with white today against Marcel also he's going to look forward to this opportunity no definitely as Marcel has lost yesterday the first game actually of the tournament for her which she lost it's going to be tough here yeah and last but not least Gillian Bualia who's had the hardest tournament so far he just nothing has worked out for him he's uh he's on half out of six six yeah he's on half out of six so obviously a very disappointing score good player but just isn't finding any rhythm and now he's got white against Marie and Marie for sure is not looking for a quick draw or anything he she she will not understand this is a critical chance yeah absolutely and those are the pairings for today and if we go to the playing hall we'll see our guest of honor today if we can get a and we see the players smiling and fairing some jokes perhaps it is so lovely to see them you know in such a great atmosphere and even though they're opponents they are friends as well I believe absolutely and here are the two captains Serena Brinello and Pierre Kramley and the first move the move of honor made by the mayor of Gibraltar Christian Santos who has been mayor since mid 20 with 21 obviously a young guy we've had a lot of politicians businessmen we had the governor of Gibraltar in here yesterday if you want to check that out and it's absolutely great to have this level of government represent representatives of this level of government here at the tournament supporting the tournament yeah that's amazing the attention this event has has got and I'm very happy that everyone in Gibraltar knows chess and loves chess and supports it indeed let's go for a very very short break the games are kicking off any moment now we'll then come back for a quick interview and then we'll get stuck into the games so don't anywhere we'll be back in just a moment hello everybody and welcome back to round eight of battle of the sexes here in Gibraltar jib chess 2022 we're live from the garrison library and I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by his worship the mayor of Gibraltar Christian Santos thank you christian for coming oh thanks for having me fantastic to be here you know you're you're wearing that I was thinking about wearing one of those you decided better a bit more casual yeah a bit more casual now as you know this tournament has attracted so much attention locally it's in the newspaper local media but around the world 20 countries represented here my understanding is you're a new newish mayor yeah I've just been in office for just over six months six months so how important is it for Gibraltar at the moment to sort of you know attract international eyes let's call it like that as well the the chess festival has always been a huge event here in Gibraltar it's supported by the government supported by the community and it's one of our biggest tourism-led events and it has a huge international repercussion because we have usually over 200 players as you know and it's always been one of the biggest competitions worldwide very respected and it's great for us to be able to host it we are living in a time at the moment where you know with the COVID etc you know the C word but it's fantastic that we can still host events like this it's it's not only important for Gibraltar but for the whole chess fraternity yes because what you say with with organizing an event like this which is a bit smaller but it's still happening it's current and and it's still got all international eyes on it because there are many events that are not able to happen so it's important for us to be able to host this for the world to see what we've got to offer here in Gibraltar and what's fantastic about this event is not only that the the subject matter of battle of the sexes but also the fact that we can showcase our heritage sites and that is something that we in Gibraltar very proud of we have a long history or a small but very mighty nation with a huge history not at the buildings where this is held is yeah I mean we had we had the director Jennifer Ballantyne yes sorry she she came in here and talked to us about just how important this this building is and the history and heritage here and you're absolutely right and the prize giving is actually at the city hall at the mayor's parlor which is another fantastic right okay and I've never been there actually well you'll see okay brilliant excellent now let's talk a bit about the the format we have battle of the sexes and clearly you know it's a very special format and unique to our game or our sport because naturally in other sports it's a bit more difficult to organize how do you how do you see it as a as a concept and perhaps in line with what you're trying to achieve also as as mayor in other projects related to my my time in in office I've dedicated to celebrate the diversity and inclusivity within our our community here in Gibraltar and I think it's something that we are not only proud of but we work towards having that equality and equity between you know different people with different backgrounds now the good thing about chess is that it's the one sport that you can actually have an even playing field right between the sexes but also people from different economic backgrounds it's it's one of those sports that you can you can have a fair chance no matter who you are and I know that women in any type of sport are always trailing along unless it's specifically female sports and it's fantastic to put men and women on an even playing field and it doesn't matter who will win at the end on Thursday because as long as we've seen that the competition is fair and it's worked whether the males or the females win it will just prove that both sexes can work together and compete together absolutely and and as things stand I mean the competition is as tight as you like there's only four points separating after seven rounds four get four points there are still on paper 30 games so that's 30 points up for grabs it's anybody's and on Saturday the girls were winning well yeah point I think and I mean the the guys are I mean it's gone back it's been a roller coaster sometimes yeah the girls were winning and then in some rounds they have a huge advantage and it's been it's been great entertainment so we can't complain about that and are you just out of interest are you a chess player at all do you ever pick up the pick up the pieces I don't and I discussed this the other day when I met someone I've just did so now it's the type of game I would love to have the ability or the the predisposition because I'm not the type of person who can sit at a table and I envy it I watch people play like I just went into that room yeah and I started the the game between the two grand masters that I'm so privileged to have done and I see the type of person and the energy that's in that room and I think my hand is always you know I I wish I could but I haven't actually ventured into it but could surprise me yeah you never know I mean what I would hope is that because I know there's a grassroots community here in Gibraltar promoting chess and there was chess in schools and one day I tell you this I've said this already on stream but you've got the Gibraltar football team you've got I think probably hockey as well yeah we're good at hockey as well uh basketball rugby do you have as well we have rugby we kind of have all this all the sports I'm when's the chess team that's what I want to know that's the next project I want to see them yes yeah and I think it should go back into schools there was a bit before because you know at the moment we're in a pre-covid post-covid time yeah there was a big campaign to get the schools involved and there was quite a lot of students and and now I think we need to get them back hopefully when things get back to normal we can start doing that well look I mean I just want to say I've said this as well to all of our esteemed guests thank you for the support continue support you and the the government and and local authorities because it does mean a lot for us to be able to host a tournament I'm a I'm a chess player chess fan and I know that everybody in this community millions of people have got their eyes on this tournament so thank you for a tour for all you do and thank you for being here no fantastic it's an honor for us to be able to host this event here and so many people so many eyes on Gibraltar the games and how we do things and fantastic to welcome anyone and I invite anyone actually to come to Gibraltar see what we've got to offer and especially you should have come today because it's gorgeous outside sunny it was raining for a week today I couldn't this was the Gibraltar I remember you go and have a coffee outside gorgeous weather yeah I sincerely recommend it so come to visit Gibraltar if you can thank you so much thank you for coming and we'll get to the games in just a moment we'll go for a short break and see how the action is developing in round eight see you soon all right welcome everybody round eight let's get this show on the road Battle of the Sexes and we've got some absolutely fascinating positions already on the board we had of course the mayor here great to have him talking to us but let's get to the chess we've got I can see all kinds of chaos everywhere where should we go first Irina let's go to the game between Bilal and Olga because Bilal he's been playing such interesting chess so far and today he's gonna take a lot of risks as he's played the move g4 one he actually tried in a very similar position in the nimto on move four but now a slightly a slightly different twist here because actually uh do we see yeah now after g4 uh black cannot really play knight takes g4 because after rook g1 the point on g7 will be hanging and that's a big difference compared to when the bishop is on f8 so I believe after g4 Olga will have quite quite a long thing here because how do you handle this one well I mean let's just talk about the context of this move as you said he's already played it was it uh in the nimzo indian yeah it was right here he played g4 he's played g4 and some more context is that in Tata still a week ago or two weeks ago in this position here after knight uh or was it here was it immediately here I think it was immediately here Mamajarov who's a world top 10 player also played this move g4 now the concept of this move is either as we see in the game with Bilal where it looks ridiculous to move the g1 and of course if I played this move years ago when I was growing up and as a as an improving junior my coach would have slapped me on the hand and told me no that's not how you play chess because it's a ridiculous looking move moving a flank pawn weakening your king but there's a precise idea behind it which is to open this g file and try and win this pawn but of course it's even more obscene in a position like this where after g4 the rook cannot actually move to g1 because the knight is still there right exactly so you just lose a pawn but the idea is that you get a bit of time on the knight because you then get the big center over here with these pawns on d4 e4 c4 and now the knight actually has got a bit of a tricky situation because if you go there maybe it can get hit again or at the very least why it can develop here and it's just a completely new way of playing which is seen in a variety of different openings and it's just wonderful to see because it's injecting a new energy into these positions and a uniqueness definitely and basically the whole idea why it's got is to play for for an initiative and to say to your opponent that well I'm in mood for a lot of blood today what are you gonna do about it well and it's so in line with his style his high on confidence he's got four and a half out of the last five games um and if I was Olga I would be thinking damn like I would be it's not that I mean Olga isn't going to be unhappy to see this move because it's a move that gives her chances yeah because definitely it comes with a lot of risks it comes with a lot of risk and she knows it and I'm very confident that she knows the game of Mamma Diaro versus her countryman actually Esipenko and actually Esipenko also did not take the point on g4 he castled and then played after g5 knight e4 and I believe that might be something we're gonna see today as well because I think that castle is a very logical move right yeah castles here must be fine because as you said if g5 the knight can just come into e4 and if you take take it's absolutely clear that this really doesn't really work out for white because afterwards the pawn on g5 will be taken you can't even go here because then you drop this pawn on d4 and then the knight has to go somewhere ridiculous so after castles g5 isn't really um a serious move I would say so I don't know would you consider there well it's a good question I would probably go queen c2 here as white to be honest because I want to cover the e4 square as well right yeah I want to cover that square and of course now black theoretically could take but now you're just opening up this file towards your king and actually knight of six now is trouble after bishop to h6 or yes this is trouble and do you know what on the face of it I really like what Olga has played she played c5 brilliant this is the classic you know Olga is a classically trained chess player she comes from the russian school of chess and russian school boys school girls would have learned that you react to an attack on the flank with an attack in the center definitely try and open the center when your opponent makes rash flank moves so this is an absolutely classic and must be a good response just from what we know about the principles of chess now of course a lot of things can happen here and unless bilal I am bilal immediately moved so he's actually prepared and he just he was expecting this move and he just took it off he says okay I think he's bluffing I don't I believe this position cannot be good for white it probably isn't but I think he's not completely bluffing I think he's he must have had a look at this but look what if I just take now on c5 with the bishop I mean look at that king on e1 well what if I go g5 here so now after knight e4 you mean that you want to trade queens right well now I can definitely trade queens takes takes queen takes d8 king takes d8 and I'm not unhappy here either after 95 or 92 but let's say knight to e5 king is seven and beware the knight on e5 is slightly trapped f6 not not completely trapped but f5 yeah we can get all kinds of interesting looking positions now the bishop on g2 yeah yeah this this maybe I should take on f6 I don't know something like this and again g takes and knight g5 yeah or rook g8 is actually a problem oh yeah indeed I'm actually lining my own pieces up here I can't believe the exchange of queens is good for black though I'm having a hard perhaps you should play no but after 92 I've got e3 right e3 is annoying even this is not the end of the world if I take you take and I play for example knight f3 here but bishop takes e1 king is seven and still black has a very sound and healthy position I don't believe that can be a problem and that's exactly why I believe that this is a bluff this is definitely a bluff from white I don't think it's a bluff I don't think you play this in 10 say he's got 132 I think he's got some idea I don't know what that idea is but he's got some idea so I'll be curious to see what that is let's let's move on to another game and we'll see exactly what he plans to play so just a question before that if you would be able to make bats on this one which player would you bat on because I'm definitely going for Olga here well I'll tell you what I'll stick I'll stick I'll I'll I'll stick with the boys on this one I belal he's Ion confidence he's a he's a creative player he can cause headaches so let's I'll go with my brothers on this one all right let's see who who's gonna be right in the end okay where should we go next you can let's check the game between Balash and Jhansaya because we thought that's going to be one of the most interesting games with Balash being the top scorer in the men's team and with Jhansaya being just a very aggressive and a player with a very good fighting spirit yeah absolutely and we have a symmetrical English turned into a hedgehog which is the first time we've seen this here um I think it's one of the you know the the best openings to play if you're looking to play for a win so Jhansaya clearly uh saying that uh you know she is willing to give up a lot of space in order to get a very dynamic position and get the double fiancato already here we're in a slightly weird hedgehog already where for example the move f3 is very well known uh queeny two queeny two is slightly weird no no I think it's okay queeny two if I remember it's an idea in this particular hedgehog um it's quite an aggressive idea um but it means that white's bishop is going to go for the fiancato on g2 and does it doesn't that mean that the pono c4 might might be or who knows well it's it's an idea but you can also get very aggressive here for example sometimes you can now you could also try moves like g4 right you really could because you could then play g4 and gain some time and then play bishop g2 so it's it is and it's known it's a known idea in balash playing it in 16 seconds so it's still preparation yeah it's it's still preparation but okay after g6 he did go with uh with g3 and now Jhansaya plays the move h5 so Jhansaya I like this telegraphing this but she decides to go with h5 and be aggressive right from the word go this is a very fashionable move right and it has been fashionable even before alpha zero but actually this is one of of the ideas which the ai has introduced or reintroduced uh in chess just attacking with with the marginal pawn and then if possible even pushing it as far as the sink six or third rank in this case and then I saw some games did you see them when the engine was just going for an end game and then uh you know the pawn on h2 which was fixed was trouble and alpha zero won some very nice games yeah I mean pushing this h pawn has become an important weapon for modern day chess players using either as to open the file or as arena said just pushing it down here as a cramping mechanism against especially a castled king most of the time so h5 bishop g2 on the board and now you would expect that the move h4 can be played and actually here I have an idea that I think balash is going to get very very aggressive here that g4 no I'm afraid of h3 there yeah not with g4 my thoughts were um no it doesn't my my my instinct tells me to play the move bishop g5 what about h takes g3 h6 g3 I'm not unhappy about because I take h pawn and then you will cast a lock probably right and I'm really ahead in development and then f4 e5s or e5 immediately might be a threat just to you know just to explain here can I go e5 and maybe this is just immediately winning right because now after bishop h1 you've got e takes f6 and I cannot take back because I'm pinned over the e file exactly and it's just all over so I'm not worried about that the move I was worried about after bishop g5 was actually yeah it was the move h3 but you've got bishop f3 here I've got bishop f3 but then I thought knight bd7 and how is this one is 95 a serious threat it might be actually yeah it might be a serious threat in fact here you might have to play some weird looking move maybe here actually you can castle can't you play e5 anyway oh e5 here because after bishop takes bishop you can take with the knight yeah that's possible I'm not sure how bad this is but and now when you take on e5 I can even go for long castle after should I go immediately yeah I think you can long castle immediately because after knight f3 you've got bishop takes f6 an intermediate move and now white is just probably winning yeah yeah and I'm threatening this and you're really behind in development this file is I mean it's very dangerous yeah I definitely like your bishop g5 idea yeah yeah h3 and bishop f3 looks kind of and he just castles I mean ballash is that kind of place it's not really concerned he's just saying you know what this is a bit of a bluff if you go h3 I don't really care I can play bishop h1 and then for sure he's looking at playing f4 at the right moment and e5 or f4 and f5 trying to punish black for her early h pawn venture so this game could actually turn into fireworks very very soon definitely and we'll keep an eye on that one and meanwhile let's move to the game between Leandro and Antoinette okay let's see uh how that one's going welcome back Antoinette Stefanova after getting extremely unlucky caught corona got tested positive was in jail for a week in her room um couldn't leave I mean she must be really happy to be you know I mean in the center of of life the only good news is she didn't miss the bad weather right she saw it was raining every day so it's not like she could enjoy that and she came out on the day of sunshine so let's see if she's going to produce something on the board against Leandro and it's a slav we've seen a few of these this tournament we've seen a lot of the move pawns at e3 here but this time Leandro plays the fianchetto pawn to g3 very very interesting well it's quite interesting especially coming together with the move knight to c3 because it usually means that white's gonna sacrifice the pawn on c4 and not be able to gain it back in the next few moves but white will instead go for moves like e4 maybe or knight e5 trying to get some nice things going on in the center and I believe that's that's exactly what actually happened yeah when g3 and now d takes c4 which is one of the lines bishop g2 and now Antoinette says I'm gonna try and keep this pawn with b5 another line here is just to go knight to d7 which is a fairly fairly well known idea but b5 is is also well known and now we see one of the key key ideas because after 95 you're actually attacking this pawn here and here Antoinette says you can just have it if you want take it I'm gonna just protect the point after knight takes c6 here the idea after knight takes c6 is that you can just play the move queen to b6 and actually white doesn't have a good discovery with this knight if you get too fancy with a move like knight knight to b7 it's a very fancy move it doesn't do anything you can just go oops not rook to a sorry sorry you can't go there because you lose the bishop you have to go bishop to b7 and now the knight will actually be trapped on e7 exactly and it cannot even self isolate right it can't it can't self isolate and the point is if the knight now comes right to e5 you just play bishop b7 and you've given the pawn back but suddenly you neutralize this bishop your development is very simple bishop e7 castles knight bd7 perfectly good game looks great here yeah exactly so actually despite offering this pawn white tends to not take it and prefers to play with the initiative because it's still a little bit tricky for black to get his pieces out on the king side especially the bishop on c8 is something black struggles with against the catalan almost in all the lines because it's quite a passive piece as black's got all the pawns almost all of them seven out of eight on light squares so if black manages to trade this bishop actually black is fine and i believe that's one of the biggest challenges actually in the catalan it certainly is absolutely agree with you so it's really interesting and then what we're going to see moving forward is that after bishop b7 white now plays another absolutely classic well i would say not classic but neo classic idea in this line which is to play the move b3 and so a lot of people this looks like a ridiculous idea because you can just say well hold on black's a pawn up he can undouble his pawns with c takes b3 and now white tends to take back with the a pawn what's the idea why would you play like this well it's a very deep strategic idea because actually what white claims is that white has got a lot of squares he can play on on the queen side namely c5 and a5 he also has two files he can work with c file and the a file and what tends to happen in a position like this is at some point black plays for example knight d7 and often what you actually see white doing is trying to play on these squares with a move like knight to d3 and then somehow try to fix the structure even farther right with b4 but you know i'm having you know a difficult time because here i believed that actually it was queen takes b3 somehow the move which i saw most but exactly in this position the pawn on d4 is hanging right exactly the pawn on d4 is hanging i don't think you can play this i'm pretty sure liandra's idea is it's a takes b3 yeah it's a takes b3 and of course if you manage to trade the dart squared bishops off the board as well that's hugely beneficial strategically for white and remember you know i'm not saying that knight d3 is the correct moving exactly here i can't remember but you've also got this massive majority in the center and sometimes white uses looks to utilize that in order to play this opening this is not something you can just freestyle though with white you need to be well versed in the ideas having looked at some of the top players play this um you can't just play this randomly a bit like you could play for example you know you could play a london system let's say if you knew you've got one of those we have got one but what i'm trying to say is you know you could basically play a london system without doing so much preparation and get an okay position but you cannot play this with white without knowing definitely because a pawn might turn out to be just a healthy pawn and then all right if black manages to open up that light squared bishop white can be just with a pawn down and make trouble exactly so that'll be really interesting to see how how that one develops now let's go to the london game and this is actually eric rosen versus gunai mama zada because i believe it was the london system played there yeah absolutely and we have uh the london which is as you said um played and eric's weapon of choice he's played it a number of times already this tournament um gunai goes for a classic setup and one of the critical ideas immediately challenging this bishop eric now plays an early 95 which looks reasonable and brings this knight to d2 and this is i guess the first moment where you know a classical london again white might consider bishop d3 or c3 i guess he didn't because bishop a6 is an annoying move here definitely and once again we see that in many of these openings black struggles to to find an active square for the light squared bishop and then if not possible he tries to trade it yeah so white played h4 here and i love it i think it's a good move it's ambitious but it's also very in line with a lot of what we've already said which is this kind of flank pawn move is now really becoming an important part of the arsenal of ideas for for white in these kind of systems where you use the pawn as a as a way to cramp the black king but okay gunai not concerned plays the move bishop b7 and now queen 2f3 by eric after a i don't know how long he's spent on that move i'm a bit puzzled by this move can i just play knight e4 here you probably can but i guess eric's idea is that he wants to take and after d takes to play queen 2 g3 so now you're threatening bishop h6 right possibly i'm not sure if it's even a threat but it's it's certainly on my mind hmm what about if i take on e5 is it a terrible move yes i can take oh wait on c7 is hanging i wanted to play f6 but i forgot that my pawn on c7 is hanging no so i cannot take on e5 that means i should probably go for something like either f6 or rook e8 i'm not sure which one yeah i think rook e8 is dangerous i think f6 really is the move here it feels feels like the move anyway and you know why can get a very interesting position in a number of ways he can play quite standard with a move like knight c4 bishop takes and i take but aren't you a bit behind with that development or are you just planning to castle long here i can castle long i'm not really that far behind in development also you don't have any immediate ideas here is black the only one would be to try and make e5 work which is very ambitious um and i instinctively am not that afraid of it yeah and if i castle long bishop e2 i can still get going with my attack so i really like this position for white actually i'm not sure how much you could get on on the king side here i believe black is also probably happy with with her position yeah so i mean obviously eric is kind of telegraphing that move and of course if you don't play knight e4 let's say you play a move like let's say you go c5 which is a knight and i go c3 and now you play well the point is you can't play knight bd7 easily because you might you might but you might not run into some tactics with a move like knight takes f7 yeah i've got to look at seven i think i'm fine here and yeah knight to e4 unfortunately enough too is hanging yeah it doesn't work i mean i can still go bishop f4 but yes it probably doesn't very dangerous e5 now might just actually be very very bad for white after something like this definitely losing control but you don't have to do this what i was going to suggest is after 97 is you can just play in standard london style now this move doesn't exist you can't take here what about a move like queen to b8 yeah this is this is absolutely reasonable and here i would expect or even queen c7 i mean yeah c7 might make more sense actually queen c7 is good and now i guess we can't really go queen g3 because of knight h5 i think although even that is kind of unclear let's say i take all right i will take back with the knight threatening to go for e5 and i think i'm in time here to to to solve all my problems with black actually because if i managed to play e5 then all right i will be answering actually with a punch in the center your attack on the king side and that should be good right i agree i agree and i expect something like this from good night today so it'll be interesting to see if erika's got a specific idea uh so we will see okay interesting position let's move on and let's go i can see let's go to the game of joe gallagher against marsil and froimski wow so it was a bishop b5 check i believe we've seen this quite a few times in this tournament and actually wasn't it joseph who played it with the black pieces against marissa bug um yeah i believe it was because he played that terribly point sacrifice with with b5 let's check how how he's doing here with white this time well the first deviation we've got from all of these games is that marsil now plays a move that is i think a boris girl fan favorite hikari nakamura has played it which is to recapture on d7 with the knight of course taking with the queen is the main move but taking with the knight is a bit underrated in my opinion and there is quite a funny idea here i believe because um there is that move is short castle let's say night of six queen e2 ah that's exactly how they played and here after e6 white can actually go for c3 uh how was it happening group c8 now d4 yes c takes c takes d5 e5 and now black goes for knight g8 yeah i believe it's exactly this position and then the bishop goes to b4 i believe and the knight to e7 something like that it looks very weird but it's it's actually not bad mm-hmm yeah you get kind of french structure without the bishop and unless white develops a very quick initiative the point is that you would really want with white to have light squared bishop to attack on h7 so imagine a bishop on d3 then white will have a very good uh attack or attacking ideas but here the story is different but actually i'm uh i'm quite curious about the move geometry it's very logical but i believe it's not the main line the move b3 no it it is the main line yeah it is the main line i did um a video series on this for uh well i won't mention who but uh you couldn't go and find it if you want yeah and b3 has been seen as the main idea against this particular setup predominantly because as you mentioned c3 now has got a you know this is hasn't got as much bite as it does in the lines with queen takes d7 so this playing c3 here is much more beneficial so white goes for this b3 idea and goes for this very classic maroxi structure in the center with c4 uh rook c8 and d4 so this has all been played uh a lot c takes d4 knight takes d4 and queen a5 knight c3 and a6 this has been played in a lot of games so we have a classic setup but now unlike the positions which i know black's bishop is on e7 rather than on g7 which kind of suits more with the maroxi setup right so here it's like slightly different and i believe this can actually be better for for white than uh the setup with the bishop fiancated on g7 right it can be but there was a particular line and i can't remember what it is now i'm trying to recall my own notes but there was a particular variation here where if black is able to get in a very quick d5 break he's normally doing okay so that's why i think after rook a d1 marcel played rook fe8 specifically to threaten d5 let's say for example white played some useful looking move like king h1 i now think d5 is possible what about e5 can i go for this one uh oh yeah sorry it's not possible is it sorry i'm mixing my lines up e5 is is fine yeah i can't remember exactly there's some going good jones uh game in this as well i just it's been a while since i've looked at it so i can't i can't recall but yeah d5 e5 is is an issue i must say that i'm not very familiar with with this uh position and especially since the bishop was on e7 i'm more used to see it on g7 as i was saying so let's have a look actually how uh how joe continued it went f4 and then i believe uh marcel oops she didn't play that move but judging by the clock she must be still in her prep because she has one hour and 31 minutes yeah well she played queen c5 threatening e5 king h1 and now queen h5 now i do remember this move appearing on the board in my analysis i do but i don't remember it with the move f4 included because now joe has got the very nice idea of declining the queen trade knight f3 and now e5 i hate this move actually i must say yeah well it's one of those moves that either it works or it doesn't and but can it really work without black having a light squared bishop controlling the d5 square look it's just it's just a hole there that's square i mean positionally speaking if black doesn't have anything you know like very fast then black will be just positionally busted well yes or no i mean what about a move like f5 here for sure joe is looking at that black will have to do something like knight c5 probably or what else i mean trying to provoke b4 so at least the pawn on c4 will be weak but it looks very very strange to me to be honest well it's it's very very risky of course what about a move like knight d5 even i mean well you might drop well maybe not yeah you do because ah you've got knight g3 coming ah yeah that's unfortunate okay so let's not blunder pawns how else could i continue because well black has got some counter play for now linked to the e4 yeah it's one of those weird ones where i don't believe marcel plays this in four seconds without having but he took an e5 yeah he took i mean this is also very logical f takes e5 d takes e5 this is the position on the board and but i don't know it really felt to me like f5 should be but don't you like more the positions after f5 rather than this one possibly yeah but i mean maybe joe's got a specific idea i i don't really know um i'm very because because here somehow the bishop from e7 isn't that much of a bad piece anymore it can go maybe at points to c5 or yeah sure no i understand i mean f5 is definitely one of the first moves i was very worried about that one but perhaps perhaps marcel had some prep here ready but like at first glance i i cannot understand which is that maybe yeah to bring the bishop but i was thinking to bring the bishop to b6 but the pawn on d6 is hanging yeah all right i guess we will gonna have to see what marcel has in mind here even though f takes e5 and d takes e5 is already on the board yeah well we'll come back to that one and just very quickly if you do want to get in touch with we are reading the youtube chat we will mention the comments that are most relevant and not let's call it silly or irrelevant so if you want to us to talk about something in youtube chat please make it a good question or a good comment and for example kevin winter says in the rosin game are there some bishop takes h7 ideas um and the answer is probably not at this moment but we'll get back to that so questions like that are more than welcome let's move on and i see a completely weird position in the game hussein as is against maria musichuk they've already played 16 moves it was a class one of these exchange caros that we see a lot h3 and a very quick e5 by maria musichuk which is obviously a critical way to play and now after takes takes what we see white playing nowadays is this move knight f3 um where of course after night 63 queens xd3 we have an isolated queens pawn position and the point is that black says well you've lost your really great bishop on d3 so as a result i can justify giving myself this isolated pawn because you haven't got one of your big attacking pieces definitely and black has the pair of bishops black might hope for some activity in return for that isolated pawn i believe this should be should be fine uh from from the strategical point of view bishop d6 castle castle yeah bishop to g5 and now h6 an interesting move because black actually sacrifices the pawn right yes but it might be actually dangerous to take it because then we have a lot of opened files and diagonals for the pair of bishops and for the rooks and somehow the knight on b1 will still struggle to to find time and come to the center and as you highlighted after rook d8 bishop h2 is already in the air and the queen will have to to find a better place and queen e4 will be met maybe even by i don't know i'm so i'm so compelled to say bishop f5 because it just seems so nice yeah bishop f5 or even bishop e6 with the idea that oops queen takes b7 uh can be met by bishop d5 for example oh that's that's a really nice idea yeah and you can't take well because of check maybe you should take in fact but that's another story and black is doing fine and if you play a move like queen well queen a6 you run into another check discovered attack and if you play queen b5 which is the only other square now of course black can just take on f3 and queen f4 right or queen f4 yeah and it's just all over you're going to get checkmated so very very dangerous position which is why hussein decided to keep maintain the pin with bishop h4 but maria in no mood to make things easy g5 super double edged the bishop comes back to g3 okay there's a trade and actually that's the problem for white that the pawn has moved already from h2 and white has to capture back with f1 which is slightly strange but on the other hand it opens the f file right so perhaps white is hoping for some activity against black's king yeah and the f file being open it is not a bad thing with the black king already weakened so but we now see really the main idea because if white is allowed to consolidate here let's just say black played some let's call it normal moves bishop e6 now white can play knight d4 and let's say black plays queen d7 white can go knight d2 um and you know white is suddenly coordinate oh sorry queen d7 blunders are an entire piece sorry queen let's just say queen e7 knight d2 i'm just giving some examples if you play in this lethargic way is black you're going to get punished because there is just too many open files and too many too many we can square yeah exactly so that's why we see g4 which is maria's whole idea here um and in this position hussein took i would be very tempted not to take for example my initial instinct is just saying play knight d4 anyway and if g takes h3 just carry on with a move like knight d2 and just say so what but this is not in hussein's style right because he's definitely trying to keep it more solid and i actually don't recall a game when he went to for sacrifices in order to get the initiative he actually tried to to keep his his play as solid as possible and perhaps that's what maria's trying to achieve in this game uh to make hussein feel a bit uncomfortable perhaps could be could be but i'm just wondering whether this is just a good way to play because after h takes g2 i can probably just take um aren't you oh no actually you yeah i was thinking that maybe black can try something with queen d7 but actually my knight on f6 is hanging exactly and yeah it might be the case that actually black's king is quite exposed here yeah exactly and you're just bringing your pieces in and what about to move like h2 perhaps okay i'll just take it and knight g4 okay so your point is that after queen g5 you've got knight f3 or actually it's not not a big threat because anyway you can wait for me to play queen h5 and then play knight f3 exactly i mean it this might be an interesting way to play for black by the way i quite like it and we get something similar in the game to be honest because he took knight takes g4 the knight came to d4 and queen to be six the only difference now is that we're just one tempo behind but it's absolutely no question in my mind that you should be playing i say no question but i i i would be ignoring this pawn yeah knight d2 it's it's a very interesting position here and i believe the price of every movie is very very high for both sides here everything can go wrong very quickly because we see both kings quite exposed actually black's king feels slightly more in danger to me yeah on one hand it does but on the other hand this knight is actually a really great piece because it's covering some key squares and i don't see a clear entry wait what about to move like knight b5 you still have bishop d7 probably or ac no bishop d7 looks decent because i was thinking that the queen might get trapped yeah but after rook fb1 you can just take on b5 with the bishop yeah i mean i would definitely be trying to make knight d2 work here as who's saying um if you don't do that if you play a move like b3 it's probably also okay it's probably also okay followed by knight d2 this game can go any direction i mean this is this is one where all results are truly possible so maria really risking it today definitely very very risk risking it oh laris there is an interesting question in the chat is there a confirmed new venue for the next year's open in gibraltar do you know anything about it no there isn't um i don't know if there is going to be an open or if there's going to be something similar to this year obviously the kaleta hotel where the tournament took place for well over a decade is being uh well knocked down effectively in a new hotel is being built which as brian if you caught his interview if you didn't catch the interview by the way you can go back check out the youtube channel the interviews are all there and brian talks about it um and we don't know exactly when the new hotel will be built that's probably going to take some time right yeah it's going to take a few years probably so the next time we'll have a big open like we've been having here for so many years who knows but i do know that it is still very much on brian's agenda and i know speaking to pretty much anybody who's come here before or enjoyed watching gibraltar that it's not one of the highlights of the year it really is um because it's such a big social event as well that was a tournament i dreamed of playing for so many years and when i finally got the chance it was one of the most unbelievably nice experience i ever had and you know i would love so much for that tournament to to be held again but actually it's very important that that tradition is kept and every year we have chess in gibraltar and people love and support chess here and let's hope that many other players from all over the world will continue coming back here absolutely i mean it's uh it's just i have to say when i heard the news that the Coletta was no more it made me genuinely sad i've never been sad over a tournament stopping or something like that but when i heard that it really hit me in my heart because i've got i've had very special moments in that place the first time i came was in 2009 and i've had built many friendships there and many memories so hopefully fingers crossed we do get a new hotel soon and we get many more new wonderful memories to to cherish in the future right now let's get back to the games because we've got a lot of interesting where should we go next um let's try the ravi versus yovanka one the all english clash yeah and ravi kind of getting a bit lucky in this tournament in a few occasions and yovanka not getting lucky so let's see if that trend continues she actually had yeah two much better two winning positions which turned completely around and i'm wondering um if uh if she's gonna be able to forget about it and put it all behind and just continue playing hoping for uh you know the good fortune to return absolutely well she plays her her favorite karakan and this time ravi we've seen a lot of this uh short variation in this tournament ravi goes for the other way to play this which is 92 e6 and now night b3 a very curious uh way to effectively stop black from playing c5 which is really the whole reason for this setup black but uh but cannot black go for c5 anyway here you always can but after night takes c5 bishop takes yeah you take queen a5 yeah you can how is this one well this has been played a bunch of times as well but the claim is that the dark squared bishop is such an important piece for black that you don't mind giving the pawn back if it means black hasn't got the dark squared bishop i see so yovanka chose a different approach she played a6 first a6 night after night a3 she went for c5 anyway yeah so the idea is that a6 just controls this b5 square because sometimes this check is annoying so we get something very similar to what we just discussed because ravi took took took there was a check and she recaptured the pawn isn't a6 then um you know somewhat of a loss of time here well there must be a reason for it i mean yovanka doesn't play a6 in seven seconds it must be some kind of interesting theoretical idea um yeah and now ravi played bishop e2 castles 97 and bishop 2 f4 he didn't even bother kicking this queen because the queen just comes back to c7 anyway so ravi just said your queen isn't that good on c5 so i'm just going to over protect my pawn queen c7 anyways and rookie one and ravi just saying okay i'm going to over protect my my uh my pawn and now again the move castles but wait can i go for knight g6 instead of castle well i think the point is that you can just go bishop to g3 and uh um and now i cannot really take on e5 because you've got the truth on e1 and i'm going to be pinned and well you just lose your queen actually oh i do right a6 doesn't help right a6 doesn't help so you can never take so that's why she castles first and now white has got a whole load of different moves you can play the stand at bishop f1 giving additional protection here improving the bishop you can play h3 and black should try to play on the queen side here right so you would you would assume so um but you know white's plan is actually relatively straightforward because if you're allowed to go knight d4 quickly here with white let's say i don't know let's say black goes b5 yeah oh it's sorry white's move let's say bishop f1 b5 i would play knight d4 rather quickly bishop g6 let's say bishop g6 and now white has got another a whole bunch of different moves again and for example even a move like h4 here just looking to gain time with h5 and your point here is that if i play h6 it might become a tactical weakness so you could go perhaps even for ideas with queen d2 at some point and then bishop takes h6 at times yeah definitely or for example cramping the white black king and even ideas of the rook lift coming over queen d2 as you said this rook can come to e1 give additional protection to this pawn and at some point some sacrifice here looks very tempting looks interesting so basically all white strategy is building up on that dark square bishop right exactly and the play on the queen side here isn't really that formidable and also the other thing about having the rook on e3 is that sometimes if black wants to go knight b6 knight c4 sometimes you can just play b3 and these pawns do a great job of keeping the black pieces out this sort of position can get out of hand very quickly another idea i should mention is that sometimes you can just get aggressive with g4 g5 here is white very very dangerous position potentially for yuvanka if she's a bit uh slow let's say yeah i don't love it for black i'll put it like that i don't love it no yeah i i can say that but perhaps black can try something different if uh and i believe it's the case that she knows all the dangers in this position the caro kind of being her main weapon as black after e4 maybe she could try something with knight g6 maybe just making sure that the bishop goes to g3 but now this bishop is on is in big danger that's what i don't but maybe something like maybe bishop before you can play bishop e4 or bishop g4 bishop g4 is better looking yeah and you want to put it on h5 let me think or you want to take i'm very tempted to take this pawn i don't know why i'm getting so materialistic here i don't think you should take because if you take well you can take but you can't you certainly shouldn't take here but then you could have ideas with f6 protecting the knight maybe no but then f4 and you drop e6 so it's too early for that i should bring first rook to e8 all right so let's try bishop h5 then yeah bishop h5 looks very interesting because this pin and now probably i would go bishop h2 anyway is white just forcing me to take on f3 right all right so let's take on f3 and i'll prepare taking but you will be able to get ready for it yeah like if you protect e6 i'm just gonna go queen e3 and white is just much better here two bishops i can start leveraging my my pawns on the king side this this could get very out of hand yeah definitely the problem here is that you've got indeed the pair of bishops and i have to get some good squares for for my knights in order to compensate on that perhaps a plan could be knight b6 and knight c4 trying to make you at least play b3 maybe and you know maybe then i can go for some rook c8 or something yeah but you you just never get anywhere i've played these kind of structures for years as white and the knights are just so bad they're struggling yeah this is this is just much better for white queen c5 maybe even even the endings are bad after let's say queen d4 even the endings are really bad but let's just say i go queen d2 i don't think they are that bad i mean of course you will probably be better with white but are they that bad i think they're very bad yeah i think they're very not having but wait wait wait i wanted you to take on c5 oh sorry i'm sorry so you play queen d4 oh yeah no i would never i would never take on c5 and give you a target but here i will play rook c7 first trying to first double and only then take on d4 yeah so perhaps no perhaps it's better just to keep the queens on the board yeah no i mean for me instinctively i just wanted to side step but here i've got rook fd8 maybe i want to prepare d4 and actually i could go for d4 even as a pawn sacrifice at times i'm not sure if in this position because then i will get finally a square for my knight but i see what you're saying because those knights are really struggling finding good places for them yeah and it doesn't take long for white to you know for example here if i go king h1 f4 and let's say bishop g1 and i install a bishop on d4 the game can almost be over because then i go g4 f5 and it's it's just over as i say it's it's it's the kind of sure i've had loads of games like this in this exact structure on the queen side and without bishops it's just really bad for black i mean i don't know the exact evaluation but it you know in my experience tells me it's not what you really want to aim for so i think yuvanka needs to find something else and we'll see what she ends up going for let's carry on with our roundup of the games well one of the most solid games i'm very happy for jillion that he has this position he went for an exchange slav which i think is a really good choice and i think the important thing for today for jillion is that he doesn't lose and he went for something totally unambitious um we have a position where yeah i mean it's just more or less equal but it's not as simple as it looks because still black can try for example if you are gonna ever play b3 you will have some weak dark squares the bishop is already on f4 not covering them it's not as easy as it might look so yeah we could still see a fight an interesting one in this game yeah absolutely and let us go to a game we haven't seen yet bobby chang against iran uh this is an interesting one because we have a catalan uh with an early knight c3 this move is becoming very popular yeah yeah very popular everybody in their dog used to play castles on move six but now players are playing knight c3 d takes c4 in this early 95 move and i actually believe i've seen this queen d6 maneuver before and it's very interesting because actually it's the queen now uh the piece which wants to protect the c4 pawn which is uh very unusual for for a catalan yeah it was played by mamma jarov in the candidates in berlin in 2018 right i was i was commentating and i remember he played this move and uh it's a very interesting idea the as you said the idea is if you take here i can now play queen a6 hitting this knight with tempo and the idea for black as he wants to go rook d8 c5 really really quickly and the queen is quite nicely placed on a6 since white's bishop is already on another diagonal and cannot really challenge it yeah i like i like this setup for black i don't know too much about it but it looks interesting to me yeah and just to answer andrew kiefer in the chat yes he does pronounce his name jillion we asked him before the tournament even though spelling is slightly different it's not gillian which is how i started saying his name but it is jillion so that's how his name is pronounced uh so yeah as you said the queen comes to a6 but here white just decided to castle and queen a6 anyway by Irene but the problem now is that you don't you haven't wasted time hitting uh sorry winning the pawn back so now you can try and cramp this queen with a4 bishop d7 and bishop f4 and i have to say the the problem with this position for black is that you need to it's as you need to have a certain liking of these positions so your style has to go well with these positions otherwise you can get into a lot of trouble and i have to say i'm not completely convinced that this is iran's style i'm i'm not yeah i would have to say that i'm also worried about iran in this game but also bobby is not exactly the player who usually sacrifices material for initiative but there is a big one coming he's rated 2550 he's i believe the highest rated player in the man's team and that will definitely mean that he knows how to handle uh positions both uh dynamically and strategically so um yeah i'm i'm really uh i'm really curious to see how this one is gonna develop yeah me too so very very dynamic uh lots lots to go on there and last but not least let's look at the cap game of the two captains sabina against pier we had a nimzo indian classical system so very classical system uh with d take c4 bishop takes c4 c5 a3 takes and takes so we get this uh absolutely well known setup um black gives up the bishop pair but claims that the slightly vulnerable structure for white means that she's fully compensated usually blacks ideas in this position is to prepare uh attacking the center with e5 so after developing the bishop sb i did b6 castle and bishop b7 black is i believe gonna prepare somehow to move e5 possibly although i have to say i'm not sure because there are similar systems here right where this knight isn't on g3 like sometimes you get more other systems and with the knight on g3 i wonder if the idea is precisely to stop e5 because oops because sometimes the knight can jump onto f5 and it's very very annoying and is it yeah i mean i don't know if exactly here let's just say after rook c8 i don't know white plays the standard move let's say bishop to b2 which is now i will carry on with something like queen to c7 and now an idea for white is to play let's say c4 rook f2 d8 and now i go d5 so you want actually i'm not sure you want no you want you definitely are going to take on f6 if i allow you precisely because that knight on g3 can jump to f5 exactly and again it's i'm not sure how clear it is but things can get out of hand very quickly no but i will definitely not allow that after d5 i think i can avoid it right i could play a move like queen to e7 even oof can you it's getting close i mean you're you're i would be very very scared here as black like insanely scared like knight h5 knight h5 you don't like my knight on c6 i can see that let me think let's say oh yeah i can see why you are worried because after a move like e5 you can take on f6 and then even consider moves like f4 perhaps even if i don't have f4 this is almost losing for black but yeah f4 might just be f4 f4 might just be winning on the spot no definitely i shouldn't allow that now i see the dangers of that position because i really thought that black is doing great but perhaps i should then not hurry with with this rook did you play rook c8 already yeah so rook c8 and you know bishop b2 is standard here and and that's what i was saying you've got to be a little bit careful about playing e5 because you you do allow sometimes d5s and knight f5s but i do have another plan here one linked with closing up the center with c4 but it's also quite risky because then you can start to move the pawns in the center right well you can try to move like knight a5 now for example yeah this this could be could be the case and now you cannot really go away with the bishop from a2 for now because then i can go for knight c4 and then the bishop on b2 is strange but perhaps you could play something like queen queen 2 i don't know e2 i guess and if c4 go e4 right yeah something along those lines you could also throw in something like rook a to e1 and the bishop will go to b1 so black should be sure that that one has very good good control over the e4 square and yeah and i'm not sure this rook c8 is uh but of course pianos better she's playing all her life these structures with both colors i believe i believe that she knows what she's doing and i'm a bit worried actually for black here but perhaps perhaps i'm wrong in that yeah i mean it it really does depend how i'm how ambitious subina wants to be but of course i mean black should be doing all right here just needs she needs to find a decent plan all right so that's us having looked at all the games so far they're all still in play this is normally the moment where we take a quick breather but we've got basically 10 extremely interesting positions okay the jillion against mary is the quietest at the moment but all the other games are completely mad and i am really looking forward to checking how the game between hussein and maria develops today and we'll actually be back to it after after a short break yeah very short break we'll be back in a moment see you soon hello everybody welcome to round eight of the battle of the sexes live from the garrison library here in Gibraltar we are in the heat of battle round eight all very very interesting games and arena the first game i want to check out is the game between balash shonka who has been with bilal the top performer for the men's team so far in my opinion he has really actually not been in any danger i can't remember a game where he was really suffering playing white against the fierce and uh the the dangerous jensea abdumallik and the position we have on the board is as follows after jensea's 14th move pawn to e6 and just before we went live on air uh arena i said wow when i look at this position i look at the uncastled king in the center i look at the queen opposite it and i want to play the most one of the most famous motifs in the sicilian which is to play the move night d5 can i play that move i believe you can but the problem is that now that my queen is on d8 and not on c7 i'm not really forced to react to your sacrifice i believe i might be able to try something like bishop to g7 actually uh because i believe that if i take on d5 let's let's try that one too you could take with the pawn then it might might be dangerous no well i'm not really sure if it is dangerous either because black has got a number of ideas here for example i think i think it's ah queen is seven i've missed that one yeah you can even go with the queen if you want what about the move like queen to d2 or f1 yeah queen d2 queen d2 might run into bishop h6 and then i castle no definitely so queen f1 let's say yeah queen f1 and now if i just go bishop g7 rookie one rookie one and 95 so you're saying that after f4 um yeah you will give the material back but be able to i don't know maybe even let's say knight g4 i don't know let's say knight g4 f takes e5 probably and knight takes poof it's getting it's getting very interesting it's probably okay for black though because the knight is really well protected what about a move like knight to f3 yeah i'm probably just gonna worst case worst case scenario i sacrifice it probably but i mean yeah i mean i'm a bit worried about this bishop on b7 all right it can get out of line i mean for sure it's you know it's probably bishop g7 just ignoring that knight on d5 should be the safe option but there is a but can i try i just i really wanted to try knight f4 here oh i was thinking you were going to go for some e5 trying to take on f6 and the bishop on b7 actually that might be really good might be actually e5 might be really good hold on can we play that i'm not sure because i could take on e5 with a pawn yeah but this looks great for white because um let's say i take here on e6 oh on e6 what if i take back with the pawn okay check i should capture with something i'm not sure what it's just over queen takes f6 it's just losing bishop takes b7 why is it losing i'm oh wait i'm not a piece up anymore no no you're not a piece up yeah that's terrible then something like this is just over does it mean that e5 is working yeah e5 e5 looks great e5 looks great do i have any other options here maybe ah maybe i can take on d5 with what knight takes d5 okay take and now maybe i can do something not sure what what looks looks like a catastrophe all of the i mean white is opposite the king and both pawns are on pre i mean you i'm either gonna take here or sorry i'm either gonna take here or i'm gonna take here yeah it it looks it definitely looks dangerous and 95 can always be met by some f4 f4 now looks probably good even just the very simple d66 has to be close to winning i mean maybe takes g2 yeah castle but grabbing f4 now yeah okay i still have some no but it looks no looks bad so 95 is actually very serious well you probably should just take it sorry if bishop g7 e5 works no you should go e takes e takes yeah i think you should do this and go queen e7 but i'm so worried here i didn't like the position i got after queen f1 and when white got back the piece it seemed like yeah it could be all right so can i try somehow to keep that piece so after queen f1 can i do something else i mean it's very difficult because you don't really want to go king d8 because uh after rookie one my queen is trapped anyway and i will have to return the piece is there any sense in bishop e7 here i was afraid here of knight to c6 it just looks crushing knight c6 you are forced to take on c6 now with the bishop i suppose d takes and now it's just over yeah 95 probably just take it oh yeah just a pin and knight c5 you're gonna another pin bishop f6 and that's why the move 95 is so dangerous now i can he didn't he didn't get a pin back and he didn't get a pin now i don't want to cheat okay so we're gonna cheat but wait wait wait wait wait wait wait when we won't cheat yeah i've got i've got an idea what if i play e5 here ah e5 well then your whole idea of e6 and e5 makes absolutely no sense and in the worst case scenario i play a move like knight c2 but here i could argue that But after something like bishop to g7, I'm not... I mean, I'm all right. But then what was the point of going e6 on the last move, right? You know, you go bishop e2 to go e6, e5 and bishop g7. The point is to try and trade one more piece because if I go e5 immediately instead of e6, then my pawn on d6 will be weak when you go back with your knight and I don't have time to play bishop g7. Okay, but even when you do play with e6, right, knight d5, e5, knight c2, bishop g7, the weakness on g7 hasn't disappeared. The one on d6. Yeah, like even a move like knight c3 is an option here, possibly. I mean, I wouldn't play knight c3 ever. No, definitely. But I mean, I've got all my... I mean, this is just the dream, isn't it? For white, this is a terrible Sveshnikov. I mean, I've... Yeah, I will have to agree with you on that. Looks awful for black. It's surprising that Balash did not want to... Well, it's not really his... We've seen him this tournament, but his style doesn't really lend itself to this move. And just leaving it on, it looks like... Yeah, it's just a good move, knight d5, basically. Yeah. It's just a good move. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I would play... Let's put it this way. I would play knight d5 after a few minutes, I think. And I would... Because if you know your setups and your classics, you just know that this move has to work in this position. It's not to say that white is necessarily better after takes-takes, but at least, you know, for example here, the computer is already starting to really like white. Definitely. No, that was why I was afraid to take that knight. So a missed opportunity, potentially, for Balash in this position. Yeah, and rook c1 actually allows black to finish that development. I'm not sure if the move probably is bishop... Should I go for bishop e7 or g7? Probably e7. I mean, if you go to g7 at this point... Oh, no, d6 might be. But then it's not so easy to get to it. Also, can I go e5? E5? What about detail? Oh, wait, bishop b7. Oh, it's still not over there. e5. Yeah, e5 is something I have to worry about. But all right, bishop takes... But I'm going to take one f6. So do you take one f6? Yeah. But now can I just go back with the bishop? Bishop b7, threatening a mate on h1. Yeah. So knight to e4, ah, or d5. Yeah, it looks so messy. And if you take my idea, is I want to take on e6. Is it working though? F takes e6 and king f8. Yeah. Because that mate on h1 is still in the air, right? It is, yeah. Unfortunately, probably is not working. If I take... I take with the bishop. I could even take with the queen. Ah, you can take with the queen. But then you've got queen c8, maybe. I take queen c8 and I'm surviving it. Something like this. And now maybe I would have to try, I don't know, some ugly move like f3. But then I have king g7 and I should be all rightish. Yeah, I don't like this for white. Yeah, so this kind of stuff has to be analyzed. But yeah, okay, bishop g7 is... But you can, of course, play a lot slower here with white. Knight c2, for example. And then I should bring the queen to where? To c7 or to... Or I could actually play... Yeah, it's a very difficult position because once again the price of every move is very high here. After queen is seven, for example, I have to worry about... Now e5... Ah, no, e5 knight takes e5. Now it works. But I was so worried about a move like queen to d3. I mean, how do I pretend that's one on d6? Precisely. Of course I could try to sacrifice it, but it's definitely not what I was looking for. So perhaps bishop to g7 isn't the best option for black. But Janssaya will have to figure that out, I guess. Yeah, I think this is a practically very difficult position for black and her whole opening experiment for me hasn't worked because she's opened the h file without really much gain. So we'll see if Balash can do something there. Let's move on and let's go to Eric Rosen against Gunai Mamatsada. Only nine moves have been played, extraordinary. Eric spent 20 minutes on his previous move. We had this position before. Gunai brought her knight out to c6, which looks awfully odd. I have no idea why she... But why on c6 are not on d7? I have no idea. What's the point? I have no idea. Because after knight c6 it's even quite difficult to make knight e4 happen later because that bishop on b7 is closed basically by the knight. But perhaps it's still fine. Yeah, knight c6, and now I love h5 and Gunai after a long think plays h6 because she's worried about white playing h6, forcing g6 and creating these dark squared weaknesses. She played h6, but the problem is now that you have this very nasty hook. And as white here, I'm already getting very, very excited about my prospects. Okay, so now I guess I understand Black's idea. Black's idea is actually to go for knight b4 and then rook c1 is not possible because of knight takes a2. So that's precisely why Eric played the move c3, not allowing those ideas with knight to b4. And then the bishop will come to d3 if allowed. And if Gunai is not gonna find a way to simplify this position fast, I will start to get worried about her whole setup. I think this is a very dangerous position for Gunai. White is just gonna go bishop d3, castle's queen side, rook g1 and start running this pawn g4, g5. And this game can just be over in 10 moves. It's just, I mean, if any of that happens, it's just checkmate. What if I try something, could I try something like knight to e4? I'm not sure, but it looks interesting. So if I take you want to take on e5, do you? I'm not sure, I had another idea, but it doesn't work out. Even taking on e5 doesn't work because after takes and takes, I go queen g3. Yeah, now the threat is bishop takes h6. Exactly. Now, but yeah, if I cannot make knight e4 work, then it's trouble. And she just played king to h8. Oh boy. Probably she wants to prepare this knight e4, but I'm really afraid that she doesn't have time for that after bishop d3, let's say. Yeah, you just go bishop d3, you don't think too much. But wait, there is bishop takes e5 after bishop d3. It's not over yet. And on knight to d7. Okay. Yeah, and the attack here is actually not so fast if the queen has to go to g3 because then you won't have this g4, g5 immediately. But how on the other hand do I untangle all of these pieces? I would love to have a pawn on c5, but it's on c7 for now. Perhaps I should prepare some, oh, but no, I cannot, I can never play f6. Perhaps f5 would be an idea to sacrifice the c7 pawn because here if you take on f6, I want to take with the queen. No, this looks good for black. If you could get this, but I'm really not convinced that here is why I would be very tempted just to play around on the dark squares, 93, knight h4. But I will have knight e7 covering the g6 square and suddenly that knight from c6 makes sense actually. Yeah, but the problem is I'm always gonna go here and then when I go knight g6, if you take, I take with the pawn. And then some bishop takes h6 will be in the air. Yeah. I'm not so happy about black position. This is a difficult position for Guno, for sure. And I see, I mean, firstly, I expect this position just to be better for white, but of course there's a lot of play left and they're very low on time already, which is surprising, but a big opportunity potentially for Eric. But I can see that in the Joe Gallagher game, they're playing tons of moves. Oh, so fast. And the position has simplified a lot actually. Yeah, but I mean. What's going on? Isn't white just better here? Much better. I mean, just white is doing great. Only if there is no such move as f6, maybe. F6, okay. Because I'm a little bit worried about the back rank. So maybe black can activate the rook somehow fast. Knight g4, perhaps? Knight g4. What about king f7? Can I play that? Rook f5 wins a pawn, but I'm not sure I wanna do it. I think it might be good though. Might just be good. If you try and get me on the back rank, I don't have to worry too much. I give some lift for my king. Yeah, now I should try to get my pieces as active as I can, but I can't afford giving up the f6 pawn, I believe. So I should play something like rook d6, but it will be just a pawn up for white. It's just a pawn, yeah. It's just a pawn. I could still hope for a draw here with black after, let's say, knight d3, rook f1, yeah, because my idea was to go for knight c1, but here perhaps something like, I don't know, some knight b4 maybe, trying to make those pawns weaker, but of course it's a dream scenario for, but wait, she just played b5 immediately. Well, this is critical. Her move is absolutely critical, trying to... But wait, I don't get the idea. I mean, with white I could still play something like h3 in this position. Yeah, and I think that's what Joe will play, and after f6 now, I think this is her idea. Oh, maybe. Ah, so that now my pawn on c4 will be somewhat weak. Yeah. But still knight g4. Yeah, so h9g4, I take... I take back on c4. This is a much better version, right? Something like knight e4. Rook d4, let's say, or am I running into trouble here? You're just surviving. Knight g3, I've got king h2, and the pawn on f4 is hanging, right? Knight e2. Yeah. Perhaps I could... Well, maybe not, I don't know. Perhaps I could go for rook d7, I was thinking. Yeah, I mean, I've got to be... I'm playing a bit carelessly here as black, actually. Even in this position, I'm not sure, but yeah, I mean, it feels actually though, I have to say, I have to be... Is it some very... Why is she playing so fast? I mean, look at the clock. Joska is 25 minutes, she's got an hour and 15, and actually, if I recall, yesterday's game which Marcel played, she lost the game, having like 15 minutes on the clock and a winning position precisely because she hurried for some reason a lot and she played really, really fast. And I'm wondering, is she just bluffing or I'm not sure, why isn't she spending more time? I have absolutely no idea. Nevertheless, the position might just be okay. I mean, could just be okay, but ah, I've just cheated and I have to say that the computer has suggested something here which I didn't see, and if this works, it could be bad news because here, actually the move B-Fall is very, very strong and I missed that. Yeah, it looks, yeah, because we were so worried, you know, human beings, we were worried about the back rank here for white and we tried to first create a lift, but if you're a computer, of course you would, you would be able to just calculate each line very precisely, but perhaps Joe will be able to do that because there are not so many pieces on the board and I believe that he feels that he should have something here. Well, B-Fall is extremely strong potential because after the night moves, you just now give yourself, ah, he played King Giovanni, didn't find it. Yeah, as I was saying, it is very compelling to just, you know, solve the issues of the King's safety first because you don't want to even have the slightest opportunity to blunder. Yeah, and it's not as if, well, actually, this is a mistake because now after F-6, if white's best move is 93, then the positions are draw because you take- Wait, after B-take, C-4, no, no, no, no, go on with that variation, knight takes, rook takes, B-takes, rook C-3. Yeah, but this is just not gonna be enough for white. I don't, well, maybe. No, yeah, judging by the fact that the rook, actually I will be taking on C-4 with the rook maybe. But rook D-8. Ah, rook D-8. Yeah, that's unpleasant. And check here. It's just a draw. Yeah, it's just gonna, well, I mean, it's one of those ones where, you know, it is just a draw. I mean, this is- It's one of those two draws, yeah. No, this is an imprecise thing. But why is knight D-3 the best move after B-5? After F-6, sorry. So you wanna go knight G-4 or knight F-3 or something? Yeah, I was thinking about knight G-4, but perhaps, yeah. I just am not convinced that this position is enough for white with the isolated pawn. Like, even if I just play something like King G-7, let's say, how on earth is white better here? Not sure, very good question. I mean... Yeah, it's gonna be tough. Yeah, this was a real miss by Joe, actually, B-4. And here I am convinced that he's quite a lot better and has got great chances because- Yeah, because this pawn on C-5 is just so dangerous. Yeah, that's a pity he did not find that, but it's understandable because he's got less time than the clock and King G-1 just screams for it to be played. We did actually the same by playing H-3 trying to solve the issue of the back rank. Right, so... Let's carry on then. Let's go to Leandro Christ's game. That looks very interesting against Antonetta Stefanova. Believe it or not, look at this. We were saying he doesn't wanna take on B-3 because of Queen's D-4. What do we know? Because he did take on B-3 with the queen and allowed Queen's D-4, so black is now two pawns up. But white's got a lot of activity in forage. And after bishop F-4, Antonetta played Queen to B-4 because of course it would be a dream if black succeeds to trade queens. Queen B-4, queen C-2. Keeping the queens on. Queen C-5, this all looks familiar to me, by the way. Do you think it's still theory? Yes, I'm 100% sure it's still theory. I recognize this maneuver, Queen B-4, Queen C-5. But then there are a lot of similar positions where you make this, so yeah, perhaps both players were trying, oh, look at the clock, that can't be right. It is right, because Antonetta has 15 minutes. Well, it's an incredibly difficult position. Knight B to D-7 and now just takes, takes, and rook F-2-D-1 and, you know... Oh my goodness, but... Stylistically, as you know, I would never take black here. And I believe these positions are suited to very special kinds of players. Now, Antonetta is of course capable of playing at all types of position, but I'm not sure because already here I can see some major problems for black. For example, if you try and develop your pieces with Bishop E-7, I believe white can now just play the move Queen D-2. Queen D-2, hitting the knight. So the problem is that rook D-8 might not work as Bishop C-7, but you know, actually black has these additional ideas of trying to give some material back and hope to get compensation, but it's still not easy to find the best way of doing that. Yeah, and Bishop C-7 is just my backup idea, but my main idea is just to go knight D-5. Definitely. What about a move like Queen takes D-5, actually? Yeah, but Bishop takes... And E takes D-5. Yeah, but... How many pieces? Only two. Queen E-3. Not enough. Never enough. That's bad. Yeah, so I believe that's what Antonetta's looking at because once the queen moves, now this knight D-5 discovered attack on the queen looks just crushing and that's why she's spending so long here after rook F-D-1. Now, let's try and find another idea. If knight F-6, you also get crushed after knight... Just... Let me see here. Well, again, a queen move first might be really good, but... Actually, after knight takes B-5, I can take with the E-point, I believe. And it's not that bad, actually. I don't think there is mate here, right? Well, I'm not sure. Even this might be just winning for white. After, let's say, queen D-3. All right, so I go for... Where should I place my queen? Perhaps queen... Queen F-5, you might have. I was looking at queen A-3, but perhaps queen F-5... Let me put the queen on a better square if I can find one. Queen D-2, queen B-4 is awesome. Let's try queen D-2. Queen B-4? Yeah. Because I have this knight D-5 perhaps coming, so I'm still hoping to survive. So, queen D-3, you were going to go queen A-3. I'm not sure. I'm actually afraid of it, because you might have rook C-3. Yeah. Queen F-5? But then you've got E-4. No, let's try queen A-3, actually. And after rook C-3, I will go for queen A-6. It's an ugly move, but I'm protecting everything. And now I want to play B-7 and pray for a short castle. Yeah, there's just no need to do this as white. I mean, knight takes B-5 is not the move, but what I want to do is I just want to move my queen again. So I'll put the queen on D-2, let's say. No, but now that I'm looking at it, I don't know if it's that dangerous. Let's try queen B-6 here. Because I don't see immediate mate. And if I have time, as I was saying, for B-7 or even, yeah, B-7 perhaps in short castle, then I will be claiming that I'm winning with two points up. So actually, white has to be very precise and to use the time he's got ahead with that development very wisely. Did she play rook D-8 immediately? She played rook D-8 immediately with the knight on D-7. So that means that she's gonna, no, actually, after B-7, she can still play rook C-8 and it's all right, I believe. And what about moves like queen to D-2 now? Because you can't go away with the knight, the rook on A-1, D-8 is hanging. And now if B-7, B-7, we will transpose to our line. No, B-7, we have knight D-5. Wait, there is this knight D-5, right? So what do I do here? Queen B-6? Let's say queen B-6. No, it's not so bad actually. Maybe you've got some knight. Knight E-4. Knight E-4, but I was thinking that maybe I have C-5. It might be all right. Yeah, it might not be so bad, yeah. But the only thing I'm worried is of course the time because with 14 minutes on the clock for the rest of 25 moves remaining. But on the other hand, you just need two more moves here and then you will win this position, B-7 and short castle. If that works, black is safe, but I'm not sure it does. It will be very interesting to see how this one will develop. Oh, I think there's another idea as well. It's the move queen B-2. Queen B-2, but what about queen B-4 here? Yeah, and then I just put the queen on A-1 or something. So you want to say that after bishop E-7 you've got some knight move? I wanted to, but I don't know how I'm going to make it work. Because here, if you play bishop C-7, I believe I will just sacrifice that exchange castle short and then two plans should be all right for me for the exchange. Yeah, feels as though white has got options. I can't put my finger on it, but I would even say here that it wouldn't surprise me if white has a winning variation. Yeah, that's right. But I just can't work out in two minutes what that is. Let's see, let's see if Leandro comes up with something interesting there. Yeah, let's move on to another game. Should it be which one? Let's go to Bilal's game. We haven't been there for a while against Olga. Actually, this was the position I thought they were going to get at some point. We saw this crazy G-4 move on move five. And Olga reacted with C-5 and Bilal did take and Olga castled and he did just go with G-5, knight E-4 and we have something very similar to one of the lines we looked at, except a much better version for black because able to take back with the rook, knight E-2, knight A-6, bishop G-2. And now this E-3. Yeah, this interfering move E-3 because if you take immediately I take and I'm a pawn up, yeah. So Olga would rather try and fracture this structure irreparably like this and probably black is doing just fine because the pawns are so bad. So instead Bilal played knight E-4, takes, takes and takes on C-5. And this is exactly what I thought would happen. There would be a match trade and a trade of bishops. Well, how do you assess this position because you know, first of all, I thought that white is much better here because of that bishop on G-2. But then I see a very direct way for black to solve this problem and that's by playing rook A-8, I mean, rook B-8, yeah. And then bishop D-7 and my idea is to just trade bishops after bishop C-6. So the question is, does white have time to do something about it? If I play, did she just play rook B-8 or? Yeah, she did play rook B-8. So, yeah. It's again a question of time because if there's no time to stop this maneuver then it will be just probably, well, white will still be better because the king is already in the center and perhaps white could try to create a passer on the queen side, but probably that's not gonna be enough if I trade bishops. So, yeah. I'm struggling a bit to assess this one. I just agree with you. I think white is probably slightly better, but it's not at all clear to me what the most precise avenue is here. So, for example, let's say rook D-1. Now we'll play bishop D-7. And now let's say I play, I don't even know where to put this rook. I wanna go rook D-4, but let's say rook D-2. So I've got a choice here. Perhaps I don't actually. King of fate, I believe should be the move. Okay, I will double. And king to E-7. And here I will play a move like B-4. No, tell me, who is the opponent game after bishop to C-6. Well, that's exactly. I mean, you actually have to calculate all the way here. It's probably a draw. Probably, but... But it's so complicated. You can never know for sure. Right, I get my king on C-5 and maybe it's not. Maybe this is just winning. Yeah, because just to illustrate something like this, and now white has got a good move. Yeah, the point is that white can make this past pawn on the queen side, and then black will have to keep the king there. Then we give up that pawn and run to pick the other on the king side. Just over. Just winning, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, perhaps this is what white will try actually. And let's see, maybe I have something else because I don't have to play bishop C-6 right away. Maybe I could do something different. Maybe I could just play B-6, no? B-6 makes a lot of sense, yeah. It's a good move, I think. But then you might have C-5, I'm not sure. But now you can take. And go bishop A-4, perhaps. So now you're saying that the bishop and game are... Yeah, with just one pawn, I feel confident that black can hold. But you still have those pawns on the king side which look a bit... I was worried about moves like bishop to E-4. Yeah. Now H-6, G-takes, and I have time to... Yeah, it should be a draw though. But it's still white who's gonna play here. Sure. And yeah, these types of positions where you are slightly worse and you have to assess so many different kind of end games like the bishop end game, the pawn end game, a potential rook end game even. It's difficult to navigate through them and to, you know. But actually I believe that Olga is exactly the kind of player who should be able to do so because in Russian school, you know, first thing the kids are being taught are end games. Yeah. And if anyone should be able to make this one work out, it should be Olga, I believe. So yeah, we're gonna see. But a very interesting approach by Bilal and it seems like he's got what he wanted actually. He doesn't risk anything. And it seems to me like he will be playing for two results here. Yeah. All right, let's move on to another game. Let's go back to Hussain against Maria Muzichuk because this game was also wild. We last saw it around here, Queen B6 where Maria was teeing up here, crazy position with all kinds of stuff going on. Hussain did eventually go for not an ID to but Knight A3, very interesting move. Another way to develop the knight, the point being that if you take here, White's idea is to play Knight B5 probably and he has at least a draw in hand with a repetition against the Queen. Are you sure? Oh no, you have Queen C4. Yeah. Okay, so what's the idea here then? Maybe Knight DB5, can it be? What's the difference, Bishop? Well, I cover the C4 square now, but yeah, Bishop D7. I don't really want to take, feels wrong. Yeah, because I've got Bc6 and then G2 is hanging. Perhaps something like Knight to F5, could that... Knight to F5? I don't know. Does it make any sense at all or will you just take my lead? Yeah, I just think I can take. Yeah, I was hoping for some Rf4, but probably it's too much. No, it's too much, it cannot be the case. What else then? All right, let's try to make Knight A to B5 work. I believe it should be critical. Maybe just Knight C7 and Knight D5 after Bishop D7. Also is very plausible with some kind of serious attack. Yeah, it doesn't feel right to take on B2, but and Maria, sorry. Trusted Hussain on that one. What did I do? And yeah. Yeah, so she played instead the move Bd7, Knight c2, and now you definitely can't take because Rook here immediately wins the queen. Right. So Rook A to E8, and now Hussain very naturally protected his pawn and Maria tried Rf4 offering to trade in Qg6. And Rook A to F1 and we have this position here, which is a, I mean... I have to say that I prefer black here because it looks like black's king is safe. The knight on g4, as you were previously saying, is a very good piece. And the queen on d3 might run into some trouble at some point if there will be a discovered chuck or something. Yeah, I think black should be doing very well here. Yeah, I don't know about very well. It does feel as though black has some kind of control though. I have to admit. And it's not easy to find a way to make progress with white because the knight from c2 is not moving, it has to guard the e3 square. Then the knight from d4 is the only one which might move, but do we really want to play a move like knight to F5? Yeah, I agree. I'm not convinced. I don't know what the objective valuation is. Yeah, black is probably for preference. Yep, I agree. Maybe Hussein had to find something else slightly there, but all right, let's move on because I think there's a lot to be played there. Now, believe it or not. Oh, let's jump to the game of Balash versus Jhansayah because now we see on the board the idea which we were trying to make ourselves. This sacrifice with knight to d5. Actually, rook c5 was an interesting move because black wanted to bring it over to h5 and then create some threats against white's king. And perhaps now knight d5 might make even more sense here. Yeah, I mean, I love it. Just intuitively, I really like it. If he takes d5, you just take with the pawn and if black castles, you might throw in b4 first and then plant the knight on c6. And the problem is after takes, takes, black can't go 95 because of the pin. All right. And if you have to go back to b8 at the very least. Oh, that's not good. That knight on b8 is now actually in a sort of a jail, right? Because it will not have any valid moves. Now, this is just losing for black. Yeah, should be. Probably, or very bad at least. So I absolutely love it. Balash Chonka, the revelation of this tournament so far. This young international master from Hungary. And the player who really has chances for a G-Norm dish tournament. Well, if he wins today, he's big favorite to make the norm. Definitely. And I think Jensaja, feeling a little uncomfortable here, she doesn't look her... Actually, she's the kind of player who enjoys these types of positions for white because she likes to be on the part who has initiative. And, you know, being myself a player who likes the initiative, it often doesn't feel so nice when you are playing against, against what you wanted to have, you know? Because defending for a player who likes tactical and dynamic play might be not that easy. And I'm curious if Jensaja is gonna... Is gonna be up for the task today. Yeah, precisely. And, well, big, big test for Jensaja. Very, very big test. Now, she's very resourceful, she's a very confident player, but I must say I would take white every day of the week twice on a Sunday. Lunch, breakfast, and dinner. Right. Very difficult position for Jensaja. And the problem is, if you don't take on d5, you have to come up with moves that are not... She did take. Because it's the most principled way of answering. But now, after e takes d5, perhaps she wants to try something like king to f8. Do you think that that's possible? We get something very similar to what we just looked at. Porn to b4, the rook goes back and knight to c6. But here maybe I will be able to bring the knight to... Oh, I still cannot bring it to e5. No, you can't do anything. You're right. The queen can try to come to e8, but... Then rook e1 might be dangerous. Exactly, all your pieces are working, and the problem is your king never actually gets safe here because of this long diagonal. And... But you will have to come up with something after e takes d5. Yeah, I'm curious what she's going to do, but I'm not a fan of her position. I think White has got incredible counterplay compensation. And I am actually with 30 minutes left on the clock. I think Balash is a big, big favorite in this position. The moves flow, b4 is an easy move to find, rook e1 is an easy move to find, knight c6 is an easy move to find. Hell, even moves like knight e6, crazy moves, can work in some positions as well. But the danger from the other hand here is that he might sacrifice too much. Chancellor just needs one move which will stop White's threats, at least this idea with knight to c6. If she manages to stop it, then it might get a bit tricky for Balash to continue that attack because, once again, the price of a move is very high here. Right. Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to follow this one. Okay, we'll keep an eye on it. Big, big, big practical problems for Jens Seier. Let's go back to another game and let's have a look at the game. Let's quickly check in with Joe Gallagher because it looked as though Marcel had a way to stabilize, but I have to say Joe has managed to keep chances. It looks like probably he's got some chances still. We have this end game and... What knight on c1 is a bit weird? Yeah, it's a bit trapped at the moment. f7 is weak, but it is only one weakness, and I wonder if she can just play a move like rook c7 and be okay. Yeah, the question is if that knight from c1 isn't running in trouble, because if it's not, then there's not much to white's position here. But I don't see a way of trapping it because after rook f3, you could play probably knight a2, yeah, then the knight goes to c3. So whatever ideas could white try? Maybe bringing over the king somehow, but I should be careful because king e1 might run into trouble after rook e7, then rook takes e5 and knight e3 check. So yeah, I believe that black has solved most of the problems here. Yeah, doesn't quite feel like enough for Joe, does it? All right, so a missed opportunity. It looks like a little earlier there for Joe. Let's quickly check in. Well, I know we're not giving this game a lot of airtime, but there's a reason for that, and that's because the position is very quiet. This is Jillian against Marie. I think Jillian has done quite well, though. He's going to play the move knight d3 on the next move, controlling some squares and... What about a move like knight a5 here? Ah... I'm not threatening too much, but you know, I'm arguing that the pawn on a3 might be weak, so you should keep your rook there. And if you play b4, then I have the c4 square. A knight c5, e5 or something. Yeah, I actually prefer black's position here. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow. I might be wrong, but you know, the danger here, I have played myself these types of structures which look very symmetrical, but the point is that the white's pawn on a3 and b3, white should be very careful about them, because when you move one of them, either of them a4, for example, if you play, then the b4 square is weak. Then if you move the b pawn, then the white squares are weak. And actually, if white would have the b4 pawn b2, those problems wouldn't exist. But here, what is white going to do? No, I mean, for sure. I mean, I'm not exactly sure what white's plan is, but I don't think I would take black, but I understand what you're saying. It's not that easy to come up with a plan for... Actually, Marie just played knight, did she? Oh, no, she did not play it. It's still our line. Yeah, but no, definitely Jillian's did his best to be very solid today. And actually, I hope somehow that he will be able to stop his losing strike and, you know, because it's very difficult when you've lost so many games in a row. Absolutely. Let's go back to Eric Rosening and Gunai Mamatsata, and she actually played a line I was thinking of when we were looking at this. It's pretty much the position we looked at. King h8, bishop to d3 was played, and now she made a stand with... Bishop takes e5, takes knight d7. Oh, look, sorry, I'm just going to interrupt you, but I can't help noticing that Eric has a chess shirt today. I mean, do you also notice those things, or is it just us ladies who do that? No, it's just you. Because it's the first thing I'm thinking of when I look at Eric now and I see him on the screen that, oh, he's got a chess shirt. No, the first thing I think is his ugly mask. I mean, have you seen an uglier face mask than that? Eric Rosen. Come on, man. You can do better than Mustard. You are asking for trouble. Oh, come at me, chat. Come at me. No, the first thing I notice in this position is, well, talking about the position, this is what I thought Gunai would play, knight c5, bishop c2, and now this is one of the typical ideas, which is to go bishop a6. Right. Right, and the point is this d3 square is weak, right? And I was actually thinking of this variation, castles, and if Gunai plays knight d3 check, Eric can just go king b1, and the knight actually performs... It looks dangerous, but it's not, because the knight's coming here next, and the knight is just suddenly very exposed. And the bishop on a6 is weird after that one. Right, so she played bishop d3, and the point here is she's trying to exchange the light square bishops, and now Eric plays a very interesting move, the move queen to h2. So basically, I believe that he wants to prepare g4 and g5. Yeah, and he wants to just try and find a route through to this king, and I have to say, if I'm Gunai, I'm still slightly concerned, because white's play is very automatic. I would say that one idea for Gunai here is to play the move queen c8. Queen c8, ah, so you want to go for the light squares? Yeah. But should I be worried about it? Well, possibly not, but it's certainly a move on my radar. Yeah, that's actually an interesting one, because now after g4, you can play queen to a6, and I don't... Ah, actually I have king b1, surprisingly. Well, just by the skin of your teeth, I mean, I can take on a2-rk1 is your claim, but I can't give this check. That's not exactly what I was hoping for, actually, but... Maybe I can. Ah, now the point is that you want to play knight to d3. Yeah, that's a very good scenario for black. Of course, it's not like white is forced to allow that. After queen c8, perhaps, we could consider something else like knight move. After queen c8? Yeah. Like knight f3? Yeah, why not? Okay, and if I go queen a6? All right, so after bishop d3, you still have knight d3, and then the pawn on f2 is hanging. Exactly. No, that doesn't feel quite right either. So what do I do after queen c8? I have absolutely no idea, actually. Feels like the tide is turning here for good night. You know, some part of me... I think I would take black here, actually. I just think that white's whole setup is a little bit... I have an insane idea here. What if I play b4? b4, that is insane. That has to be completely nuts. Well, you probably want to take on c2, right? Probably. King takes, Yana. The question is, where do you place that knight? Don't say knight a4. Not knight a4. I was actually trying to make queen a6 work here, show it away. Oh, yeah, that might be a problem, actually. But what if I take the knight? Yeah, queen takes a2, check. And then I run to d3. Yeah, and I was just thinking, can I play this position? I think white should be all right here after king e2. Probably. Probably is not king d3. But actually, we have a move, I believe. Can I play something else, I guess, because her queen looks like it's still on d8. She went for f6. And that was the plan which I was trying to make work some moves ago, right? Because here upon... Well, actually it's not upon sacrifice anymore, now that the pawn on f2 is not protected. Her point is that after e takes f6, she will take back with the queen. And now e5 is a threat. And then if black gets these nice pawns in the center, then might be a problem. And actually, I'm not sure what do we do after? Perhaps something like knight f3 already is necessary. But now I can just do this, I can take... No, no, immediately, instead of e takes f6. Ah, sorry, sorry. Knight f3, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, I think he'll probably do that. And now, probably you have to take. Yeah, but it feels that black has no problems at all, actually. Yeah, it doesn't feel bad for black at all. Yeah, a little bit... Maybe it was a bit premature to castle on the... But who knows? Perhaps it was altogether all right for black, right? Yeah. Because you didn't make any mistakes. Like, all the moves were quite logical. Okay, knight c6 was a bit weird, but it had its ideas. So, yeah, I believe that Guna is doing fine in this game. And actually, Eric is the one who has to be careful not to get carried away here. Because now his king might also have some issues on the light squares, right? Yeah. Okay, let's keep on going. Let's go back to Yovanka Huzka's game, because I was saying that I was very concerned about her position a while ago. It was around here where I felt like white's play was fairly straightforward. Let's see what happened. Knight d4, bishop g6, and indeed h4, as we spoke about, trying to cramp this bishop. And the bishop, basically, we had this position on the board. And in fact, we had something... I think we had exactly this one. Yeah, maybe even. Rook e3, king moved to h8, and queen to d2. It's a very standard play by Ravi. Knight c5, that's a good move, because the knight is heading towards e4, which white doesn't have good control over. And actually, I believe the knight landed there a few moves later. Yeah, so rook here, queen to e7, and now very radical decision by Ravi. In general, you don't want to play this move, because you give yourself a backwards pawn on c3. So it's a very, very double edged move, and the timing of it has to be perfect. But let's see if it is. So Ravi, knight e4, he takes. You're attacking the queen, you have to take, and now just queen e2, and kicking the knight with f3. But where, wait, where do I place my knight? Well, you can put it on g5. I don't think it's the best square the knight has. But on the other hand, that bishop on f1 also isn't the greatest piece. Actually, I like how black is doing here. Yeah, I think her position has improved. Yeah, perhaps taking on c6 was not the greatest, but then... No, you had to. Yeah, combined with b4, you don't really have a choice, right? Yeah. No, I believe Ravi went into this specifically, and I wonder what his idea... Maybe he just wants to go a3, protect the pawn, maybe now c5. Yeah, it looks actually quite... This bishop is actually decent, and this knight, it's safe. I actually kind of prefer black here. I don't know what Ravi did, but he did some things that just didn't feel right. b4, I mean, this is really just... Yeah, b4 probably was... But then again, the knight is coming to e4. What about just playing rook h3? Because if you go knight e4, I'd just go queen e3. So what's the difference? The difference is you did not take on c6. Exactly. And now when I go... Let's say black now goes rook c8. Now when I go f3, knight g5, I can go rook g3, and actually this knight now is just under attack. Yeah, it seems like a better version for white. Much better version. Yeah. Yeah, b4 I absolutely hated, and he spent 11 minutes on it. And I didn't... I just, again, intuitively didn't feel right, but... Maybe he's got some idea to it. But judging by what I see on the clock, it seems that he's not having an easy time finding moves he likes. Right. So, yeah, good to see Yobanka playing a good game so far, because she was struggling until this point of the tournament. And yeah, that's going to be interesting. It is. Let's quickly check in with Sabina Brunhela and Pio Kramling. We'll look at the position right now. And we have a kind of typical position that we've been looking at with the bishop now, landing on b2. But my question is, what's going on after e4? So, you want to play e5, but actually I can just ignore it and go for knight c4, I believe. Because my point is after... Yeah, let's say take, take, e5. I've got queen d5 or queen c6, and then I threaten mate on g2, so you don't really have time to take my knight from f6. And actually, I really like what Pio did, because if you were watching from the beginning, I was struggling to find a good plan for black. And she went for a different one, one which I didn't think of, taking on d4 and only then playing knight a5. And I guess the idea is to go for knight c4 and try to win one of the bishops. I mean, not win, but trade one of the bishops. And then if Y doesn't have any more of the pair of bishops, black should be doing fine, right? Okay, I'll tell you a move that I love here for white. Which one? d5. That's a very unexpected one. But yeah, I can see what you mean. What if I take on d5 with a pawn? Well, yeah, so we'll discuss that. But just to illustrate, if you take with a piece, the point is I see a tactic. So any piece it takes, I have e4. And if you take with the pawn, now I have the f5 square to work with. So the question is, let's say I go knight a5. And do you want to go for those sacrifices again? I can smell it. Yeah, you're right, I do. You probably have to go queen e6 or queen d7 here. Yeah, I think queen e6. No, but I'm running into sorts of e4. No, queen e6, e4 now is gorgeous. Yeah, look at this. And then g7 is hanging. You can't take it because of this. Oh my goodness. And if queen d7, now I've, well, now I just take on g7. And after king g7? Well, I have a few ideas here. But you don't have queen g4 at least. I don't have queen g4, but I have some ideas. So one idea is just to play bishop takes f6 check. King takes. Queen d4 check. All right, where should I run away? Perhaps to. You can probably go to g6 though. This is the only problem. All right, because after bishop e1, I've got f5. And now knight b3 will be a threat perhaps. So I don't intuitively like bishop takes f6. And I wanted to go e4 anyway. How is this? Now my threat is to go e5, e6 check. Or rook e3, rook g3. It might not be enough though because I think I have d4. d4 here? And after bishop takes d4, rook f2, d8, I was hoping. But even this, like in the worst case, queen f3 check. Wait, wait, you still have only one pawn, I mean. Yeah, but it's, yeah, no, you're sure. I mean, it's, this might, okay. And if I go e5 here? e5 looks good, yeah. But then, can I, no, queen c6, you'll just protect it. Well, queen c6, I can check. Ah, you can take on f6 with check, right? So where do I move? Yeah, I don't like this. Well, again, I'm just spitting moves out here. Maybe knight g4. Knight g4, e6. Is it working? Ah, wait, yeah. Oh, that's not easy, yeah. After, maybe then I don't have to play d4. But I just really wanted to close that diagonal because that bishop looks so dangerous. Meanwhile, did Sabina do something else? Or was it? By the way, we did, I did just cheat and the comp has confirmed that I'm okay. Yeah, so you're doing great today. You should have been playing on the main stage. I really should. I really should. How didn't they pick me? In fact, what the computer is saying, really nice. Look at this. After d5, e5, just e4 immediately. This is gorgeous. So thematic opening up the bishops. Yeah, it is so good. And e5 is a threat, yeah. And I believe that's actually good news that Sabina played something differently, right? It's good news for the women's team, yeah, because he played e4 and now Pierre quickly put the knight in on c4, predominantly because of what you were saying before, that after takes, takes, e5, there is no peace win because you threaten mate. So I actually believe e4 is quite a serious blunder or mistake allowing knight c4. And now I feel like black should be fine-ish. Maybe Sabina will take anyways. But this is a dream semi-Tarash, I believe. I think you actually want for black, I mean. No, no, no, no. Isn't it? No. Why not? Because after d5, things are still very difficult. Your point is that I cannot play e5 because of knight f5. Exactly. I mean, I can't play, but it looks a bit weird. It's over. Yeah, is it? Yeah, queen c7, d6. All right, then queen b8, not queen c7. Queen b8? This is just horrible. Is it? This? This is like over. I would say this is like close to losing. Queen d2. And so your point is that you want to go for queen g5. This just has to be over. I mean, even if I just play positionally with f3, I mean, if we just take a look here, amazing knight, protected pass pawn, weakness here, this is... Yeah, that bishop on b7 isn't a happy piece. All right, so after d5, what do I do here with black? Then I could still be very, very difficult. Maybe, I mean, Semina will play d5 here. There's no question about it. It's thematic. You're opening the position. You're also, I mean... Wait, what about to move like knight to d7? Okay, knight to h5. I was trying to make f6 work, but I'm not sure it does. Queen g4. Now e6 is hanging. And perhaps I could just continue with queen e7. It looks very dangerous. You're braver than me. It looks very dangerous, but I just need one move to consolidate. Now, I mean, d5 is hanging for now because your queen is pinned. Where do I place the knight on c5? Let's try knight c5 first. I want to try and get that e4 pawn. Okay, worst case scenario, I play f3 and I'm probably a bit better as white. There is some knight d3 coming up. Okay, so let's say I go rook a d1, which is my first instinct here. What if I take on e4 with the rook? And bishop takes. I think the worst is behind already. No, no, no, no. No? Bishop g6 is coming. Yeah, but I've got some tactics here. If you've got some tactics, then I will believe you, but other than that... I think I've got some tactics here. Which one? Something with knight f6? Yeah, there's stuff. No, but I believe it's fine for black, actually. Not sure, but it should be. You think this is fine for black? I mean, that knight on c5 is covering a lot of important squares. The computer doesn't agree with me, it seems. Well, I think that earlier as well, there was probably something. But I mean, in general... Yeah, it looks dangerous because you have to find very precise moves in order to keep it safe for black's king. And that's actually something that the opposite colored bishops are good at. Oh goodness. Well, if d5 queen f4 is the move, then congratulations. No, but it's not now thinking that every time you try to bring the queen to the king side, it actually makes sense. Yeah, it does. It's a good move. I didn't see that. Me neither. But that's the reason why it doesn't work. But I mean, before I'm very surprised that he didn't find d5 because... Yeah, it looked like it was a better version of all those ideas against black's king. It just looks great for white. Okay, so Pia hanging on in there. What about Antonetta? She has got five minutes for 23 moves. That's tough. But actually Leandro has been thinking a lot as well because he had like one hour, 10 minutes, two moves ago, and now he's got 35 minutes. And they went for some line, which we did not discuss. Somehow, white's bishop landed on a5. Well, I guess the idea is clear that white wants to keep control over the d8 square. But then how do you continue that attack? Because black has one simple, very simple idea to go. Bishop is seven and short castle. I know that you probably think now that you prefer white. Well, no, I mean, everything depends on this move because bishop is seven castles and it's... But wait, there is also the threat of b4 immediately and I'm winning. Am I not? Ah, b4 is the threat as well. Wait, but couldn't she play that? No, she couldn't. Because then there was the intermediate probably Qd2 or Q2, something and then... Yeah. Okay, so let's have a think here, knight of six. Antonietta. Okay, there's a lot to calculate here. This is not something you can just do in five seconds. Let's see. Actually, I see that the question in the chat was already answered. Men are leading with plus four. So it's very important around today if the ladies want to close the gap, they need to try to win some games here. But most importantly, not lose any of them because today all the ladies play with the black pieces. So perhaps they could try to get a point where they can and the others maybe they could try and draw them and then they will have a chance tomorrow with all whites. So yeah, that's going to be very exciting to follow. So meanwhile, did you come up with something? I didn't come up with anything just to... I mean, I'm trying to make knight takes b5 work. It's one of the moves. Knight b5? Yeah. What is that? Well... Queen... Okay, let's say I go... I have two ideas. First to take on c2 and the other one is to take on b5. Yeah. So let me take on c2 first. Okay, I take... And now a takes b5. Yeah, and here I wanted to play rook takes c6. What is that? Doesn't work, does it? Bishop takes. Yeah, you just go... Unfortunately, king e7, bishop b4 is mate, but you've just got rook takes c6 and it's not mate, unfortunately, because you have king e7. So that just doesn't work. So I'm trying all the sacrifices. What happened you took on c2 and I don't have any useful intermediate checks, right? I don't think so because then I will be able to capture it. And here there's nothing here, right? Rook... Shouldn't be. Well, even here it's not... I mean, it is... It should be over. But rook d7? Yeah, rook d7, rook b1. You're going to put a knight on d5, right? Yeah, definitely. No, no, this can't be right. Yeah. Okay, so probably this doesn't work. Okay, I still feel like I want to move the queen to be able to threaten knight discovery. So what if I play the move queen d2? All right. So the critical line should be something about b4, I guess. No. No? I don't think so because I think... Are you not running into stuff immediately after knight d5? Actually, I might be. Yeah, because now after queen a5 you have a pretty mate. Yeah, I can't afford playing b4 then. So that means that I have probably to go away with the queen. But where do you go? Not sure because I really like that b6 square, but now that bishop on a5 is covering it. What about something like... No, but I don't want to put it on e7 either because then how do I develop my pieces, right? Exactly. Here, actually, now I start to get really excited about the brilliancy prize because now... You want to take on b5, don't you? Well, I'm certainly thinking about it, but I can also... I've got a lot of ideas here. I think that doesn't work for now. But yeah, queen a7 just feels wrong because I will need so many more moves to finish the development. That might actually be already trouble for black. If you go... I have to play knight a6. Yeah, and it's just losing here. Any move is winning for white, queen d6 or...? Yeah, queen d6 looks very convincing. And something like this... But that's bishop on b7. Yeah, and now you just need, I don't know, some... Some kind of accurate move, rook a5, let's say. And then bishop a4 will be coming or even queen... Or even this might win. It might not, though. I mean, you don't have to do this, of course. No, that's probably a bit overoptimistic. It's probably still winning because you've got this. All right. And after rook c5, you've got rook d8, mate. Now, yeah, I have to say I struggle to find a defense for black after this queen d2 move. Should we cheat? No. You don't want to cheat? No. So queen d2. The players are in a difficult place. Let us be there also for them. Okay, queen d2. So what move does Antoinette have here? My threat is knight d5 or knight e4. Right. What about a move like... No, but queen a3 doesn't make much sense. So let's say, yeah. No, wait. It actually makes sense. Which one? Queen a3. So let's try queen a3, yeah. My idea was to continue with knight e4, bishop e7, you know. Okay, I'm going to go knight takes b5 now. Knight takes b5? All right, I have to take back. And rook takes c6. Am I already... I think I'm not losing. Bishop e7, bishop takes c8, king f8. I'm running for my life here, but... You are running. Not quite mate, is it? No, it's not. I've got a piece for now. I wanted to show you a really pretty move though, that after here... I can do... Sorry. Actually, you can just take with the bishop on c6. Yeah, and after king e7, I wanted to show queen d8 check. And bishop takes d8. Oh, that's a beautiful mate. Right. Very nice one. But my spidey senses are telling me this is losing for black. You think? Maybe I can even start with the bishop here. What if I take with the bishop? You can't take with... That might be problematic, actually. Yeah, because this and now this. But wait, wait, wait. Don't hurry here. Okay. No, I have to take with the bishop. But now after rook c6, I've got to think. So I'm still a piece up, right? Yes. Let's try a move like rook to a... Oh, please don't spot rook a6. Well, rook a6, of course, I have spotted. The good news is I've spotted rook a6, but I want more. What if I just play queen to c2? Queen c2 looks... But I have a nice resource here. Okay. It's bishop c5. Oh, nice. Yeah, now I want to castle. And my worries are behind, I believe. Oh, that's nice. Oops, sorry. And you just want to castle. Yeah. Okay. My spidey senses tell me this loses. I will... And she put the queen on a7, by the way. Maybe that's better, actually. By the way, he did play queen d2 and queen a7. Maybe that's better. No. I think it leads to the same result. Might be, but you have to prove it with white. As I was saying, I need one move and I'm fine. If I have time to play bishop e7, you don't have any attack. You have to make your tactics work here. God, I would love to just play this move, but it just doesn't work. Just... And look, Leandro is going himself a bit down on the clock. Of course, he still has the advantage of 20 minutes, but he's gonna, I believe, take as much time as he can here to figure out the best way for white to continue, because if there are no tactics, black is to puns up. Oh, yes. And he took. Baby. He took. I knew it. But I think he might be missing something. No. A takes b5. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't miss something here. Okay. I think he might be. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All right. So where is the mate? Bishop takes c6. Well, he might go with the rook. Let's say we go with the rook. But didn't we look at something very similar? No, it was different. All right. So, bishop e7. Bishop e7. Okay. Let's try this one first. So I take. Rook c8. Bishop c8. And yeah, this is just anking f8 we were doing, right? I even have bishop d7 here with the queen on a7. Let me think. Let me think. Let me think. But he took on b5 and a takes b5 is probably forced. Let's stop here. Great calculation exercise. Definitely. You don't play an a takes b5 without having it worked out as a win. You just don't. There's just no way you can play this. Okay. So let's try the archaic way. Bishop takes c6 check. I must take back with the bishop because rook c6 runs into queen d8 mate. So rook takes c6. Now I again cannot take on c6. Same reason. So I have to move my rook. The problem is that I might be running into some rook c7 later. That's a nice spot. But perhaps I could try something like it looks ugly but queen a or queen b7. Not sure which one is better. Queen b7 might run into your rook c7 move. Ah, yeah, definitely. Okay. So queen a8. Okay. So queen a8. And now where is the mate? Where is the mate? I really hope that there is no mate, but no. But actually you don't have anything to lose here as black. Because either the tactics work and you lose, either you don't. So it's very easy to play here. And I believe that even having three minutes on the clock, you just have only moves here, right, with black. There is not much to think about. And it's actually Leandro's turn to show his tactics. I don't see a way to win immediately actually. I don't know. Am I missing something? Must be. Must be missing just. I don't see it. No, definitely. I mean, bishop. Why are you so confident? I'm so surprised. No, because I just don't see mate. Like I understand, but like we've been looking at it for five minutes and he's looked at it for like 40 minutes. But because you know in this type of position, it's so easy to get compelled with white just to sacrifice something. You know actually this year, earlier this year, I played the European Women's Championship. And I had this game where there was a Rui Lopez. But with let's say four tempests up for me as white. And I had a dream position. All of black's pieces were on the last two ranks. I had 40 minutes and my opponent had one minute. And actually I felt so much pressure and I eventually went for a sacrifice, which I felt that should work. But my opponent just kept making the only moves and I eventually lost that game. Okay. So I can, you know, I can relate to this one. And... Well, yes, I mean... There are dangers for white too. That's just what I was going to point out. I mean, you either win or lose this game. There is no in between now. So either this... And psychologically it's already easier to play for black because you somehow agree that, yeah, I'm in trouble. I might be losing. But, you know, you are calm with that. She should have had enough time to accept that. And now it's Landro's turn to prove that tactics work. Surely something works. Let's try to make it work. Okay, let's keep on trying. So we tried Rook... So Rook takes c6, you were going Bishop e7, right? Yeah. Okay. Is there anything else genius here? No, because now... Yeah, I just want to castle. So Rook c8, Bishop takes c8 and Bishop to c6. Looks quite... Quite forcing action. Do we miss some mid? No, because Rook c8, Bishop c8, Queen d8. The Rook on d8 will be unprotected. I don't see the mid. I don't see it. Maybe Bishop is 6. Okay, let's try this. So Bishop takes... So Bishop takes c6, you were taking? Yeah. With Bishop, yeah. And Queen a8, yeah. It might be here that we miss something. Because it looks very scary, I must say. But the knight on f6 is protecting d7, and you don't have a way to attack it immediately, right? And try and distract it. What move are we missing? It should be something, but I failed to see it. Maybe something like Rook d6, could that one work? Probably not. No, it's not working. I don't see it. Surely he doesn't go for this. Wait, there can... Oh, go on. No, no, it's just false alarm. God... Oh, this is frustrating. Oh, this is frustrating the hell out of me. Batboy says it's too tactical for poor Lawrence. Pat, it's Lawrence with a W. And anytime you want a game, my friend, you know where to find me. You can show me your superior play. I'm sure you'd be more than willing to do so. Yeah, actually, we are having quite a tough time with this position, but that's exactly why there is so much pressure on the players right now, because if Landau would see the winning, he would have played it right away. But he's taking some time, and I believe... I believe he might not be that sure anymore. Let's have a look. So, Nb5, let's try this again. Ab5, Bc6, Bc6, Rc6. Queen a8. Queen a8. It looks critical, yeah. It also could be something like Rxc8, Qxc8. Yeah, we're trying to make Rc1, because you can't go Bc5, because I can take, and Qd8 made. And when you go Qd7, I was wondering, do I have just a half a move here like Qc2? I might be not enough. Because Bb7, Qc8, check. All right, even Bd8 might be all right. Bd8, I take. Queen takes. And Qc6. Nd7. Rd1. No, but it's not enough for winning. Probably not enough for winning, but you'd be surprised if I take on B5 and the aporn starts rolling. I mean, I don't know. It's probably not enough for winning. Maybe you can go Kf7, Kf6 or something. But I could even play something like h5 and rook h6. Do I have enough time for that? No. I mean, you do, but it's, it's, I wouldn't know. Well, I mean, I would never play it. But yeah, I mean, maybe, maybe, but I don't know. I just start running. Let's say I go for e5. And now I play Qc8. Worst case, I play a6. But then it's a draw. It's a draw, yeah. Yeah, probably not more than a draw here. But I could also try the rook b6 and get ambitious. Where? After a6. Rb6. Rb6. Oh, am I blundering? Oof, I might have blundered. Yikes. Yeah, yeah, this, this is, this is the absolute, I mean. Yeah, it looks weird, but it just might be all right. Wow. It looks like white would, white lacks a few tempests. I'm not sure. I'm very curious to see what Landros idea is here, but I believe he's slightly worried. And if I see correctly, he's shaking a bit his head. Isn't he? This game is really interesting, but meanwhile we've had two results actually. Oh yes, we have, yeah. So two draws between Julian and Marie. A good result for Julian because he had some tough games and some tough losses. And Joe made a draw against Marcel. It was that game where we saw an end game actually, quite early on. So, yeah, all the logical, I believe, so far. And there are eight more games in progress and all of them are really interesting. Should we check the game between Balash and Josiah because Balash also sacrificed the piece. Yeah, let's go there. It was that 95. My word. Look at this position. All right, let's quickly go back and see what happened because something similar happened to what we were looking at. So an 85, 85, 95, blocking, which is natural, before kicking the rook, and then throwing in this knight to c6, taking advantage of the fact that f6 is weak. So if you take this way in the end. But weren't we trying to make f4 work first? He chose knight c6 immediately, no? Yeah, he did. I don't know why he did this first, but well, maybe the reason is that Bishop takes c5 is a threat here. All right. So she went queen c8 and now the point is he gets this b5 construction, right? Which is effectively his compensation. And now c5. Look at this move. What? c5. Ah, it's beautiful. It's just great. I mean, it looks great anyway. Yeah, it looks very, very nice. I mean, maybe he's just crushing a b takes c5. I'm a bit worried about his time that he doesn't have so much left. Just six minutes. Yeah, but f4 kicking the knight and now b6. But wait, you have sacrificed quite a lot. But this pawn is, yeah, this is what she played, but hold on it. This looks, this looks... Because after b6, c6, there is queen c6 and mate on h1 is coming. There is, yeah. I think, I think it's not that easy. Did he make a mistake? Oops. So what's his idea after b6, rook c6? Maybe he needs to go rook e1. Yeah, definitely. That should be the case. Maybe that's what he wants to do. It's still not winning. I mean, I have to make a guess, very ugly move, which is knight to g8. Knight to g8? But wait, I also have rook c7, maybe. I have to... No, rook c7 is terrible. Okay, knight g8. No, but this looks bad, I would like. But this looks bad. I'm only a b7, right? Yeah. Queen takes, what to do? Take on g4? It's over. Oh, it is. Finished. It actually is. Yeah, rook e1 is a good move. Why do I do after it? To know, maybe it's just game of the tournament, basically. Wow. Rook e1, I'm attacking the bishop, I'm threatening mate. You can't move the queen because this guy drops. That's just completely... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, what we got? Let's not hurry. What we got? Let's try rook c7. Rook c7? Yeah. I'm sacrificing the next change, what to do? I mean, I have two plans for now. Bishop f3. And you want to take... Yeah. Or queen takes a6. Oh, guys, it's... But wait, after bishop f3, maybe I still have rook h2. Queen takes a6 was probably winning, but it's complete. But I just go queen takes a6. Wait, wait, wait. Do I have no hopes at all here? No. I mean, I have two amazing bishops. Yeah. I'm a big exchange up. Am I... I'm not even a pawn down. Unfortunately, I will have to agree with you. And I believe he's going to play the move, rook e1. No, this is just a masterpiece by Balash. Chonka. Balash, the chomper, he'll be called after this tournament. This, I believe, will be the game of the tournament if it's winning for a while. I mean, it's just a crush. I haven't seen such a beauty in a long time, actually. What a crush. And I see zero moves. Maybe her best move is to go back with the knight, actually. But even after takes now, both is hanging and this is just... Wow. What a masterpiece. Yeah, that's... I mean, we're going to have to get Balash in the studio. That's a fantastic game. Yeah, I mean... But he, you know, I could feel his excitement for the last time he came to the studio after one of his wins. And then after that one, he won one more. And today, I believe, might be the third one in a row, right? Could be, yeah. Could be three in a row. Wow. That's just amazing. Let's have a look at the game of Eric versus Gheonai because it also promised to be very exciting. So, let's see. Not so exciting. Looks bad for Eric or at least looks good for Gheonai. I mean, at least okay for Gheonai. There are some knightage for ideas, though. But you could probably take on F2. Yeah, only the only problem Gheonai's got is her time on the clock, which is only two minutes for 18 moves, as somebody was saying in the chat. But the position, yeah. The position looks quite good for Black, I have to say. Yeah, looks just fine. I mean, I think we should stay with the Chonga Balash game because it's just... Definitely. Or we go back to very quickly. Let's go back to Leandro. Well, he hasn't made a move yet. So, maybe he miscalculated something. Maybe you're right. I am so curious, though, here, if there's a win. I think so. Yeah! And I've got it right. Well, I mean, White is doing very well. No, but I mean, Black isn't losing. Yeah, a knight takes B5 might just be a draw. After... So, takes. Oh, but... Takes. After rook c6. Queen a8. And now queen... It's our variation, actually. Yeah, but White has to find a very difficult move here. Queen c... Ah, queen c... I think I said queen c2 at some point. But queen c3, apparently, is the move. And the point is if you take on c6, I go rook d8 check. And I have a perpetual, weird perpetual. Yeah, because otherwise Black is getting too much material. But... He went rook takes c6. It's just... It's terrible after bishop e7 and... Right. What's his idea after bishop e7? I don't know. He wants to just... You know, he's thinking... I think we went for this variation. But after bishop d7, White is busted. Maybe he wants to go rook c1, rook c7. That's what he wants to do. That's what he wants to do. Rook c1, rook c7. I think Antoinette is going to find her way through these variations. Because as I was saying, she's forced to find only moves. And that's the danger when you sacrifice a lot of material. Yeah, very interesting. And actually, I did not expect this game to be that aggressive because Leandro has been playing positional chess up to this point. He wasn't going for so many tactical complications. I'm very surprised. And I guess we'll see if Eti is... Let's see. And she does go, but should be 7, of course. Bishop is 7, yeah. And now he has to take and go rook c1. But big danger now for Leandro. Probably should have bailed out with the draw. I wonder if before, all the way back here, sort of after bishop a5, knight f6, if he has something. And again, my gut tells me he does. But no, apparently just... Probably just enough compensation, but... Yeah, but bishop d8 is just the most ridiculous move. I mean, it's a beautiful move because you're threatening takes in here and you're stopping bishop e7. I mean, this move is just... They throw gold coins on the board, but it might not be much after... He didn't do it because of knight d5, but yeah, and now he had to find the ridiculous move, bishop h4. Well, it's... And now you're threatening e4, knight takes c3, and queen d8, mate. Right. I mean, this is just stunning. This is next level. I mean, somebody like Rapport or something like that would find bishop d8, but all right, can't be too hard on the guy. Yeah, I think he might regret for being over ambitious in this game because I believe that Antoinette would have been otherwise happy with a solid draw with black. And if he's going to lose this one, it will be a great moment for the women's team. Huge. Yeah, because as we've seen, we probably think that Balash might be winning against Janssaya, right? No, this is just... And then this will compensate for that. Yeah? Yeah, over. Game over here, probably, yeah. We don't see actually Janssaya surviving this one. Oh, let's check another game. Let's check the Bilal versus Ogath quickly. This one, wow, Bilal is... He has made quite some progress, right? Yeah. This is a slightly unpleasant ending for black because I can now take and enter at will. But I can play rook c7, maybe. Oh, but it's white to move. But I think her idea is after take, she wants to take with the pawn. With the pawn? Yeah, because I think she wants to have some... But where do I place my king on e8? On e8 or f8? It looks... But yeah, I get doubled, right? No, I think she wants to take with the rook on c6. Okay. And after check... Because then maybe I could play something like... I'm not sure... Yeah, it looks like... Because king... Kind of a trouble. King e6, I want to go... King e4, no? And now if black does something... Let's say f5, g takes. Well, f5 is critical, but I'm just saying if black does anything else, then white has b5. Yeah, now after rook c5, there is rook 1 to d6 made. Exactly. So f5, let's say I take, but I can just take on h7. But I could take maybe... With the king? But it looks bad after rook d6, and I'm just winning the pawn on e5. But perhaps this one is... No, this is losing. No, it might be. Even rook f1 check here is just crushing. King e6, rook g7. But wait, I can play king g6 maybe? Yeah, king g6 and then I go rook g1. With the... And I just double. Yeah, it looks... I must say that it looks quite bad for black. This is very bad. But what do I do then after? Maybe actually b takes c6, then should be the way, right? Good check. Maybe here she wants to go king e6, unbelievably. But isn't she running in trouble after king... No, rook takes b4 check. King g4, that's a good point. And what about rook 1 to d6? And maybe she wants to just run. Rook f7, king g4. But actually you might want to consider even moves like... No, king f3 is probably all right after e4. So king g4, yeah? Rook g7, let's say? Or which pawn should I take? Rook g7 probably. Yeah, rook g7, why not? But now you take on b4 or on h4. No, it looks like black is in big trouble and... He didn't play it. He didn't. What did he do? He played h5, so why can't you just take on c6? Yeah, that's crazy. Wow, but h5 seems like... h5 is probably good, but bishop takes c6 is just... We switched on the computer and it's plus 8, and it's a really easy plus 8. Yeah. And h5 gives black a chance because rook c7 now defends the second rank. Not playing bishop takes c6 here is absolutely bizarre to me. I just don't understand what's going on. Because like... Bishop c6. Something like this, king e8 and now king e4 just flows. Perhaps he was worried about to move like b6. No. Yeah, this one looks bad. It's all-winning. Yeah, it's actually over, probably. It's just all-winning. Yeah, I have to agree. Weird one. It's strange. But even after h5, it is true that Bilal is just still dominating. Wait, maybe he wants to take the point on h7 actually. Rook c7? He wants to just take? It's possible. Why not? But wait. Well, you will have to deal with most like rook h8 there. G6. G6, maybe I could play h6. But then you have h6. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm afraid this position might be lost for Olga. Yeah, it looks bad for Olga. Irrespective of what she does here, it looks... Yeah, so this one is trouble for the ladies team. Let's try to find a game where the ladies are doing fine. What about the game of Maria versus Hussein? Well, she's doing more than fine here. She's got an ending where she's a pawn up. Yeah, she's a pawn up and active. Is it enough? That's a big question. Yeah, I'm not sure. Probably is. But where do you play your king? Now I have a f5 maybe. Well, the lone ranger. Rc2. King g3. Ah, Rc2, king g3. And if I take, you want to just go. Yeah, run. Okay, got to be a little bit careful here. Yeah, this was what I was... Wasn't sure. But maybe you have d4, right? d4? And f6, rook c7. But I'm worried it's still not enough. Now rook e4. And king d5, rook e7, ah. Or rook e7 is actually interesting. But let's say I take d3. Can I go rook g7 here? Perhaps. Yeah, might be the case. Yeah, might not be enough. Maybe king to the other direction. What if king f6? Ah, king f6, okay. And now what if I play rook e5? I want to protect it with rook d3. Okay. And try to contain white's king on h2. Let's say g3. And now I will start to push the pawns on b5. Okay, I'm gonna come. b4. Yep. Rd2. Yep. Ra2. Yep. And the rook g2. Actually even rook b2. Yeah, I was thinking about rook b2 actually. Could be unpleasant still for white. Yeah. Might have to try some f5, but I'm... Wait, what? Rook takes b3. King f4. I isn't. It's just bad. Should just be bad. Ah, yeah, h5. I mean, you're holding on to a bunch of pawns. King e7. I don't know. Should be lost though. Really? I think so, rook f3. Okay. What should I do now? Probably draw. Draw? This one is probably... Yeah, because I take a7. I take h5 and... Okay, maybe I was a bit too fast here because it seems like... But it feels... It does feel losing. It does feel losing. Okay, we're gonna have to... I think we should come back to that one a bit later. Yeah, definitely. So we think that Maria has got quite good chances here with the pawn up, right? Meanwhile, Gensaiya... Well... Sacrifices the queen. Oops. We got the variation we basically was looking at, so... Oh, dammit. But she has a rook and a knight for it. Rook takes d6. What? Why didn't he just take the knight and be happy with this pin? I think he went for the beauty here. Rook d6, rook d6, bishop b7, rook e6. But suddenly black is not losing by force anymore, no? Probably not, but it's... I mean, I guess it's still winning. No, definitely it should be still winning, but... Queen d1 or something. You must be careful. Okay, I have to take, I believe, 1 e1. No? Yeah, queen takes e1. Yeah, still my pieces are really badly placed and those bishops are monsters, but it could have just taken back the material. Very weird. But I mean, it has to just still be winning. If it's enough, it's enough, right? Yeah. Actually, we see our viewers in the chat saying that Rook d6 was simply the strongest move. Yeah, queen d1. Queen d1 is good. This is the ballast, the chompa, chonka. Yeah, queen d1 is good. And yeah, I think Gensai is just not holding this. Yeah, it's difficult to play when you don't, when you have a knight on g8, right? And yeah, looks badly. All right, let's, let's check the game of Bobby versus Irene. Yep. Yeah, we haven't seen this for a long time. Goodness, this is a very, very difficult position. Oh, so actually the queen, it was the game with the Catalan with the queen on a6 maneuver. And now white has, white is upon down. Yeah, white is upon down. It is actually reminding me of the game between, between Leandro and Antoineta, but the black's king is on the king's side here. It's not in the center. But the compensation white wants to have is linked to the same idea that white claims to have the initiative and the space there, that bishop on g8 looks, but maybe it has its, because the idea is to protect f7 to have more pieces protecting the king's side. How do you assess this one? Compensation for white. My question is, what are we actually doing against queen's x4? Did she just? No, she played bishop a3, which looks like it could be a decent move. Wait, it might be actually quite dangerous for white. Yeah, rook c2, but it is protected. So maybe it's still okay. And I don't know, it's three minutes 45 for Bobby, five minutes 54 Irene. Yeah, it can go both ways. It's still a really complicated one. But here actually you might consider most like even knight b3 trying to take on d4 with a knight. I think knight b3 might actually be a good move if I'm not missing something. Knight b3? Yeah, do you have any ways to jump with the knight here? Knight b3, that's an interesting move. Yeah, because if you go like knight b1, you run into knight takes d4, then knight takes c2 and it's fork, fork, fork. It looks funny. Yeah, did she just play knight b3? Or no, not yet. Actually Bobby's taking his time moving the rook to c2. Perhaps he's worried exactly about this knight b3. And Bobby shaking his head, not happy at all. Bobby Cheng, is he going to be victim of the biggest upset of the day? I don't know if it's the biggest one because we thought Jhansaya is also probably not going to be too happy about her game today, no? No, but that's not an upset. I mean the rating difference is only 10 points and this is 150 points and Bobby with white and Jhansaya with black and Balash on form. For me it's not an upset at all. He actually did play rook to c2. I'm curious if knight b3 is working. I don't see anything wrong with that for now. No, I don't either. Knight b5 is also not working. Knight b4 just seems a very big threat after knight b3. All right, very complicated position. Let's go back to Eric Rosen against Gunai because things have got very spicy. Wow, what is that? What is going on? Huge, huge. All right, so I see one point. Gunai wants to say that after f takes g5, she is going to take on f1. And then after rook takes f1, she will go queen a1, right? So go on, so f takes g5. Rook takes f1, rook takes queen a1, check, king c2, queen f1. And this is the position she aims for, but I'm not entirely sure how this one is. Because for now black doesn't threaten to play rook to f8 because of the fork on g6. So maybe I have time to... What about taking? I would take or even g6 might be. G6? No, g6 for white I was thinking. Oh, sorry, sorry. But maybe she takes, yeah. And check. Now the queen is coming to e5, right? But I've got king g7 probably. No, but now I have a check. Queen f6. Ah, queen f6 and maybe I get away with it, but probably not. Yeah, probably just king g8. No, I do get away with it, knight here. And I cannot play king f8 because after knight g6 I have to return as after king g8 there is queen c6 with a double attack. Cute little draw this actually. Is it? No, it's not because you've got queen g7 here. But you might have another way to give a check. Wait, wait, wait. Let's go back. Queen e5, queen f6, king g8. Maybe I can give this check, huh? Might be. Because you're taking quite a lot of material here, right? Well, yeah, I give the check. King h8. Oh, I have a brilliant idea. Let's move back. Where to? After knight, the moment where white can give the discovered check, king h7, knight c8. Can I do something like that? Queen c6, rook b8. Oh, I can't. I wanted to trap the rook, but it's not working. Okay. So which position do we have on the board? Queen takes a2 is on the board. So will Eric go for this exchange sacrifice? Because it looks very interesting. And actually, let's try to check that line, which I wanted with g6 instead of g takes. I'm curious if that might work. Because the idea is to play g5, and somehow the king is... Ah, but you've got at least rook f8 here, right? Yeah, rook f8. I don't see this being... No, this is not good. This is coming. Definitely. So g takes h6, probably forced here. Yeah. Can we just see if there's a move apart from fxg5 here? Or are we saying there's no move here apart from fxg5? No, of course there might be another move, but... Like, what else can... But I think he's definitely calculating the sacrifice. What else? Good question. Because black is threatening to go queen a1, then queen a4, and then perhaps move away the knight. Ah, but maybe. Yeah, really tough position for Eric. The move here does not come naturally. No, but he probably feels that fxg5 must be enough. I believe this should be all right. Let's quickly go over to Antoinette's game. Because is Leandro, has he just bungled it? Look at this position. Antoinette playing spoiler today. Wow, that's doing the second piece now. She does. I mean, he played rook takes b5. Sorry, why can't I just play knight takes d7 and king a8? Or queen takes d7 is also good. No, queen d7, you've got rook a8. She's going to go knight takes. Rook b7 and king a8 is just... King a8 is just... He will probably try your idea with a4. But now I have even two pieces, not one, but two pieces. It's just over. Should be over, yeah. Yeah, he knows, he knows, he knows. He messed it up, yeah. Wow, what an unbelievable result for the women's team. This will be, and yeah, I mean... Yeah. He went for a4. Yeah. Doesn't matter, I mean, now you can even move the knight. Knight c5. I mean, you don't have to. Just try and find a way to get your rook into the game. Bishop f6, king e7 is probably good. Yeah, I actually... But maybe... That's fine. But yeah, or just anything. Ah, but g6, what about... g6, f6, any move. There is no threat. f6, yeah, f6 actually probably... f5 might be good to give some space for the piece. But then you should be careful maybe about rook b7. King a8, a5. Okay, knight c5, let's say. Yeah, it's nothing. Yeah, f6, right. It's completely fine. Yeah, a very, very impressive defense by Antoinette. And actually, yeah, I believe there are no reasons for her not to win the game today. She will win, no question. Okay, so let's go back. Let's quickly look in at Sabino Brunello against Pia. And Sabino, he's just a lovely position here as white. Really, really, really tough position for Pia. Weakness on e6, control down the d-file. e5 square is weak. Bishop is better. Wait, there is knight f6 here, though. Yes. I want to try and close up the d-file if you play e5. And she actually did something... Did she... Ah, she played rook c2 instead because the bishop from b5 is protecting the knight. Maybe it's better. Rook c2. I believe this is a better move. But this is suffering. I mean, this is really just a long, long, long suffering. Why? Why? Well, structurally, you're worse. You have weak squares. But you need a knight for those squares. Yeah, well, I've got a knight. To find a way to bring it over. Okay, like knight g4, let's say. Knight g4. Can I play something like e5, trying to create some counter play? Yeah. Okay, and what if I... And after bishop d6, I wanted to go for bishop c6. And then something like... Yeah, it looks... It doesn't look that bad for me, is it? Really? Well, maybe it's not. I mean, but I would say that this is like one of those typical plus 0.8 positions for white. I... Ah, but... Maybe I go h5. Yeah. Um, all right. I go for b5. This is a sort of position Magnus wins a thousand times. And it's very annoying. I've got some counter play though, no? Well, yeah, I mean, sure. But, you know, there are even positions with just the rook and bishop versus rook, which are, you know, let's say I go h6, just as in illustration. I'm not saying this is correct, but let's say I go 95 check. And I go bishop takes e5. You still have to be careful about b4, right? Well, I don't know. I mean, not particularly. I mean, I can take rook d8. What about b3? And rook b8. And actually, we have another result. Leandro has just resigned his game, and Antonetta scoring a very important victory. Yeah. When just out of the isolation. Yeah. Massive win for the women's team. Congratulations. She deserves it after the past six days. No. I see your point here. You want to say that my point on h7 is weak, but no, it's not easy to get to it, I believe, maybe. Well, I'm threatening this guy, so already bishop a4. I give a check, and it's probably... But it wasn't forced that I play g6. I could have taken on h6 as well. Yeah, that might be... Again, this is just an idea. But now I've created more weaknesses. I don't know, it feels like one of those positions which are just genuinely difficult to defend. Right. And let's go back to one of those games which are still in time trouble and... Let's go to Kunai. They've got one minute, 15... Oh, so Eric did not go for the g5. But now he must be in trouble, right? I'm not sure, I don't know. Queen c2, I guess. Knight c3 is a threat. Yeah, I guess he wants to go queen c2. What other move is he going to try here? Queen c2, but wait, how are the pawns? Isn't black a pawn up? Yes. Yeah, yeah, this is just bad for Eric. Yeah, because you cannot play rook c1. Ah, I mean you can play, but it's not a move you want to play. Right. Yeah, it's quite... Yeah, he played queen c2 actually. I think Kunai might actually trade queens here. Yeah, why not? Because they are very low on time. Okay, so our viewers in the chat are saying that Jean-Sahia's game might be actually a draw now. What? That would be very surprising because we thought it was already over. Oh my goodness, what did he do? What happened, Balash? Yeah, time troubles are really unpredictable. I mean, is this really still at all? Okay, not really, yeah. No, but definitely from plus what might... Right. ...must have been plus a thousand is now suddenly. Wow. And you know why it's difficult to win these types of positions with white? It's because of the opposite-colored bishops. It's difficult to... You know. And we have another result. Yeah, Bilal won. On fire, Bilal. Wow, five and a half out of six in the last six games. It's fantastic. And when you think that this young man started with two losses, how did he make this happen? He's just talented. Wow. Rook d2 on the board. Fantastic fighting spirit. Fantastic. Rook d2 on the board. Now, queen c6, surely. Balash, you've got to go and threaten some checks. So there is rook d6. It's all right for black, actually. Rook d6? Yeah. This is just all right? Yeah. Queen e4, let's... I know the knight is coming. Right. And I think white should be actually careful not to blunder anything else. What? What did he do? He took on e6. What's that? What is this move? What? He just wants to take the pawn. He's gone completely... The then he's not going to win this one. What a miss by Balash. He's not going to win this game. He shouldn't win this game. Probably. King takes e6. And that's exactly why he should have gone for queen takes g4. Do you remember that moment when he sacrificed the material? I'm not sure. Because the position was much simpler there. But I mean even this position, I'm sorry. Bishop takes b7, rook e6, queen d1, knight h6. I'm sorry. This position is simple. Queen a4 check, I've got no idea what's going on. Why am I not taking on e6? All right, fxc6 is forced. King f7 maybe? Queen d7. King f7 was better to protect the pawn on e6. Queen d7. And knight f5. Mate. Oh, it's a mate. Yeah, I've missed that one. But I mean, come on. I mean, just look at the position. Wait, I could protect. I could play knight f6. I love it. I love how optimistic you are here. I mean, I know it's bad for black, but I mean, I'm not losing right away here. Well, because if it would have been that easy, he would have played it. I don't know. Maybe he got nervous. Queen c8 and now knight f5. And I'm maybe losing the thread a little bit. Okay. King f7, really. I can't believe it. I mean, even I'm material up, right? I've got a queen and two bishops versus a rook and two knights. It's... What if I just go bishop f3? Okay, bishop f3, rook h2. Wow. It's the only move I'm afraid. And if I move the bishop? If you move the bishop, I'm in trouble. But I mean, there has to be a thousand ways. There has to be a thousand ways. I mean, I've got extra material, a better king, and better pieces. But I will still go with my statement. I think that after queen takes g4, it was much easier to play for white, because you have material back. The attack is still there. I mean, look at that. You are not material down here. You want to take on c6. There are a thousand threats here. Yeah, it's just all winning. We need to rook it to everything, is there? I'm still surprised. That might must be so disappointing for Balash here. But he's got one thing on his side. Just, I mean, the game isn't over, because if we go to the position, wherever she moves, and he reached move 40, let's say she goes king f7, right? I guess she might come to f5 though. Wait. Difficult decision to make. Also, yeah, I'm not sure which one is the best. Well, the point is, if you go to f7, I can now take on c3, and you can't take because of queen b3 check. Yeah, right. So, if you come to f5, let's say, and I take, can you take here? And my instinct tells me you can't, but I have to think like, for example, queen... But which move would that be? It would be move 41. Yeah, yeah. So, Jean-Saint would have time to calculate that. Yeah, like queen c8 check, for example, might just win immediately. King e4, queen e6 picks up everything. Yeah. Or king h6, queen h8 picks up the knight. Do you want something funny? Do you know that some time ago, I made a draw with Marie, with me being a queen up against a bishop and a knight? I couldn't make progress. It was a fortress. Bishop and knight versus queen only? Yeah, with pawns, three on three. Oh, okay. But yeah, here is not the case, of course. Yeah. But no, of course, she's got fantastic chances here. No, I believe there is no way Jean-Saint loses this one anymore. What? No way she loses? No, I'm optimistic about this one. No way she loses. You're saying it's 100% certainty? I don't want to jinx it again, you know, because... But, you know, she's still probably a lot worse after this, right? Because I've got the aporn, right? Or am I just... What am I... I think you are over-optimistic here. Let's say I play rook d5. I bring the knight then. Are you sure there will be no mating ideas there? Okay. Where do I put it? On f5 or on g4? Probably on f5. Okay. I'm just going to let you... So you go for a5. I'm going to let you mate me. Okay, I will try that. How do I do that though? Not so easy as I thought. Okay, let's throw in a rook c5. Now, let's bring the king somewhere. King d7? No, this has not gone well for me. Let's go back. I have to be careful here. No, actually it's a critical moment here after queen c6. Oh, she went rook d6, by the way. Rook d6. Okay, let's see that one. Queen takes c3. I don't think including a check helps, so let's say queen takes c3. I will bet you that this position is still plus 1.5 for white. All right, so what do we bet on? I'm going to go for Balash winning still. And what are the stakes? What are you willing to bet on your assessment? Well, Irina, you're talking to a guy who's got no fear. I'll bet whatever you're comfortable with. Okay, let's have a bet over a bottle of wine. A bottle of wine. Beautiful, I love it. If we get this position on the board, I'm going to go... I'm going to still say Balash is going to win this for a bottle of wine. I love it. Okay, let's do it. Done deal. All right. All right, what else is going on now? Let's go back to Eric, because I can hear a lot of people in the chat. And what have we got here? And Eric doing okay. He can play c4, move 40. Wait, how did the pawns get even? Wasn't he a pawn down? Wow, is this just good for Eric? He was, but there's something that's happened and now he plays c4. And if she plays rook c8, I take, take king d3. And then I take here and you can't go here, because I can do this. No, but wait, wait, wait. You are going too fast. After king d3, you mean that after rook b4, there is king c3, I see. But now I have rook e4. No, I wasn't saying king c3. I was saying, can I not do play like this? But it shouldn't be winning for white, because the two pawns are not... But these are faster, right? Not together. Yeah, but there is only one passed pawn. I don't know. I'm not sure how this one is. I would be very scared here as black, like super scared. Okay, so I don't have time to push the pawn. I think it should be all right. King g8. My idea after e5 is to go for rook b5 actually. King e4, but now the pawn endgame should be fine, so a5. Oh wait, I'm letting you go king f7, right? Even the pawn ending needs like total calculation. Probably... Rook f5. King f5. Am I forced to... no. a4. King f8. a3. Which one? Let's try this one. But I'm in time, no? No. Ah, you get king g7. Ah, you protect f6, which is useful. It's probably a draw. G takes f6. Yeah. a2. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm not losing this one. No. No, this should end in a draw, but even... It's actually you who will have to be careful. Yeah, I would have to be careful. Phil, though, that I don't have to rush into that rook and pawn, and also to put your rook so awkwardly here. The other idea I had was rook g5. Let's say... Ah, rook g5. You have to go king f8, important. King f7. Yeah, because it runs into e6. And now maybe you should go for h6. Exactly, I can try h6. Definitely. And then let's say rook g6. Yeah, on this... I could believe you on this one. Yeah, I look at this position, and I think this rook and pawn is just really awful for black, because you're just so slow, and I'm so fast. Yeah. It's actually a very good moment for Eric, because I believe he was in a bit of a trouble earlier in the game, and now it's a great outcome for him, I believe. Yeah, I mean, it's turned around for him, definitely. It looks as though... What else is going on? The Bobby Chen game is also extremely interesting. Let's check that one. Because I really looked like she collected all the pawns. Bobby could be in trouble here, actually. She has two pawns up, but let's try to assess this one. The rook on d3 is hanging. Yeah, I think black is doing great in this game. But we should be careful about ideas with bishop e4, and white might try to go for a repetition at some point. But here, I could probably just take on d3. It's actually funny, because let's put this one. Knight d3, bishop g6, knight d1, bishop f7, and after king h8, rook h3, knight h7, bishop g6, or... You can also take here, by the way. I was not sure that bishop d6 is... Oh, but this is great for... Oh, I'm blundering. Sorry, my bishop. Even this goodness knows what's going on here. It's... Yeah. It might get very interesting. Yeah. Well, I think all the games of reach move 40 pretty much, so this is probably a good moment for us to take a break. Yeah, let's just have a quick look at the game of Ravi versus Yavanka, because we haven't checked it in a while just to see how our thing's there. Looks fine for Yavanka. Looks fine. Yeah. Controlling the a-file, something went wrong. It looks like for Ravi a little bit, so Yavanka in good shape. I would say Sabino better, very similar position to what we saw. Right. I would say that Hussein against Maria, Maria... Trying to save this one, but I think it's not going to be an easy job. No, I think Maria is going to win. Bobby against Irene is just completely unclear. But completely unclear, but with two points up for Irene. Yeah. Eric looks like he's got a really good chance at causing a little bit of an upset. This is a position at the moment. I would say that Eric probably is better in that one. So we're very, very evenly poised going into the bonus time. Amazing. All right, guys. So we're going to take a short break that you saw there on the score. It's even Stevens at the moment. One win each, one draw each, and congratulations to Antoinette Stefanova. Well deserved, defended wonderfully. She's just come back. She's had a tough time here, obviously, after being in isolation for so long. So congratulations to her. And the round is still so exciting. Anything can happen. Definitely. We're going to be back in just a few moments. See you, sir. We welcome back to round eight of Battle of the Sexes Live from the Garrison Library here in Gibraltar. We've had an absolutely unbelievable round so far. Some truly amazing games. Lots of games that in progress. The results that matter so far are Antoinette Stefanova winning with the Black Pieces against Leandro Crissa after being under pressure in a fascinating opening. But Leandro just not finding the way. And then when the moment went, he wasn't able to find the drawing line either, meaning that, well, just... He sacrificed too many pieces in the end. Sacrificed all these pieces, and he just wasn't able to come back and a massive win for the ladies. And congratulations to Antoinette, who of course was out of action for a few days, but now she's back. And that is a very welcome victory. Bilal, Bilacin is just on fire, has won five and a half out of his last six, now beating Olga Giria in his typical unorthodox style playing an early G4. Wow. I mean, the way this guy plays chess, it's really lovely to see. I think his opponents will see a lot of G4s in the next games, actually. It's just wonderful to see this kind of creative chess and effective chess. And the other two results, Joe Galagev-Roymsky, apparently, Joe told me I saw him in the break, that Marcella just prepared everything and it was basically a draw-ish ending, which is also just incredible when you think about it. She did 30, 31 moves of prep in that game. Wow. Amazing. And Gillian Boilea, finally. Gillian breaking his duck. He, well, at least his bad patch, let's say he got a draw, important draw, I would say, against Marisa Bag. That is a welcome half point for the men's team. And now the situation is we've got six games in play. The most disappointed player, I guess, at the moment will be Balash Chonka, who played a magnificent game. And he had a completely winning position. We thought that game was going to end with his win quite quickly, but actually he made some blunders in the time trouble. And now it's no longer clear and actually we have an ongoing bet on this one. So Lauren still believes in Balash's chances to win this one and I took Shansaya, who I believe will be able to hold it and we'll see who's going to get the bottle of wine in the end. Yeah, of course. I mean, the only side that can win this is White. If we have a look at the position after what's gone on, Queen B5 check, rook c6. Okay, White has got a queen and three against rook, Bishop knight and one. But I believe Black has found quite a good way of defending the position because now with the rook on the sixth rank, it controls the a6 square, it controls the g6 square. I mean, the pawn is protected there. And now I believe she will go for some ideas with knight c5 or knight c7 in order to stop the a pawn from running. And then at points, White will have to do something. Probably find a way to push those pawns on the king side. But I'm not sure, I'm not sure White will have a breakthrough. I actually believe that knight c7 probably is going to be better. And that's why Balash just played queen d5, trying to get, I believe, in the way of Black's bringing the knight there. Yeah. Because now if you go for bishop d6, then the rook no longer protects the g6 pawn and it might not be a great idea to do so. I would actually prefer a move like rook d6 because after queen b7, I can still go to c7 with the knight. And now, yeah, it's up to White to come up with a plan. Because if we look now, if White manages to play g4 and f5, I will take on f5. And when you take back steel, the f6 square is controlled very well. I'm having a difficult time here, trying to realize if it's winning for White at all. I believe Transayash should be able to keep this one balanced. Yeah, it's definitely very, very tough to win this now. And she went for rook d6, actually. By the way, do you know how is the end game queen versus bishop and knight with no pawns on the board? Is it, it should be? No, it's winning. It's winning, right? Yeah. Queen versus bishop and knight is definitely winning. And can White do that in 50 moves? Yeah, I think so. I think so. Right. It's just not enough material. Yeah. And well, he's given the check again. I expect Transayash to go rook c6. I wonder if he's not thinking of a draw. Is he? I hope not. I think he might be... Ah, no, no, no, no, no. Ah, yeah, sorry. Rook c6, queen d3 check doesn't pick up the draw. Because you know, psychologically, it's very difficult to... Yeah, he is going to go for the draw. He might go for the draw. Wow. Because after such a disappointing miss, it's very difficult to keep on playing. You somehow believe that your luck has gone. And it might be even a wise decision to go for a draw here. What a shame. Not only do I owe you a bottle of wine. Yeah, I think... But I'm going to... I feel really bad for Balash, all in and everything. Because yeah, I mean, it was such a beautiful game. It was indeed. And a huge, huge miss by Balash. Oh, she's playing on. I can't believe it. What? What is this decision? And he actually raised his eyebrows. I could see that. I think he's surprised. I mean, this is just a number. And if I go queen d3 here? Oh, oh, my wine. Oh, my wine. You know, that would be like an Eric phrase. Oh, no, my wine. I mean, to play on here and not accept the repetition is just one of the most insane things. What if I go queen d3? That's a good question. Attacking the porn. Why is Janse so optimistic about her chances here? No idea. But you know, they're actually... I was thinking that maybe I can make some tactics work, but... Yeah. I'm not sure. How do I do that? Okay, so queen d3, let's say. I'm attacking your pawn. What do you do? I was trying to figure out a square for my king to go away. And then after queen g6 to try something like bishop takes f4. But then you will have an intermediate check. Correct. I believe that all my king moves. Correct. So for example, if king, let's say, d8 takes. Irina is trying bishop takes f4, trying to get me to do this. But now I have queen g8. Oh, all right. Queen g8, yeah. And you probably lose. Even this... It's not an easy one to win. No, no. Even this is not easy. But okay, if you're badass, you're just like, wow. I mean, give me this position. So what do you do against the queen d3 threatening this pawn? g5 is out of option, for sure. g5, f5, and I'm very happy. And this is bad news because we cannot really allow white to have two past points. Okay. So if you go passive with knight f8, it's... And now I just go a5 and start running. No, wait. I can easily defend against it. I could move the bishop and then you cannot... No, the bishop is pinned. That's why I played queen d3. What do I do then? No, this is just an insane decision by Gensaia, in my opinion. I mean, there's absolutely no need to be optimistic here. I mean, what does she expect is going to happen? That he's going to blunder a knight jump? I have absolutely... No, I think she just tried to exploit the fact that he's disappointed, you know? I think... But this is a very risky decision, I should say. I mean, this is a team game. The half point is already a bonus. Definitely. Because... And if she loses this game now, I mean, it's a really, really bad mistake. I just don't know what you're supposed to do against queen d3. Okay, let's try... Let's say you go knight c5. What about queen takes g6? Yeah, and now you can't take, I don't think... Where do I take on a4? If you take on a4... But these two points are definitely better than... Yeah, they're better than one, but I'm worried that this knight is loose. Let me see. There's a one-squared d1. If I give a... But where do you... You don't have a way to give a check and attack the knight. Okay, let's give a check here. Queen f7. King... King d8. King d8? Should be. All right, but I'm worried that the knight is too far away. Oh, you have check. Damn. I wanted to show that even... But what about rook c7? Queen... Also queen a8. Yeah, I'm already finding ways. But hold on, rook c2, king h3. Now knight c5. But your pieces are just so... Yes, they are very loose. They are all tactical weaknesses, actually. You know, and here, even if she got this position, does she expect to win this position? I don't know. It's just such a weird choice to me to play this. Maybe it's a bit of a youth coming through and unwarranted optimism. Is it, you know, would it be a moment when the team captain should have interfered? Wow, I mean... But she's still playing her game, unfortunately. Yeah, it was just... But I believe that if she was just following how this game was going, I definitely believe that Pia would have told her to go for the repetition. Yeah. But we have to admire Shansaya for her will to win, actually. Well, look, I admire Shansaya as a chess player. I think she's unbelievable. She's just an incredible talent. But I don't know if I do admire this decision. Actually, I think we can talk about how great she is. But I think this is one of those decisions that does show her... Light cost her. Yeah, her... Her... Certain lack of maturity. Especially because it's not an individual competition. If it was an individual competition, sure, she can do what she wants. But every half-point counts. I would expect her... But perhaps she had time. Maybe she checked all the other positions and decided that that's the chance. I don't know. Let's have a look at the other games and see... Yeah. Maybe there was a serious reason for her to keep on playing. All right, let's go to the game. Let's see what one game we haven't seen for a while is Ravi against Yovanka. Ravi is just playing. Ravi has just played the move Bishop to e3, attacking this knight and... What about Queen g6, let's say? Protecting the knight looks logical. What I like about Black's position is that Black controls the only open file, the a-file, and White doesn't have a way to activate the rook. So I think that's... I think that should be quite good for Black now. On the other hand, it's not easy to threaten anything with Black here either. No, but I tend to agree. I quite like Black's position. Yeah, I just think Black has to be doing well here. Or fine, at least. Yeah, I think this is a tough position. This one we expect to be at least not worst for Black. So let's check another one. Let's have a look at Hussein versus Maria, because we thought it would be a tough one for Hussein to defend. This actually... Wait. The king is so badly placed on h5, because let's show a variation. Rook f3, let's say. Rook takes b3. Take, take on b3. And after g4, a4. I queen with check. I queen with check, though. That's an important difference, because I was going to say that after g8 queen, there is queen h1 check, and then when the king goes to the g-file, I can check again and trade queens and win the opponent game. But apparently, you're queening with a check, so that's out of question. Ah, but maybe I have a4 here. Yeah, that's what I thought, but what if I... You must play rook f4, I believe. Rook f4. Yeah, and then after king b3. I don't see another option. I think it's just losing. Because after g4, I've got rook b3. Yeah, it's just losing. a4 is just the end of the game. And he played. Balash played queen d3 actually. And we're going to see what the chance I have in mind. I'm worried a bit about... I'm worried about my wine. Don't worry, I'm only going to order the second most expensive bottle on the menu. Not the first. All right. Yeah, so I think Maria is winning. I think a4 is crushing. So that's going to be a win for Maria, and she's going to find it. We'll go to the chance I came in a moment. Let's go. Let's quickly check in with Sabina against Pia. Yeah, and I think that black might be able to hold this one. Because the rook went off the board. And that's actually good news for black, because there are opposite colored bishops. So if I manage to trade knights, it's just a draw. Another point you might be making is that it might not be that easy to trade those knights. But is it really that much in white's position here? Well, I would be very, very, very worried here as black. Really? Yeah. All right. So which move would you play with white here? Let's just play around. I'll play 93. 93. But where are you going? You want to go to c4 perhaps? No. Well, maybe. Maybe because this trade is quite good for me. Yeah. Yeah. How do I trade knights? Also, I'm a bit puzzled by the fact that she pushed the pawn to a4. She was forced at some point, yeah. All right. Because now I cannot really create passers, right? All right. No, this is horrible. No, wait. Come on. Yeah. This is really disgusting. Okay. Let's play h5. And d1. You wanted to force me to play b5 as well. All right. I will play that at some point. So how should I defend here? Let's play bishop b7. You want to play the bishop? Yeah, it's all right. And the bishop goes to c6. Looks decent-ish. I think you should have started with h5 actually now. Yeah, I like h5. Good shout. Yeah, let's go. But then it's on a light square and you have this bishop e2 sometimes. Might be. Well, what if I go knight c4? Let's play your move. Knight c4. I think you can probably, maybe you can't actually. No, I can't trade the bishop for the knight, I believe. It's close. Because then you come with the king to b5, no? Yeah, but you go knight f6 and take on e4. It still might, is it enough? It might not be enough. It's close. It's really close. Okay, but let's first see if I don't have anything else, then we can come back to that. What if I try, but b5 is terrible because of knight, but wait, maybe I have b4. Knight c6. Yeah, I don't. I thought actually you were going for knight e6, but knight f5 might be better, yeah. Well, I don't know. You have knight f6 again here. It's not. Yeah, knight f6. Now maybe bishop e5. Now your king is breaking through on c5. Yeah, this, this, this. No, you, wait, it's, it's been a draw. Yeah, what did she do? Knight f8 and draw? Why? That's interesting. Wait, what happened here? What's going on? Queen d3 knight f8 and just draw? Why? Yeah, that was an interesting, a really interesting psychological moment here, I believe. I mean, this is, this is pretty insane. Okay, well, Balash, very disappointed. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. No idea. Well, I definitely think that the point is that he was really disappointed in how the game turned, turned out, and he just didn't want to take any more risks. And we see actually another result. Maria just finished her game. Yeah, Maria won. Congratulations to Maria being a superstar for the women's team. So the women are now one up. One up, yeah. And a great relief that Jean-Sahir saved this game. It, it might be critical. Well, it's huge. It's a huge, huge, huge half point or full point. And how is good night doing? Good night. She's a pawn down. Well, it's a pawn, isn't it? But has Eric got the technique to win such a position? I think actually that he might have experienced on his own skin some technique here. And I believe that he has very big chances to, to bring a full point here. Rook h2, king e7, yeah. In fact here, can he just go h6? H6. Yeah. Because if you take, I take. Rook b2, rook h7. And this ending has to be very good for white, surely? No, it definitely is. But sometimes black can save these ones if black manages to push very fast the b-point. But I'm not sure it's the case though. Yeah, it doesn't look too fast, does it? Yeah. But what about... Is it forced here? Well, h6, g takes h6 is forced. That's clear. Right. No other move. But after rook takes h6, there might... Yeah, but a5 looks very slow. No, a5 looks okay to play rook b4 and so on. I would say. I think that's what she wants to do. Okay, and now the question is, do we protect this guy? You could actually try some rook h2. You could do, but I'm just trying to work out whether it's worth going active here. e4? Yeah, going e4. But the problem is that there is rook b2, sorry. Oh, rook b2, yeah. And I don't see a way to hide away with the king from checks. Right, that is an issue. Let's say f5, or should we try actually? No, e5 isn't good because after rook b4, you have to go back with the king, right? So f5. Now let's say rook b4, king e5, rook b5, king f4. And now I have a4. You do. And how is this one? e5, right? Well, I can give a check or I can go e5. So if I give a check. All right. So first, can I play king f6? Because if I can't, then it's very bad. Rook e5. And after king g7, you've got rook g6. Okay, so I unfortunately can't go on f6. It means that I have to go back on d6. d6 is the same thing. Yeah, definitely. No, sorry, it's not. Why not? You've got king d5. Oh, right, right. Even this is one of those weird ones. No, but it's a draw. Should be a draw. Yeah. Okay. But you're right. I can go e5 first. Yeah. And now the question is after a3, I guess. That's what have king e8, let's say. Yeah. And how do we push the plans? f6, I guess. Ah, f6, a2, and you want to just go e6. I was trying to make this one work. I'm not sure it does. Because after a1, a1 queen, there is rook h8 mate. And how do you defend against it? Well, king d8. Now again, rook. I can give rook d7 check. All right. And that wins because king e8, f7, rook d8, and f8 is queen. And if king c8, then again f7, and after black queens, you are the first one to mate black. And actually, he took on h6. Yeah, he went for this one. Well, I think he should go for this. I see that there might be another result. Actually, I win a draw against Bobby. Oh, wow. Let's have a quick look at that one, because it seemed like it was really unbalanced. So Bobby, a queen up for a rook, a bishop, and three pawns. Well, that means that black should be doing great here, but perhaps it's just a draw. There is no way to avoid the perpetual. What perpetual? I thought that some perpetual with knight f6 and something. I'm threatening mate. So wait. There is no perpetual, actually. I could play bishop g6 or something. Yeah, bishop g6 or knight g6. You can't go rook d7 because I have this check now. So bishop g6. Then maybe... I think that's the move. Knight f4. Yeah, and then you can go back. But do you really have to go back? That's the question. How do you? Because if you can somehow consolidate, then you've got some material up with black, right? What? No. Material up? Yeah. I mean, rook, bishop, and three pawns for a queen. Rook, bishop, and three pawns, is it? It's more than enough. Isn't it? Well, I think it's very close. Because rook and bishop are eight points and another three pawns are 11 points. And the queen, from what I know, is worth nine points. Right. But perhaps white has enough activity here. Yeah. I think a draw feels right here. What about rook? No, I can't. Yeah, the problem is that after rook f6, let's say... Rook f6, okay. You could even take on g6. Let's say knight g6, knight g6. No, this one looks quite fine for black, I think. Yeah. So how do you do after rook f6? Do you have knight h5? No, you don't have, because I can take on f2. I'm a bit puzzled here. Yeah, maybe Bobbi just was... You know, maybe they're both tired and just simply can't see the clear route and just thought, well... Yeah, the position is still very complicated. With so many pieces on the board, anything could happen, but somehow I feel that black was in the driving seat here. All right, well a draw. There we go. And actually... That means that the women's team is still up one point and there are three remaining games. Let's go back to Eric. Amazingly, Gunai, I don't know what she's doing. Why didn't she play a5 here? Perhaps she thought that that would be too slow or... But now it's like, isn't this just... Isn't this just like a classically easily winning position, like really 101 stuff? It might be. It might very well be. Rook a6, c1. Oh yeah, rook a6 or let's say... But rook a6 and king e5 and I think... Yeah, this is nice. Because at points you could even sacrifice the rook for the pawn when it runs too far away. And you've got two pawns. No, this is just easily winning. I have absolutely no idea why you wouldn't try here the move a5. But perhaps she just calculated that it's not... I mean, it's probably... Maybe Eric's best move is just to go rook h2 and then if check you go king d5. Yeah, and then you hide. Yeah, and you can just come in. But at least you... I don't know, you try here and hold something. But let's go back. Let's try to see if after rook f2 it's an easy win. Let's see the position in the game. Rook f2? Yeah. Well, he played the move that I first thought, which looks like a logical one. Yeah, because you want to give the check and push the king back. Yeah, but the problem is that maybe I could... Let me think for a moment. Just a moment. What about a move like b5 here? Okay, check. King is 7. My point is that after king c5 I've got rook f3. And then I could try to get back a pawn because you have no way of protecting the e pawn with the rook. Right, but I can just go rook b6. Rook b6. Um, okay. Is it? Is it already over? It's just over. Okay, rook b2 I guess. B4. Okay, let's try to make this one. King e8. Or king f8, actually. King f8 should be better. Okay, f5. B3? Yeah, it looks better. Rook b1. Rook... After move the king. King e8, yeah. Well, it's terrible, yeah. I have to agree that this one looks completely lost. The king is just shielded, so there's no check behind. So it's just, it's a classic easy win. It's just not even, it's not even a position you have to work. What about a move like rook d2 after rook h7? Ah, actually she played it. Because maybe I could try to... Rook d2? Yeah, I could maybe try to run with the king to support my pawn at some point. Okay, you just go king... Ah, you go to c4 now. Yeah. What about rook... Rook e2? Now you give a check. King is... King d7. Yeah, but once the king goes passive, it's just... Oh, sorry, not there, obviously. Now it's just rudimentary. Rook d2. Yeah, rook e2, yeah, king d3. You might... But wait, rook b4. Yeah. Okay, but I still... No, it's still... I still easily come in front. Your rook is in front of the pawn. It's really not even a sweat, because they're two central pawns. It's just... But he actually went for king e4. King e4 is also fine. But it allows ideas actually with king c5. So b5, let's try. Okay. Yeah, he didn't have to do this, but okay, let's try f5. Before? Yep. I have better chances than I did before. King c5. But it's still that same position where even if you get to the queen, I have the king and two pawns. Rook d5. King c4. I've got to be a little bit careful here. But you've got f6. You should be probably... But I don't know, is it still winning? I mean... It feels like these are unnecessary chances, you know, to give to your opponent. Well, probably. But I mean, the point remains that even if you queen, I'm going to have two pawns with the king. It's just... It's the only way you lose this position is you allow a rook b5. For example, even in this position, allowing rook b5 is fine for white. Because after rook b5, rook c6. I can just do this. And I queen and check. Right, right. I mean, it's just really hard to go wrong here. Yeah. It's really, really, really hard. Yeah, that's true. I will have to agree with you on that. I believe Eric has huge chances to win today. Just has to win this position. Yeah. Has to win. Okay, let's go to Ravi's game. And we've got an ending. A rook end game actually. Yeah, another rook ending. And Ravi's done something kind of clever. Because he's exchanged... So here, yeah, he exchanged everything off. And this is, I guess, what he was calculating. And now the king comes in. There is a problem. I could... Okay, even if you play king d4, I'm still okay. But let's try c5. In this position? Yeah. Ah, that's a nice move. Because if b takes c5, I've got rook c4. So I'm winning the pawn back. And if you play b5, I could actually go for d4. C takes, I guess. You could also try king d3, but it's perhaps quite similar. Is it, though? You could have tried it, I believe. Because now I've got rook b4. But it's just a draw, right? Are you sure? Because the e5 pawn is a bit... Yeah, I mean, I understand it's a little bit... It should be. It should be a draw, though. Yeah, yeah, it should be. Somehow. But I believe you could have tried to play king d3 instead of taking on d4. On d4. Because now after rook a3 maybe. Rook a3, yeah. And now after rook c2, what do I do now? There is king c4. Oh, no, king c4. Yeah, it's... And she played c5, which I really like. I really like that move. Yeah, but we have to make sure that after b5 everything is fine. Really? I think Ravi's just going to play rook b2 here. Surely that's the move. Ah, rook b2. Yeah, that's a good move, actually. And oh, I don't like this. Maybe it was unnecessary to play c5 at all. I suddenly don't like it. Because it seems like I have to play d4, right? Okay, then I take. Oh, you take. Then it's all right. She takes b4. This is fine. This is fine? For black, no? I don't know. I mean, even if you managed to win that pawn, let's say you play king c4 and then take on b4, I will have some rook a2. Let's play just king g7 here, or king g6. Yeah, it doesn't matter. So king c4. Yeah, this is fine. f4, king f5. Are you sure? This is going to be a draw, I believe. Rook a2, king f5. We might get to a similar end game. Rook takes g2, rook f7, king g6, rook f6, king g7, rook e6, rook f2. Yeah, but aren't you just your way behind? No? I don't know. Rook f3. I have king f7, actually, maybe. King, oh wait. You can progress with your pawns, can't you? Yeah. I have to be a bit more careful, I believe. Wait, wait, wait. Because you tricked me. I didn't trick you, I'm just playing chess. You played b3 for me, I didn't want to play b3. Oh, you didn't want to play b3? No, it was your move, actually. Okay, okay. Let's play f4 here. Okay, I'll do the same. And now I go for rook a2. Okay, do the same. I could also throw in a check on c2, actually. That might be, will it be smart or not? Okay, let's protect the pawn. King f7. King f7? Yeah. Okay, I check. King f8. Yeah, that's the way. He takes d5. Okay. Should be fine. Maybe I could play g4 here. g4? This should be fine. I hope so. I don't know. Really? I very much hope so. Okay. Take on g2. King g8. Now I should figure out if I take or I play g3. Which one is working? I think I can take on f3. They both lose. Why? King h7? You get mated. Rook a2. How? Ah, you're doing this one. Does this work? No, I still win, yeah. How? f2 and rook f4, you mean, right? Yeah. But maybe something else. Yeah, you're tricking me here in this sand game, and I thought it's going to be just an easy draw, actually. No, I don't think so. Let me be more careful, because this should be the way I play. I think the king has to go to protect the pawn on e6. He played b5, by the way. He played b5, which I'm very surprised. He played b5. He played b5. Maybe after rook b2 you can throw in some f4. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe it's not so easy. I'm sorry. Rook b2 feels completely standard to me here, though. No, yeah. I will have to agree that it looked like a good try. But black should be fine. I definitely believe that black should be fine. I think I'm just not finding the best way. Okay, so d4. Let's go again. Okay. Take, take. Take here? Yeah. Okay, what was it? Can d3, yeah. Okay, king g6, right? I have another idea. What if I go for g4 here? G4. Yeah. That makes, that feels a lot better. That feels a lot better. Okay, I'll try this. Rook, um, the opponent game is lost, right? Rook a2. Okay, so I'll try this again. The same, yeah. I think so. I'll give it a try. I have to protect the pawn, I believe. King of seven. Okay, I'll give this. Let's go again for that king of eight. Now, this one feels like much better drawing chances. I might have a tempia up compared to the previous ones, right? But even this takes, takes. King c5. I have to, do I? I actually don't have to take there, or do I? No, you do eventually because I'm going to go g3 and then improve. But what, okay, let's try first taking on g2. Yeah, and you might just have rook d2. Rook d2, yeah. Okay, this one definitely feels like you can make a draw. This is a draw. Rook d4. Yeah, this is a draw. Finally, yay. This is a draw. So there might, yeah, and I agree with you in principle, but you know, black does have to be present. But it's surprising, yes, that it took so many efforts to... What is she doing? c4. F4, king d3, c4? What is this? What? What's going on? That's a funny trick. Ah, okay, three. This is her, this is brilliant. But it's not working. Why? It's not working. Rook b2. Rook b3. Take. Take? King d3. Ah, it doesn't work. It's just lost. Oh wow, it doesn't work. No, it's lost. Rook b2. It doesn't work. It's lost. Yeah, it's losing. She, oh, she's shaking her head. Oh no. Oh no. Uh-oh. Oh no, your vanguards just completely... Oh no. Yeah, that's really unfortunate. And... Wow. Oh, she's shaking her head. She can see that king d3 now is... And she has to now go back with the rook. Unbelievable. This is just game over because the king is too close to the pawn. No, this is actually... Oh, that's disappointing. What? Oh no. But okay, I'm sure that she was going for this rook b3. But we can see that she's quite low on the clock. But she played a great game today. Yeah, she really did. And a draw would be a deserved result, but this one... Oh, this is... Brutal. This will hurt a lot. Brutal. Poor your vanguard. Really, she's had a lot of positions this tournament, which... Wow, Eric is managing to completely screw it up, by the way, which is shocking. Okay, I believe this game will just be over very soon, actually. You just push. He just pushes the pawn, and I believe your vanguard will have to resign in a few moves. Brutal, because she's had so many good positions, and she's lost like three or four games, which she had good positions in. This is really disappointing. Very disappointing. Let's go to Eric. Now, what has Eric done here? What does this guy manage to do? So f5, right, f5 already is just a... I mean, the whole thing just starting here. King e4 is just insane. Why are you not going king c4 here? Okay, king e4 should still be okay. I know why. Ah, okay. b5. No, I take. I play rook h3. And you want to go king d5? I think it's not bringing rook e2. Really? King... Yes, you will not be able to make progress. But you can't take the pawn. I will not take the pawn. Okay. King e4. How do you make progress here? Okay, let's say rook e1, rook a1. Then the checks are coming. It's a draw, I believe. Wow. Now you have to play rook g3 and try to come with the king from the other side, but it's not going to be enough. Rook a2. And I just keep the rook on the second rank. Okay. I think this might be what he missed. Is this really a draw, is it? I think so. Could be. Okay, so let's try to go with the king to e6 or somewhere. But then I will be just checking you. Yeah, you check on the side. So I have to come round. Wow. What a defensive resource. I think this might be a draw, yeah. Holy cow. b5 check. Really? Okay, I can always go king c3, right? Yeah, but I've made some progress here. Let's say rook d1. Now you're running to b4. And I think I could even play here, I don't know. After b3 you've got rook h6 maybe. Yeah, this is a better version, but it might be not enough even though even though it looks better. Wait, rook e1, king e7. Yeah, this is a good way of handling things. But let's go to the game because the position on the board, he plays e4, so actually maybe I was a bit too critical because I just completely forgot that rook e4, rook e7 exists. But there is rook b3. Yeah, but he's going to bank on the fact that this is some kind of weird, weird win. How? Yeah, like here. Wait, wait, wait. I don't have to take here. I want to take with the rook there. Okay. But how do I do that? Rook, the point is that there will be a check on b5. So after, oh god, it's so difficult. These rook end games are insane. Wait, I have to figure this one out. If I take on e4, it's just lost, I believe, or? No, I don't know. f6, rook b1. Let's, well, f7, rook f1, king g5. Yeah, wait. Ah, it's enough because I'm running to the king back to c4 then until you get to g6. Yeah, it's a draw like this. Yeah? Okay, let's see. Rook b3, king g4 is on the board. A draw. Yeah, I believe so. Wouldn't surprise me if it was. It's difficult, but wait, he's got a lot of time. And she doesn't? She doesn't, but I have to say that black has only moves here. Like she doesn't have much of a choice, right? So let's try once again. King g4, king takes e4. Does rook e7 check help? Yeah, that's what I was trying to work out, but I don't think it does. Let's try it anyway. Rook e7, I believe. King d5, right? f6, now rook b1 again, I believe. Yeah, that's not going to help. No, it's a draw. It's a draw. Wow. If he draws this, it's really a catastrophe for him because it was. It really is a winning ending, I mean. No, but I will have, if he is not going to win this one, I will have to disappoint his fans and say that he needs to work on his rook and games. Of course he does. We all do. Yeah. I mean, what happened here? Rook b7 is okay. f5 is a mistake. This has to be a blunder. But, yeah. I mean, I didn't like, I mean, I didn't. You have to make the king choose one direction, right? This is really bad. This is really bad. What a blunder. Yeah. Yeah, brutal, Eric. Just, you know, it can be a multitude of things. It can be poor in understanding that he has to do some work. It can just be tiredness. No, I think this is just, you know, somehow a multitude of those. Like, of course, they have less energy now with every round. They get more tired. It builds up. Yeah. And Ravi Haria does win against Ivanka. This game is going to be a draw. And what a huge half point this could be for the women's team. Meaning that we've just got one game left, which is Sabina against Pierre. And this looks over. Pretty much. I mean, it looks almost dead for Pierre, because you can just go E6 here. And very importantly, we're protecting. No, that might be that the men's team will win again. Yeah, the men's team will win. But to be honest, looking at the results, it could have been an absolute whitewash today. I mean, let's have a look. Balash Chonka was winning. Leandro looked like he had a good position. But he wasn't winning at any point, Leandro. No, he wasn't winning, but he was... Well, I don't know. We didn't check with the engine, right? It's not clear that he missed something. Bobby Cheng had an interesting position. Ravi obviously won, which is maybe a half point that way. And Eric Rosen was winning. So there's like three games there where at least two games were completely winning for white. So actually, even today, even if Pierre loses, which I think she will, it could have been a lot worse for the women. And it means they're still in with a chance. It means they're still in with a chance. But what will they lose? If so, assuming Sabino wins? If Sabino wins and Gunai makes a draw, they will lead by one point today. That's okay. And that will be plus five overall. No problem. I still have faith. I think plus five, is that too much for two rounds? It's difficult, because that will mean that the women's team will have to press for plus five tomorrow. Plus five? I mean, how do you get back over that? Because we saw that with the black pieces, it's much more difficult. Sure. I mean, today would have been nice to have an even match or to try to have a plus one or something. But it did not work out. And I think that if they lose today by a point, they have to go all in tomorrow. Could be all in. Yes. Could be an all-in situation tomorrow. Yeah, I agree. I mean, but you know, to be honest, as I said, they still have a chance. Today could have been the end. Because look, if Eric wins, which he should, right? That's one. So that will be like plus six. And then if, I mean, it's not even close to Chonka. That's like plus seven. Yeah, but then Yavanka shouldn't have lost. Oh yeah, maybe. So that's minus six and nine. And also Irene maybe could have, you know. But the match was looking all right. So I definitely see why she chose to agree for a draw. But maybe if it was now the moment that Bobby would offer her a draw, maybe she would have decided otherwise, actually. Possibly, possibly. But the position was so complicated. Yeah, because as we were saying, the difference in the price money is quite big. It's huge. It's 5,000 pound each. Each, yeah. It's a difference between winning seven and a half thousand pounds and two and a half thousand pounds. Now I can tell you this. I've never won seven and a half thousand pounds playing chess. I don't know if you have. No, I think my biggest price was around six thousand dollars. Yeah, exactly. I mean, even I was even speaking to Joe Gallagher, who's been a chess professional for over 30 years. He's never won seven and a half thousand pounds. Right, this is huge money. I mean, it's like that. And then of course, there's maybe some additional money from sponsors or fees or whatever. It's just, it's a huge amount. And every half point counts now. Yeah, and I see Gunae bringing her king towards her B-pon. Let's get back to our game, yeah, because I believe that Sabino will be able to win his game. What a tough situation, actually, because if she loses this one, it will be the third one in a row. And yeah, that she is going to lose, because it's just, there's just no, no chance. It's just, well, she has to hope for some incredible, like, well, no, there's just no. So after f7, there is rook f1, right? Yeah, f7. And you cannot take on b5 because I take on f7. And if you protect the pawn by playing king to g6, then I just go king to c4. And now if you play rook b6, let's say, threatening to play rook f6, I can just take on f7, I believe. And b4. And you are not in time with your king. King e6, b3. The classic shoulder barge. Yeah, king e5, king c3, rook c6. And now very important king d2. Oh, king d2. King d3 is also good. Yeah, king d2 is also. Yeah, just not to b2, because then you might run into trouble. Yeah, you've got to keep the pawn fluid. And the point is that this position is a well-known draw because... You cannot come closer, right? Exactly. No, this is, this is absolutely well-known. And I do believe that this game will end in a draw. So let's get back to Pia versus Sabina, right? Yeah, she just played knight h5. Knight h5, yeah. Her point is that... But actually, even that one is. Yeah, you can just take, actually. Do you? I think so, because... But wait, I'm getting the h4 point, does it? Huh? No, you're not. I mean, you have to play... You don't have to play e7. No, no, no, no, I go king e5, I play bishop g5, and I queen. Yeah, this is lost. Dead, lost. Yeah. What a terrible outcome here. And king e5, it's just not even... It's not even a... Yeah, and it's just over. Yeah, we can see how difficult it is to keep your energy levels high throughout such a long, and I would say very tiring event because all the opponents are strong. You don't get, you know, like an easy game in the office. All are very good players, and yeah. If you are physically not feeling so well or something, you have to pay for it during the game. I... Pia might not resign here, but it doesn't really... Actually, you can't make a mistake here with white. That's the problem because the next move is automatic, and then you just put the king on f6, you play e7, you worm round on the dark squares, and you make a queen, and the bishop, the king cannot do anything. It's just completely over. Wow, and it was the clash of the captains in this game. Yeah. And actually, it's quite interesting that today's round will be one by one point. Yeah. Only the slightest difference, one point. Yeah. Oh, yeah, tough, tough one. And yeah, do you think the ladies will go all in tomorrow, or do you think they will? I don't know. I think with white they really have to try though, because if they... Let's say it's plus five tomorrow, and it is 50-50, then that means in the last game they need seven and a half out of 10 with black. Yeah, that's very difficult to achieve. Very difficult. So maybe they don't have to go all in, but they need to get like a plus two, plus three event, you know? Yeah. Plus two, plus three round. Okay, bishop c4 here by Pierre, but just a technicality, bishop g5, of course. Bishop g5, yeah, and I expect she'll... Yeah, and she did resign. Well, a very good game by Sabino. He had a slight advantage, and he slowly nurtured it into, you know, I believed in Pierre's ability to keep this position to make a draw in that end game, but unfortunately Sabino proved more resilient actually today. Yeah, and I just think the position in general might be difficult for black, because it's one where white has got the long-term... Risk-free advantage, right? Risk-free advantage, better structure, many ideas, and it's a sort of position, you know, I've suffered many times with black, and it looks like you can hold, but actually it's like... I believe it was a very wise strategy by Sabino choosing this type of positions today, and yeah, I believe he also had the luck on his side to get it on the board, because I think he might have prepared exactly this thing, but we might actually be able to find out more insights a bit later when we will have the captains. Definitely. So, only one game left, it's Eric versus Gnai, so he played rook h7. Yeah, she gave a check on g1. Yeah, he wanted to try a rook h4 check and rook f4, but it will not work out. Yeah, now she can give a check from behind. Yeah, rook f1. Now, when the king goes to e6, let's say you can start pushing the b1. Yeah, and she went for the check, king e6 on the board. Yeah, and now b4 is an easy, easy, easy draw. Yeah, I think there's no way to mess it up for black. No, just no way you ever... Okay, he will probably try something like rook h5, no? No. Then you take on f6. Even you can go b3 here. All right, because rook f5 is not an option anymore, you can actually lose this one. Because there will be, yeah, a queen f1 check in the end. Yeah, yeah, this is losing. Oh, we have actually had a very similar position on one of our previous days. I think this is losing. It might be. The king is very close, so it requires some calculation, but yeah. There's just no chance of... There's no way to even try for a win here, actually. No, it's going to be a draw. Right. Amazing. Eric, just to not convert this. You know, that is also a difference between a lot of IMs, basically, who never really push past the 24, 50, 2500 area, because it's about conversion. Yeah, definitely. A lot of the time. It's about when you've got that winning position, such a winning position, you really should convert. Yeah, there are small differences, but one which in the end count, and this is an event, actually, where I believe one can see where he needs to work on. Like you can clearly see your flaws when you play against strong opponents, and that's exactly why I think that for women it's maybe a bit more difficult to make big progress, because we don't play so many strong tournaments. We play many women's events. I believe that if a little girl would play from the beginning, only against little boys and later men, then the situation would be actually different. I believe that the women would be somehow forced to play stronger. Yeah, but then it's really double-edged, because you cannot change everything overnight, because basically if you take out the women's section at all after in chess, then probably all of the professional women's chess players would just quit, and you would have to wait for one or two generations. Well, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. H2, Kingsley 3. I don't know why I remembered about all of these things suddenly. Yeah, it's just that sometimes I even think about myself as well, why am I not a better player? And these are the reasons I see, because it's not easy to find a balance between making a living and playing very strong tournaments. I think that's the biggest challenge for most of the players, and actually not only women. No, it's a very fair point. Yeah. Okay, good night looking away now. Don't lose on time, Eric, whatever you do. Okay, okay, H3. Okay, it's just not really much to Kingsley 2. Maybe they'll just repeat like this. Yeah, that would be. She's hoping he loses on time. I think, I think she's not. She's not expecting that? No. Come on, Eric, time to give it up. He's trying F7. Okay, B3. He'll take the pawn. And then he'll go King here. And it's time to shake hands, basically. Yeah, I'm afraid so. Really, not much to discuss here. Okay, good night taking her time, which is perfectly reasonable. And yeah, just an unbelievable day really. I'm assuming that we're going to get both captains in at the end, which should be in just a couple of minutes because Eric, you can, okay. I don't know what Eric's trying here because it's a bit random. Like, well, what is he trying to achieve with this stuff? There are no tricks. Even King B1. Oh, King B1. Ah, King C1, RKH1 he wants. He's got one last trick. Even that's a draw. Yeah, but this was a nice try. Yeah, look at this. He wanted this, and then he wanted to do this. Look at this. Typical Eric Rosen. Pinning the rook, and then here, then he makes a queen. But even this position, oh, you've got to be careful though. I mean, this is like, I don't know. I reckon this is probably still a draw. Let's say I go RKH1. Is this ever a win? It can't be, surely. How can this ever be winning? I put the pawn on B2, and I just... Yeah, I believe this should be just a draw. Probably still a draw. You can't even, even the tricks are a draw. Right. But RKH2, King C3, RKH3. I mean, Eric is looking for tricks like it's a one-minute game. King C2. Okay, let's just get this repetition done. Yeah, we will see a handshake very soon. This is not a one-minute game on the internet, so... So, it will be a very important, I believe, half point for Eunice, you know, feeling, because she had a really tough, tough few days. And actually today she was also under big pressure, and a very important save for her. Perhaps it will boost her confidence, and perhaps tomorrow will be better. And I believe that's what actually all the ladies team should hope for. Just hope that tomorrow will be a better day, and try to play their best chess. It has to be a better day. There is no other choice. If they have a bad day tomorrow, it's pretty much all over. So, I'm hoping that tomorrow... I'd love to see a plus three day for the ladies. Let's, you know, make it a two-point game, a two-point match with one day to go. That would be drama. All right. Eric. We'll get to a very exciting round tomorrow. That will be, that will be just amazing, I believe. Yeah, absolutely. And anyone... It is so interesting in this match that you cannot really know who's gonna go down. Yeah. You cannot predict that. Yeah. So, yeah. I am a bit puzzled, but there's two players. I don't know what's going on here. I mean, Eric, come on. Let's go. This is... Yeah, just don't lose your time. Maybe, yeah. Well, if he loses on time, I'll have no sympathy for him at all. Because, yeah. Okay, let's go. Right. Draw. All right. So, a very well-fought day today. And actually, the men increase their lead by one point. So, it's plus five. Yeah. And it's getting tougher and tougher for the ladies, I'm afraid. Yeah, five point lead now for the men. And it means tomorrow the ladies with white have to pull the rabbit out the hat. Let's have a look at the individual results. Great results for Maria Muzichuk and Antoinette Stefanova winning with the black pieces. But disappointing results along the way there. Olga Giria losing. Pierre Kramling losing. Jovanka, that's the incorrect result. We'll get that changed. Yeah, Jovanka actually lost today against Ravi. So, we need to quickly amend that. So, Ravi winning yet another game which he shouldn't win. So, Ravi has got three or four points, which he shouldn't have won. There we go. So, that's a huge swing. And then the rest of the games, I would say, apart from Balash who should have won. Right. And Eric who should have won. You know, as I say, every cloud has a silver lining. And I think today the women, they only lost by one, but they could have lost by three in my opinion. So, that means after around a 42.5, 37.5, wow. Big, big, big day tomorrow for the women. Right, I expect a great fight tomorrow. And I believe we're going to have a lot of fun watching those games because the last few days have been even more interesting than the beginning of the match, which was interesting as well. And I'm looking forward to see some very interesting chess. And I hope that we will actually be able to get now the team captains. Yeah, we'll go for a quick break and find that out. And if not, then we will sign off. So, don't go anywhere. We'll be back in just a few moments to wrap up today. Yeah, it looks like it's in this row, this row, the V at least. So, I need F, everything is H. Okay, this is G. I really like the Tournament Hall with all of the books. And generally speaking, it's a very nice library. One can think of how many people have been here, who read the books. This is the correct row, but G, I need to check the other one maybe on the other side of the room. So, this is C. Okay, this is B, which means I'm too far. It must be on the other side of the room or maybe upstairs. So, this is C again. C again is the same that was here. So, I was expecting for a different result. Let's continue. It's amazing to see such a variety of subjects and books all in one place. So, Gibraltar might be a little tiny country, but with an opening on all the subjects and on everywhere in the world. I know there are even some chess books. I didn't find them yet. Maybe before the end of the Tournament we will have a look. And yeah, I think everything is covered here. So, history books. I think this is the history section of the library. History of the Royal Navy. Okay, so let's try on the opposite side of the room. It's probably far from D. Should be. So, this is F. This is finally the correct shelf. This is the level. And I need number three. So, 59, 50. It's obviously in this direction. 28, 26. What is this? Wildlife. I can't read the rest of the title, but obviously this is about wildlife, which means animals, I guess. So, I'm looking for the third. That's right there, right? Yes. Okay, I think I got it. It's really, really far. It's well hidden. Very hard to spot, but the system is very clear. And obviously that's the one. It's locked. Let's try this way. Okay, let's be careful. It's a very historic library, so I would want to break it tonight. So, what I'm looking for is this one. It's very tricky to get. Think I need a diet. So, it's number three. Here we go. Let's see what we've got. So, it's sport in Norway. We got it. Let's see what it is. Let's find out which year. 1864. Nice. Very historic book. I think it's because Magnus Carlsen won the Tata Steel, so we want to congratulate him. I guess I'll have a connection. So, yeah. We are back at the Jeep Chess Battle of the Sexes, and I've got the team captains with me, Grandmasters Pia Kramling and Sabino Brunello. They actually played against each other today. So, Sabino, a very well-thought match today. Did you see this one coming? Did you believe in today's win? I always believe in our win. I think that's my job as a captain to believe in myself and my guys. All right. So, what about you, Pia? How do you see the match today? And how do you see the girls' performance today? What are your thoughts? Yeah, today, Anto Annetta could play her second game after such a long time. And I think she came here and she won the game, so it was very important. And, yeah, finally we lost with minus one. Maybe I could have been even more or maybe I'm not sure. But I just thought that we made a much better match than we had made because we had made two very, was it two very big or three very big upsets. But to lose minus one is not bad at all. We were playing black. The problem is that we have lost that we are today. We went into the round with minus four, which is a huge score when we only have two rounds left or three rounds left. So, I think that was the problem. The match today wasn't bad at all. I think it was quite a good match, actually. But, yeah, minus one, you would have needed to have it plus one for us instead. Right, right. So Sabinov, what is the strategy for the remaining two rounds? Are you going to encourage the guys to play solid or just play their normal chess? What will be the approach? Well, I don't think I should say the strategy to the opponents. So, otherwise, they will know what to expect. All right, so you're keeping it a secret. I guess we're going to go to find out it tomorrow. What about you, Pia? How are you going to deal with the next two rounds? Do you think tomorrow is the moment that, having all whites, the girls will have to go all in or you don't want to disclose that one either? Yeah, I will speak with the girls. But, of course, we have 20 games left to play, minus five is a big score for the boys. But we will have to fight, we have to try, of course. And yeah, we'll try to do our best. So, absolutely. Sure. Well, thank you very much. I definitely hope to see great games in the remaining two rounds. And we will be back with the action tomorrow, same time, same place at 3 p.m. So, make sure to follow us. And it's going to be an exciting battle. All right. See you, see you tomorrow. Thank you, have a good night. Thank you.