 You've got a draw today with Marisa back. Tell us something about the game. She's a very strong player and I thought I should not go to any tactical openings, I should just play solidly. So I had to try my best to play the Bishop F4 variation that looks too solid for me and it worked, it really worked because I I think I handled the opening correctly. Right, so it was fairly level most of the game, were there any swings of fortune in the game or was it fairly steady? It was just fairly steady, positionally equal with both chances but too solid for the game. But you've stopped that run of defeats now so you'll be feeling pretty good? Yeah now very confident, at least today I'm consoled a bit. I had a run like you once in a tournament, exactly the same results as you so far and I got a draw in this round as well so you're mirroring my result in 1997 in Cardiff and I finished that tournament feeling very happy because I won in the last round so this is you know if you win in the last round you'll be feeling good. Anyway let's have a look at the game. Okay thank you. Okay Julien, we've got a Slav defence here and you've got White, what happened next? Okay here there are a lot of options to play Knight c3, if d takes c4 I can go a4 but in this kind of opening since my opponent was high rated I thought it's better to play a solid opening that's why I opted to to play c6. This has a reputation of being very solid for White, it's very hard for Black to get play isn't it, captures here, you've got your bishop out to here. What are the moves, I mean you can play a Knight out here as well can't you but you prefer the bishop f4 variation. The bishop is usually played to secure the e3 faster as one of their fundamentals because when my bishops are open there can be few strategic chances for Black so I opted to play bishop f4 instead of Knight c3. Yeah okay so we continue Knight c6 and e3 Knight f6 Knight c3 and Bishop f5 It's okay quite a very strong move, it looks so symmetrical yes but the only thing I could do here is just to exchange my my bad bishop against this active bishop so for me it was even quite logical to play an exchange at this stage. Okay has Black got any alternatives I mean for example could Black play back to g6 to try and create an imbalance in the position or is this this merely improves my position yeah you're okay for example you can play bishop g6 or bishop g7 yes that looks artificial doesn't it but this just speeds up my development because I'll just develop my knight and yeah okay so captures captures very logically e6 and you played h3 yes this move was played to prevent Knight h5 because now when I play something like Knight f3 and Knight h5 my bishop comes out and Black can try to create some play yeah because the bishop can secure the dark squares and help to attack here it's an important piece for you isn't it the bishop so you want to preserve the bishop for yes yeah okay so h3 very logical Bishop e7 Knight f3 all these are very natural moves aren't they to him and here your opponent played Knight d7 okay I was quite not expecting this move what did you expect in that position in this position I opted maybe for rook c8 rook c8 rook c8 was the move I expected to try to occupy the open file yeah or rather bishop d6 just try to exchange the yes the bishops but for Knight d7 it was quite a surprise okay but you just continue with your plan of playing natural developing moves I guess it yes I had to also take control of my c4 yeah and so her plan is to play on Knight she's probably targeting the square here isn't she to try and yes yes this is the most vulnerable square yeah so I can in this case the only problem that I had was to defend against the c4 square and all that I did was just going around the c4 square and also try to exchange this dangerous Knight this one looks much more dangerous than this one yeah she's hoping that you played b3 but of course this weakens the dark squares yes so I had to hesitate a bit so that's why I played Queen b1 no you played Queen Queen e2 oh Queen e2 also Queen e2 keeping an eye on this pawn as well if the Knight comes but at first I saw Queen oh should we look at that Queen d1 yes Queen d1 trying to exchange the same active Knight was too logical right wouldn't what's what's your counter to this move now on here I just play b3 b3 that's all okay so you just chase it back again yeah I suppose so yeah um just to do that Knight a3 doesn't look right does it but maybe maybe well it probably doesn't make any difference because in the end you played a3 and b3 yeah okay well we'll look at Queen e2 and she played a6 okay so I guess it's stopping preventing Queen b5 or Knight b5 yeah and here you played Queen d1 yeah Queen d1 Queen d1 yeah okay yeah I also wanted to create some chances of exchanging this Knight yes and also taking control of the c5 square in case of oh sorry it's okay in case my opponent refuses to trade the Knight yeah yeah uh so she now does play Knight c4 and you chase it back again here I was expecting Knight a3 Knight a3 okay Knight a3 but on there I just planned also to play Knight to a4 so I tried to create some yeah an exchange of this powerful duck square bishop okay yes okay yeah both Knights on the edge of the board but anyway Knight b6 she's just trying to provoke what might be weakness weakness yes okay so you down you know play a3 a3 I think this was my saving move it just closes up the the options for black on the Queen side yeah can't go there can't go there not no way no way into your position so she plays rook c8 which is quite logical yeah the long awaited move I had expected this move a long time several moves ago yeah and you play Knight a1 really super solid chess here pieces on the back rank getting ready for any any kind of incursions into your position yes just also trying to aim for for the c5 square yeah I think I think I play a bit like you as well Jillian I like to have my pieces on the back rank to stop people doing things to me this is a good plan okay but not too attacking okay bishop f6 okay I saw that my opponent wanted to have a break through in the center yeah a break in the center so I had to just stop that and also try to create my chances on the Queen side okay so when you played Knight a2 you're thinking about if this happens that maybe you can establish a Knight on the square yes yeah if this is played here I can just take take and put my Knight on d4 okay so if Knight takes yes I can just put my Knight on d4 and then okay it looks much stronger yeah looks much stronger but on here again I saw something like a sacrifice okay well just oh sorry do you want to go back yes how far back back here somewhere okay e5 before e5 back here here if I played sorry this is back to play again okay here if I played Knight d3 not e3 yeah I saw a problem somewhere here because there can be options of even taking yes taking oh I see because this is it's also okay okay take here I presume threat against this but this can be defended yes there's this Knight there and this just be defended with then Queen f6 ah and then there's no more defenders too strong yeah that's pretty good isn't it see just let it go back on move can you can this be played okay that's yeah then Queen f6 f6 I'm struggling hey how do I defend this I saw that Queen you want one yes then maybe try to play a Rooks on it it looks unbalanced but the position is still still very interesting yeah I didn't want the game to take such a turn yeah I wanted just it to be yeah level keep it nice and smooth and even yeah okay so you played Knight d2 and Queen e7 got played okay keeping an eye on this pawn here yes okay so now you played Knight d3 Knight d3 stopping the e5 yeah if Black pushes e5 I just take take and also put my knight on d4 yeah that's fine isn't it and so she just played a waiting move h6 maybe thinking about g5 I suppose maybe on a good day yeah but this one didn't create too much fears because looking at the number of pieces that I have on my king side is also safer for me yeah it's fairly safe isn't it so Queen d2 okay trying to get some some control over the dark squares and stop maybe in a future knight f5 yeah so she brings her other Rook into play on this one I thought she's trying to to support the advance of the e5 and down maybe try to push d4 okay so I had to make sure so you dropped the bishop back to g3 yeah okay so it was just merely a waiting move if Black opens the center I could have a move at hand yeah yeah so she tries to support the e5 push with another knight yes yes so I played Knight f4 and d2 f4 after e5 I can also take on d5 of course this was just to stop e5 yes yeah that's right because that's right so she can't do that but she plays g6 to stop maybe to stop you going to h5 give her bishop some freedom to go back yes and also maybe to activate the king I saw that maybe the game could take a stage of playing on the king side after these moves yeah and Rook a2 so you're thinking about doubling yes I was expecting after some moves some moves then I can also double my moves to gain some play the moment this is vulnerable of course but later yeah so she tries to regroup on the queen side she's maybe thinking about coming up knight b5 attacking a3 yes so now you play your knight back to d3 okay yes it's logical yes in any case I should guard against my duck square my duck square yes in case of any invasion I can just push and try to exchange as many pieces as possible yeah so now she exchanged a pair of rooks and brought the other rook into play and you go back again okay so I couldn't play Rook c2 because my pawn is down okay so this was only yeah maybe to try and exchange the queens as well and to gain some more space so Rook c6 okay she's probably hoping to get the queen around here and then yes to double the queen on Rook it takes time to do though for Black doesn't it and you've of course you've got this move very long way to chase it back and then she thought well I'm not getting anywhere yes because Rook b6 yeah Rook b6 there's bishop c7 wow yeah because Rook is trapped it's trapped yeah so she's really got not much not much choice but to go back to c8 and you'll play back to d3 to wait to see what she does because this one also stops e5 so I don't make sure the position has to be closed yeah so um she has run out of ideas at this position for improving her position have you any idea what will you sort of expecting if she plays on here I think maybe just try to regroup the pieces with knight c6 and maybe try to push on the king side but as I said there's no bigger threat because I have my pieces also on my king side okay super solid oh thanks no way through thanks very much Jimmy