From everybody to Battle of the Sexes, Jib Chess 2022, this is round seven of this wonderful new tournament taking place in the Garrison Library here in the heart of Gibraltar. It's been a really fantastic event so far. This is round seven today. We've had six absolutely classic rounds full of action and drama and ups and downs. If you've just joined us, this is one of the most unique events in recent memory in the chess world. Ten women pitted against ten men, ten of the best women players in the world and an assortment of some of the best male players in the world and they are fighting for a huge prize fund of £100,000. Winner takes all. Which is going to be the greater sex of course. This is the underlying concept of the tournament. I'm here with Irina as always and in the last round Irina we saw a really important statement I would say by the men who managed to get plus three on the day and actually take the lead in the match for the first time. Right, it is indeed the first time in the match when the men are leading and today is going to be a really important day because there are less and less rounds remaining and the women have to try to claw back and try to get some points. Yeah, it was a really, really hard day to stomach for the women because obviously they'd been leading the event for so long they got off to a cracking start and then over the middle rounds just lost a bit of steam. So it's really important that they try to come back. Let's have a quick look at the results and if we go back to that screen. We can check the individual results from that round. Round six. Right, actually yesterday we've seen the round with the most decisive results so far so only three draws and the men's team won five games I believe and the ladies just two of them. Yeah, a very bloody round as you said the bloody is so far and that means that going into today the men have got a two point lead I believe if we get that shot up 31-29 with four rounds to go including today that's 40 games so the matches really set up to be thrilling towards the end but the big question yeah gone. If you would be to make a bet now who would you prefer the men or the women? Mmm that's a tough one because as everybody knows before this tournament I had the women down to just crush they've lost a bit of steam and to be honest I think for me today is going to be like the day if the men manage to win today I will be confident in placing a bet on the men and if the women manage to win today convincingly then I'll bet the women. I think today is just the pivot round it's the critical round right I will have to agree with you on that yeah it's it's just so close and the reason I say that of course is because the women have all got white today so if they can't convert their white advantage uh with uh with you know today then with three rounds left it's very difficult to win because they will have only one more white round and yeah it's not easy to play for a win with black right? It's absolutely not but they will have to risk it if the time calls for it. Let's have a look at the pairings for today. Some very interesting matchups as always we have Jovanka Huska playing against Leandro Jovanka struggling in this tournament uh she's just um she's a fantastic player but she's just not managing to quite convert some nice positions for example in her last game she had a lovely position against Bilal but right it went south playing against Leandro what have you been what's your thoughts on Leandro so far? Well he's been quite solid and he has played one I believe a very very good game the one he won with black pieces actually against Gunai Mamazada so I believe it all depends on the mindset he's got for today if he's gonna take it you know more solid or if he's gonna try and play for the win I'm not sure what to bet or whom to bet on here. I think Leandro is gonna smell blood today and I think he'll say you know what of all the black games I have this is probably one I should try and win so I actually expect Leandro to push. Olga Giriya against Hussein Aziz thoughts here? Well these are two of the most solid players regarding especially their style because as I was saying Hussein said in his interview that he wanted to be really solid in this tournament and try not to lose games and I think this is gonna be his strategy for today as well because yesterday he was actually quite lucky turning around a game where he was totally busted and he actually won that one so I think he will try to stick on to his strategy. Yeah indeed and Hussein I mean he I spoke to him in the lobby just in the restaurant before and he just said yeah I kind of felt bad but Nino just not in good shape there you can see Hussein Aziz Nino just out of out of shape she's just losing games that she wouldn't normally lose and Hussein took the point gladly and Olga also she's been very solid I mean Olga really hasn't shown any weakness so I think today is a very tough day for Hussein actually I think this is a problematic pairing. Might be right. Yeah let's look at the next pairing which is Pia Kramling against Eric Rosen your thoughts here. Well Pia has had a difficult game yesterday her opponent just played really really good chess and she lost that one and today against Eric I believe she will try just to keep the game going for as long as possible and try to try to find some chances to to win the game. I believe the women's team captain Pia will try her best her best to win the point today. Yeah I agree I think Pia is you know today with the white pieces she's really looking for a very quick bounce back after you know you can't really say it was a disappointing loss against Balash because she was never really in the game I mean she she was worse for pretty much the whole game so losing that game she can't feel too hard about and meanwhile Eric Rosen also had a really tough loss in the last game but a very very optimistic guy very bubbly guy very upbeat guy so anything can happen Eric is capable of beating anybody so not a not an easy day for Pia I think so. Yeah and next we've got Marisa Bug versus Sabino Brunello a very interesting matchup Marie actually scoring yesterday her first victory of the tournament against Eric actually and Sabino after three wins in a row was held to a draw against Maria Muzichuk I think I think that's gonna be a very balanced game. Yeah I think this one is really uh one that I can see being you know the most perhaps the most quiet game of the round I don't think either of these players are willing to risk too much so expecting a quiet one there. What about the next matchup Abdul Malik Zansaya versus Bobby Cheng. Yeah this is an interesting one a clash of styles Bobby Cheng he was in the studio with us yesterday after his first win against Gunai a really really tough game it should have been a draw but Bobby managed to find a way. With the black pieces though Bobby I just don't see him trying to be too audacious but Zansaya is a very very optimistic player and a very aggressive one as well especially with the white pieces I believe she's got openings you know principled ones going for complicated positions I believe that's gonna be one of the most interesting games of the day. It could very well be yeah and be curious to see what Bobby does there. Going to the second half of the matches today let's have a look. Nino Bateshwi against Bilal Balasin. A very very very dangerous position for Nino in my opinion. This is not the opponent you really want after losing in the manner she has lost. Bilal is aggressive he's uncompromising he's unorthodox he can play all kinds of stuff Nino not in form and I think Bilal will smell blood here and just say I don't care that I've got black I want to win. But you know what makes the difference between the normal and the very strong players that they know when they need to be solid and you know just play very safe and I believe that Nino will try to do exactly that today and let's see if Bilal manages to find chances in this game. Let's see indeed. Maria Muzicciuk playing against Gillian Bualia now I had this down as the toughest game for the men's team Gillian on the lowest score so far I believe he's only managed half a point you know he's just not quite you know he's had just a tough run out hasn't had the positions and playing black against Maria today Maria will 100% be looking to win with white there's no other result here for her that's really I don't want to say acceptable but that she's not looking at any other result and I think Gillian is in for a very very tough game today. Right agreed. Next game Gunay Malazzada against Balash Chonka maybe a good bounce back spot for Gunay who started so wonderfully played some great chess and has had a few tough results few losses playing as Balash who has not lost been very solid but Gunay might just say you know what I've got white I'm gonna I'm gonna try today I need to bounce back what do you think? I believe that both of the players will try to have an interesting and fighting fighting game and actually I don't see any favorit in this match I believe both players will will definitely have their chances. All right Irene Sukunda against Joe Gallagher now again Irene started so wonderfully had a really tough few past games playing against Joe who is finding some form after you know a slow start again it's a game where I'm very concerned for Irene I think Joe is a very awkward opponent he's experienced he plays uncompromising openings and I think he you know it's the sort of game where he will be looking to actually put the pressure on even with black just because Irene does give chances. Right and actually the tough thing about this kind of tournaments is that if you're having a bad tournament you don't really get weaker opponents like you do in an open your opponent can even get stronger and stronger so you don't have easy games and yeah that's going to be a tough matchup. Absolutely and last but not least Marcel Efroimski who's been extremely solid one of the the real reliable fixtures for the women's team playing against another reliable fixture in Ravi Haria Ravi with a crushing win against Irene in the previous round Ravi with black now um I've got this down as a very very solid game I I can't imagine fireworks here basically. Right I see that it actually there are there are a lot of chances for this one to be a draw. Yep and what we're gonna do now is we're gonna take a live look at the playing hall and hopefully in just a few minutes we are going to get the honorary first move by who will be our most esteemed guest so far his excellency the governor of Gibraltar Sir David Steele has uh has arrived in the building I had the pleasure of meeting him downstairs very very nice chap we can see him there in the suit and tie. A lot a lot of things going on there I believe this is one of the most crowded days if I could say so we've got a lot of guests. A lot of guests well his excellency is effectively the boss here in Gibraltar appointed by Her Majesty the Queen to represent this overseas territory he is a big chess fan in his own right very curious and I believe I'm going to be interviewing him in a short while so we can get a few more thoughts but of course it's thanks to him and thanks to the government and thanks to the support of this very curious nation that this tournament is able to take place and a year after a year it gathers a lot of strong players and actually an interesting fact all the players are from different countries so actually we've got 11 players in each team and only two of them are from the same country it's a very international tournament right it absolutely is and not only different countries but different continents exactly we've got America represented we've got Africa represented we've got Asia Australia Europe and Australia and I think the only continent not represented South America if I can actually there is Leandro from Leandro is here I beg your pardon Leandro is here so actually every continent is represented which is amazing incredible yeah it's just incredible and Sir David Steele will be making the honorary first move of course and he asked me actually in the lobby does this move stand like is this move is this move they have to play and I said don't worry they can always take it back so it's there we go and she's gone for the D2 to D4 move which is yeah I believe this is the main move in Inos Repertoire so no surprises there yeah actually no surprises at all there and lovely to see this level of government actually involved with this tournament so the games are going to kick off now as always we have to talk about predictions so what are we saying if we had to give a score today Irina what are you going for I really want to believe that the ladies will score more points today so I think I will go for a plus one for the ladies team plus one for the ladies team okay um oh you're having a hard time I'm having a hard time I can see the struggle within you you know what I I actually don't see the boys winning big today at all I'm going to go plus two for the ladies oh I like I like that I'm going for plus two Anna and the match being equalized after today that would be really interesting that would be yeah it would now as always if you are looking to engage with us here we are watching the youtube chat so go to jibchess youtube if you want to comment keep it clean keep it nice and friendly and the best comments or questions will do our best to take note of the games have kicked off so where do you want to go first let's actually start with the game of nino versus bilal as it was the game where the first official move was made we see actually an imcho d4 knight of six c4 e6 knight c3 bishop b4 and now one of the main moves there are three of them actually maybe even four knight of three and bilal actually taking on c3 immediately very unusual yeah I I believe that is a move I haven't seen in a long time actually yeah very unusual move normally the bishop is provoked into taking on c3 because then white wastes tempo but taking immediately is very unusual on d6 and I don't know again if this is something bilal has looked at at home or if he's just trying something it can't be that great otherwise everybody would have played it already exactly now well I believe his idea is to go for for a positional way of handling this one because white has got the doubled pawns but on the downside you know white will actually have a very nice center so perhaps nino will try to prepare e4 and then try to launch an attack on the king side if black is to castle short so I believe that's going to be a very interesting game to watch yeah let's take a look at one more game before we get our special guest in the studio so we'll go just for one more should it be gunai versus balash because I see there were quite a few moves made already well we have just a very well-known spanish and the mainline and the full mainline with castles which has been seen tens of thousands if not more times the most played opening in chess and now it's up to gunai about what she wants to do is she gonna play the move c3 allowing the marshal exactly allowing the marshal is she gonna play h3 which we saw in the world championship match oh we're gonna see a4 which we saw a few times as well in the world championships the so-called anti-marshals to specifically prevent black from playing the move d5 you know if I would be to to make a bet I would go for her playing h3 actually here but yeah we're gonna find out shortly indeed and I guess what we'll do actually is we will just go for a very very short break because we are going to be joined by our esteemed guest in just a moment so give us a few jiffies and or a jiffy and we'll be back in a in just a moment with an interview so stay with us hello everybody and welcome back and we are now joined by a very special guest his excellency sir david steel welcome governor of Gibraltar thank you so much no for being here and before we start you know I've been we've had the pleasure of having various ministers local businessmen come here and you know from all of us from the organization I know we all want to say thank you so much for the continual support from government to make this tournament happen it's it's the highlight for the year for many people myself and other people have been coming for years and to be able to have this tournament continue under such difficult circumstances is really excellent so thank you first of all now um we met briefly downstairs you said just before as well that you're intrigued by chess so what's your story with chess is it is it a new game that you you like or did you play it as a kid and just always been intrigued or no Lawrence I did first of all can I just say thank you to everybody that's put this on in Gibraltar um Brian Callahan and the Colletta hotel have sponsored this for such a long time but actually it's the players that matter uh and the players coming from all around the world as you said in the most restricted times uh to come and play chess in Gibraltar and Gibraltar is watching the 35 000 people who live in Gibraltar are absolutely glued to every moment of this and the idea of having a boys against girls men against women I mean tantalizing it is and the language I've heard just outside of battles and of bloody ends and I I mean it's almost like fighting a war on a chess board and the competition is very fierce isn't it it is I mean there have been pretty much no boring games they are fighting tooth and nail and with chess certainly it if you look at the elite chess levels a lot of the time you can get rather let's call them I don't want to use the word dull but I mean that that's honestly what it is where it's heavily analyzed and almost predetermined to a certain extent but in these games it's been it's been just marvelous there's just been they've left everything on the board and things are neck and neck pretty much going into the back straight of this tournament so well I think that what I've learned over the the year from last year to this year that I've been watching this very closely indeed is how technical chess chess is and you do need to practice you do need to work at it you do need to learn the moves as I learned to my cost only a few weeks ago when I did play a certain gentleman who beats me in two games in 30 minutes and I felt very very small but it's a very very technical game isn't it oh I mean it is the the king of mind games really I mean chess and maybe go the the the the ancient Chinese game are on the same level but it's it's amazing the game has been around in its current form for over 500 years yet it's still being there's still innovations take place there's still developments it's it's extraordinary and there's a there's a an argument that chess isn't actually from this planet how could a game with 64 squares be given to us and and still continue to evolve like it's been well I'm afraid I'm afraid Gibraltar is adopting chess as its own this is going to become the chess capital of the world because I think actually with Gibraltar being quite so small and of course our tournament this year being played right in the centre of the city in one of the most historic venues in the city it it really has captured the imagination of the Gibraltar population and actually if I may say so too I know the the people of Spain watching this and I've just met a gentleman outside who's reporting on this for Spain and I didn't realise that his newspaper has the widest circulation in Spain of people watching chess all the time yeah that would be Leoncio Garcia who's been doing a column for years and incredible viewers viewership from Spain as well so you're absolutely right it's it's it's just amazing to get this kind of this kind of attention for chess and what is your betting on the outcome because I know that you told me that you put some money down on one side which I won't reveal they know already it's all right we've been speaking about it but where do you think it's going to end up well I'll tell you what I was feeling very confident after the first two rounds the girls got off to a flying start the boys came back and they've kind of had four rounds in a row now where they're in the ascent and I said to Irina my co-commentator before today and on air actually that I think today is a critical pivot round it is it's a critical round it's round seven of ten if the girls managed to you know put in a positive score today I'm still confident if things go belly up today though I have to say my bet I can see Brian out the corner of my as well we might be shipping a few shekels elsewhere but I find it extraordinary I have never ever considered chess to be a team sport and what was written in in the local newspaper only a couple of days ago was how the ladies here the girls have all known each other quite well and so they arrived almost as a team they knew each other need they've they've known each other's game and they know each other personally whereas the chaps the boys have come together for the first time and maybe that did take a while for them to get together this this competing as a team is rather different than competing as an individual oh it absolutely is and you're absolutely right I mean what's really curious is the girls playing here they play against each other so often and it's not the same with the boys I mean if we look at the boys team there's a mixture of you know guys that are much more frequent players let's say for example we've got Joe Gallagher here who isn't playing so much and we've got other players but the girls are pretty much full-time professionals and they play against each other but they are it's kind of surprising actually to me that they are coming together much more because they're often so tough against each other I mean they've they're really fighting against each other every other week and now they've come together and there is a really nice atmosphere you see them gathering together in the hotel having team meetings discussing strategy about how to approach the day's games yeah I can imagine that's right yeah and and today I mean it's quite a crucial day isn't it really a huge huge day because especially because the girls have got white today so in chess as you know white is a bit like having the serve in tennis you have that slight advantage that you want to press and it's good and the specific matchups as well are I would say quite favorable for the girls I think there's a lot of different spots today where they can really try and press so it'll be interesting um yeah you had a if I understand correctly a long history in the Navy I did and I'm actually curious because you know chess is a military game isn't it after all whether it was a kind of chess tradition in the Navy that you were aware of did you have tournaments in the Navy or against the army or we had a we had a we have chess but it's not a major thing but when you're at sea for long periods of time actually board games do become a central feature of the social life and we had a thing in the Navy called Uckers which is basically a dominoes rather than chess but but board games when you're at sea for long periods of time in the evening sitting down in the wardroom with your friends and having a game is is really quite important actually but I'm not sure that in the Navy we have any grand masters uh or otherwise but but at the same time the Navy you're quite right about military and and I was asked this last year what are the comparisons with the Navy the military is just a big game of chess absolutely and it's the concept of thinking ahead outwitting your opponent and getting two or three moves ahead whether that be at sea in the land or the air so in military operations chess is just um a peaceful way of doing a military battle in it well sometimes it's the language I've heard outside just before coming to you was was very very um forthright about a bloody battle and the battle at the end and it it really was quite tough talk well I tell you it's as a chess player myself uh you get you get revved up for it it's not just a game I tell you it's it's more than that you you really feel the wins you feel the losses of disappointment it's it's a it's a terribly brutal game because it's it's on you you can't blame anybody else it's not a team sport if you lose and you play about game it's really as a result of your mismanagement and that can hurt the ego it can hurt the confidence and everything else so well I think I'd just like to finish by saying again thank you to you uh to arena and to everybody that is actually streaming this around the world yeah and I must admit I have been watching it a lot and I'm watching other commentaries as well and the intensity of those commentaries and I understand there is a another tournament going on at the moment in literally just finishing in Holland in Holland but I understand that most people have been switching to Gibraltar which is good news I suppose well I mean effectively people love the diversity of this playing field and they love the concept of men versus women and it's new and it's fresh and it's engaging and we do get a lot of people in the chat as you can see saying I've switched off over there and we're coming over here to watch this so that's really encouraging for this tournament and I think we're going to get a lot more eyes towards the final rounds because that other tournament which has the world champion and so on is over basically so yeah it's basically just finished yesterday so we're going to get a lot of viewership and fingers crossed we're going to get an exciting last few rounds as well well I shall be following it very very closely but again can I thank you and every chess player here for coming to Gibraltar in these very difficult times and enlightening us with what is to me an amazing game well thank you and you know likewise thank you again for your for your very kind words for your support and for your commitment really to chess moving forward and fingers crossed over the next few years it grows and we get hopefully back also to the old let's call it what it's got the old time it's only been a few years ago but we're logistically it's a bit more easy to get such a number of great players here but we're over the moon with this well thank you so much my pleasure thank you lovely to meet you thank you so much his excellency so David Steele joining us a fantastic support from the people here it really is I would like to call it the new Wimbledon of chess over here in in Gibraltar and we'll be back in just a few moments with continued coverage of today's rounds so don't go anywhere all right welcome back everybody this is live coverage of round seven of Battle of the Sexes here from the Garrison Library in Gibraltar we just had his excellency so David Steele with just a wonderful you know outlook and feedback about this tournament I mean his support from the government it's it's truly sensational and I think we've got many more years of exciting chess to see here in Gibraltar and actually I really loved how you called our festival the Jeep chess festival the new Wimbledon of chess I believe it suits it very well I think it's quite an appropriate thing because when I think of you know if you think of the Wimbledon of chess we used to have hastings in the UK which obviously has suffered over the past few years you've got tournaments such as Tata Steele which you can you know but I think if we're keeping the British tradition alive then I would like to say that Gibraltar is the new Wimbledon and long may it continue Okie dokie well we've got tons of chess to go over so where should we start let's go to the game of Gensai versus Bobby because I believe it's been a really interesting game so far so a Sicilian a classic Sicilian which turned into a rouser actually I believe yeah so we had a classical Sicilian and Bobby goes for the rouser or well the classical or the rouser it has both names four knights all developed and Gensai playing the mainline of course she's a traditionalist she's very well prepared and she plays bishop g5 e6 you know I'm quite surprised with Bobby's choice in this game because as we're saying he's he's quite a solid player and the rouser isn't exactly a solid opening it is more of an aggressive one right well it it can be yet it depends on the system that why it chooses and Gensai has gone for the most critical which is to castle queenside very very early and put the question to black and black plays one of the main systems which is to go bishop e7 and really here I would say in this position is the big question in all of these rousers does white decide to play the move f3 which is more of an English attack where you can then follow up with g4 and h4 have a bit more of a solid center or does white play the move f4 which is seen as the critical mainline and played by Gensai and actually in a few moves we're gonna have maybe a question for our viewers because I wonder if if you guys know how the line played by black is called and perhaps we can move really yeah because I believe there is a very interesting name oh for this line oh right after bishop e7 okay bishop to e7 yeah knight f3 yeah this is a very classical move as well and now b5 I'm not sure if I'm mistaking it or not okay if I recall correctly it's a very cool name this line has got for black and let's hear does anyone know how I don't know so I'm curious so Kevin Winters has the Richter Räuser but Kevin that's that's the main opening this particular variation we're looking for the name of this variation yeah and I'm curious also if I remember that correctly so let's check that out well what happened in the game let's before we go through this so basically black has played b5 and now in this position here you can see there's a lot of action against this d6 pawn and white decides to put black to the test with the move bishop takes f6 and effectively you can't really take with the bishop here because after queen takes f6 you lose a pawn you're attacking the bishop and it's just a little bit too loose so black you you can do this sometimes when you have already castled exactly when you've already castled and you can justify it but with the king still in the center you can't so black is forced to compromise his structure which he takes f6 and now Jean-Claire plays the most classic move in these structures which is to play the move pawn to f5 the idea of this move is to gain space and potentially weaken this structure here and black has got a very difficult decision because he can't really touch the e-pawn either moving it up or taking it will result in this square on d5 being a home for this knight to jump in the black structure is destroyed and the black king can suddenly come under a massive attack yeah it is a system where black runs into some huge strategical risks as you said because the pawn structure is a bit spoiled and then you must be really careful about the d5 square because at times white could even play knight d5 and go for some peace sacrifices and just going for that king on e8 and i see a lot of answers but so far none of them are correct if to trust my memory regarding the names of lines so i believe i believe i will tell which which it was should i or should i okay sure go for it go on i think it's called the suicide variation oh really i didn't know that yeah and i believe it became popular when grandmaster kozol started to play it many years ago he actually was he won the european champion i'm not sure which year was that but it was i believe before 2010 and yeah it became really popular since then i hope that i recalled it correctly but perhaps somebody could could try to find uh if i was wrong or not okay let's see so let's see if it's gonna be really a suicide kind of a day for bobby or will it work out let's see what happened because in this position i believe bobby played the main move which is to bring the queen out to be six uh looking at controlling some squares and potentially saying you know what if i'm gonna put my king anywhere it's gonna be on the queen side because you can't really castle short in these positions because the queen is already ready to jump in and it's it's far too risky so queen b6 and now jensai spent a few minutes here on her move night to e2 for sure the move typical move king b1 is possible typical sicilian move improving the king the king always sits better on the b file but she spent six and a half minutes on 92 and now bobby is going in for a thing so my thoughts are this move has actually surprised bobby uh somewhat the idea behind 92 is actually fairly uh fairly well known the knight can jump to f4 um exerting pressure on e6 and again if that pawn moves the knight can just hop to d5 also sometimes the knight just comes to d4 as well a trade of knights here doesn't hurt whites it's actually quite a good trade and then finally you can try and get this bishop into the game by normally via this diagonal again pressurizing these points so all right it's gonna be a very interesting game and actually i'm curious because yeah it's so challenging for blacknotes to run into any positional troubles and you might want to start an attack as fast as you could on the queen side against white skiing but then you should be also be careful about the center not to collapse and yeah i know that there are uh plans at times when black could play h5 and then at points even try to bring that bishop towards h6 but then you have to be careful about the d6 pawn so yeah that's going to be interesting to see what plan bobby will choose here another idea could be to bring the queen towards c5 and then try to play 95 and then take on e5 with a queen somehow saying that the queen on e5 is placed really nicely okay great stuff let's move on and let's go to another game which has had a whole bunch of moves and actually i've seen the chat that uh our viewers are saying that they know about this line as about the causal line but it apparently i was right and it was indeed the good side variation yeah well done excellent interesting yeah so which game should we check on um let's go to the game between njavanka huska and leandro krissa we had a queens indian right old main line with the bishop before check move yeah bishop before check bishop d2 and c5 which is slightly unusual the main move for sure is just to bring come back with the bishop to e7 but leandro protects the bishop uh with the c pawn which looks a bit funny because after bishop takes before c takes before you might be asking well hasn't black just created two uh a pair of double pawn sorry a pair of yeah double pawns why would you protect the bishop with the c pawn it doesn't make sense well the idea is uh as follows firstly the knight on b1 is now a bit restricted the other thing is that sometimes black uses a c file to attack this pawn and another thing that black tends to do is he wants to play on the dark squares at some point by playing for example d6 e5 and if the d pawn moves suddenly it's the c5 square that becomes available and often this knight finds it's well there and black has actually got a really nice bind on the dark squares on the queen side so this concept is probably more well known from a bogo indian move order isn't it exactly this what i was thinking as well for example here the move c5 right is actually very well known and after takes takes we can get some very similar positions exactly to what we've got so uh yvanka did take castles castles and yvanka after one minutes thought played the move queen d3 which i guess is a fairly standard move although i'm not entirely sure i think she wants to be able to play knight bd2 with the queen on d3 so she can play a quick e4 yeah i believe that's exactly her plan and lander played d6 now yeah very standard no rook to d1 it's a bit of an abstract move isn't it i i'm just i want to know why knight bd2 was implicated can she can he play e5 here e5 uh isn't it losing the pawn he takes e5 yeah and our knight takes yeah it probably just doesn't work does it what i wanted to do just doesn't work no i we can't play that now perhaps so she just realized that that after knight bd7 um or even knight c6 i'm not sure which one is actually better after e4 black might play e5 could it be the case yeah for sure i'm not sure maybe the knight is better on d7 actually because then uh white cannot really go for d5 because of the knight c5 yeah and that's what surprised me about this move queen d3 because the knight often just comes to c5 so you're losing a tempo immediately with the queen there so i wasn't fully convinced by it um so queen d3 d6 rook to d1 slightly unusual queen c7 and now a3 yeah so basically black's idea is to prepare e5 and to force white we can some dark squares that c5 square would be a dream place for the the knight from b8 so that's why yvanka tries to play a3 and i believe that now that the andro has taken on a3 she is going to take with a piece on a3 with the idea to play b4 so that c5 square would be covered all right how do you think knight takes a3 is gonna come up i think you can play a3 i think you can play both knight takes a3 of course has the added benefit of threatening knight b5 so i think black here would take a time out to go a6 but the knight now might be a bit off side here and i don't think leandra is too unhappy with this position because you you go knight bd7 you've got a very um flexible structure as black you've got a lot of pawn breaks you've got control of over the center so i see this not really being a major issue here for black right and you know actually the queens indian i believe is a very nice opening for keeping the pawn structures flexible so somehow you can choose actually later which structures to head to let's say after d5 or after e5 and that's a nice opening when you try to play i believe for for for an advantage and of course on the on the high level it's it's more difficult but for me it has been a very reliable open opening over the years yeah looks like it and looks like leandro here is doing more than okay let's move on to another game and let's go to where do you want to go let's go to maria versus julian um yeah just the second game oh maria against julian wow okay because it seems like today we have a lot of sicilians we do it's a sicilian day today absolutely so e4 c5 knight a3 e6 c takes and d6 so now after maria's next well we should stop here because this is called the schreven ingan as the dutch say or the cheven ingan as the english say but the schreven ingan i think i pronounce that okay and this is a schreven ingan event right battle of the sex is the format of the tournament so they share the same name i don't know why don't ask me why they do this move is seen very seldom at top level yeah right and i believe the reason behind it is exactly maria smooth g4 the keres attack exactly so now basically white spared a tempi for preparing g4 so white hasn't played f3 or h3 but went immediately for g4 and actually f3 might not even appear on the board perhaps white will play g5 and f4 just in one move and this is perhaps the slight advantage compared to a normal english attack yeah and here jillian plays oh you know actually yeah actually now i recall the type played in a very similar way against maria many years ago i was actually with the black pieces okay and that was a terrible one for me i was having a great tournament and then in the last round i lost this against maria she just came with a very nice attack against my king and yeah not pleasant memories well i mean she's so dangerous with white so this i mean to play like this against maria for me is i certainly wouldn't play this opening against maria but jillian is playing the main move which is h6 stopping g5 white tries to insist on it with h4 black now plays knight c6 you can't go g well you can go g5 but after h takes the point is that this rook is pinned so you would have to go bishop takes and really all of this wouldn't make sense if you play like this so maria plays what i believe is the main move with with rook g1 and now jillian also plays what looks like the main move to me the move knight to d7 or at least one of the main moves i actually think that black is asking for trouble in this game it depends what happens because i mean so queen takes h4 is it a threat that's number one for example if i just go bishop to e3 can you actually take this pawn because now i want to go knight b5 threatening you should though have an answer to queen h2 but there is rook g2 right yeah rook g2 and i win queen e5 and knight c7 yeah so perhaps that's not even a threat but then white's plan has been to play g5 anyway so you could just simply not allow that by going immediately for g5 yep i think that's certainly an idea i just wanted to point out that after bishop b3 i think one of the modern ways to play this for black is actually to play g5 yourself i know it looks a bit insane but i believe it is a move and the point is that after takes takes black is claiming that against anything he's going to put the knight on e5 and claim that he's got a fantastic outpost here again i don't know the exact theory it's been a while since i've looked at this line but i do vaguely remember some games so maybe you'll move g5 immediately is actually correct and after takes takes probably black then has to go g6 otherwise is is white just going g6 here so do you play like this but then bishop e3 it's just a very easy way for white to develop here queen d2 long castle and then f4 f5 and mate that's basically white's idea that's the idea and she's already half an hour up on the clock which is very surprised yeah very surprising because we know actually it's quite difficult to prepare against maria when you are a sicilian player because i am myself and i know that she plays a lot of lines she can play the bishop b5 check you know after the night or i mean at the 2d6 not after the night or and then she can play sometimes the a la pin so she can actually play one c4 that's that's not easy to guess what's what she's going to choose and perhaps perhaps julian was not expecting an open sicilian could be yeah could be all right well we'll leave that one for the moment let's let's go to another game and let's have a look at the game between nino batiasz really and bilal nino having a really tough tournament lost a horrible game in the last round when she was completely winning yeah she ended up losing so she's looking to bounce back oh we saw this actually didn't we yeah we saw this early bishop take c3 in the in the nimzo yeah and now actually nino i i like her plan going immediately for 92 and e4 because somehow she's arguing that black has lost the tempi taking on c3 without white forcing him too so now e5 bishop d3 so basically black's idea is to try to force white's pawn structure in the center to define so to play d5 or to take on e5 and of course white will try not to allow that and actually white could also go for all kind of f4 ideas right yeah i mean white could certainly try f4 at the right moment i mean even in this position it's an idea and after e takes f4 you can probably just take back with the rook and claim that you've managed to start opening the position and the two bishops should be very very good in this position but that's very interesting of bilal playing like that because as i was saying perhaps nino had the mindset to go for a solid game and he has somehow provoked her you know by making this maybe imprecise or who knows i would call that bishop takes c3 imprecise or perhaps risky not sure and now she feels like she she has to prove that that was indeed a mistake or you know to somehow punish black for for doing that yeah we'll see what happens as a critical decision really for nino how she wants to approach this game is she gonna go with a move like f4 and try and just basically blast bilal off the board is she gonna play f3 i mean she doesn't have to play f4 is she gonna play a move like knight b3 followed by f4 but you know i'm wondering is this move knight d7 correct because what i knew is that the knight should actually go to c6 because then in some moments you could go for plans with b6 bishop a6 knight a5 or am i mistaking no no no you're absolutely right this is the this is the traditional play of playing so i don't know what bilal maybe let's just imagine if black will play c5 at some point then i can go for d5 and how are you gonna really attack my pawns from f from c4 and c3 even that structure might be not that bad anymore because i could still attack your center with g3 and f4 right i agree yeah i'm not i'm not in love with it at all but nino plays a much more calm move knight a5 i think that's you know also a kind of that the move of somebody who's a little bit snake bit who's a bit she's she's just a little bit uh uh let's say uh gun shy after what's happened the past few rounds she maybe doesn't want to overext overexpose herself overextend herself but uh bilal plays the natural move here which is knight f8 doesn't spend any move any time on it looking to either come here or here very natural stuff a long long battle ahead in this one right definitely let's go to mary sabag playing against uh men's captain subino brinello yeah we have um a uh advanced caro kan right short variation which we've seen before and i believe we've even seen this position already this tournament did we yeah knight bc6 dc5 and wouldn't surprise me if we actually saw a game of subino's i vaguely remember this from one of the first rounds i don't recall that actually but uh yeah you was it dc5 dc4 i seem to remember something like this if that was in the first game i might have you might not have been here yeah somebody can double check for us in chat if this was played in round one um but this time after d65 subino plays d4 which is a very natural move so black is sacrifice pawn but is now actually threatening just to win a piece with d3 yeah and i believe somewhere around here white has a choice of two moves queen b3 or queen a4 if i'm not mistaken and uh yeah queen b3 actually heads to the same kind of a position but we just provoke the move of queen c7 so basically d3 will not be such a huge threat anymore and we could start attacking the d4 pawn that's somehow the only difference i believe between these two moves and uh yeah okay so queen c7 knight a3 knight a3 very natural move here looking to come to b5 and d6 you have to stop that with a6 and queen a4 as i was saying the same position basically but one is with the queen on c7 and the number one is with with it on d8 now rook to d8 and b4 well that's gonna be a really interesting fight because um if i recall correctly black is doing fine in these positions but you have to know your theory you have to be precise i believe somewhere the bishop can go to d1 even uh one bishop to d1 one to b2 at times you could sacrifice the pawn on e5 and black is struggling a bit to finish the development here this looks really dangerous for black to my eyes because isn't white just threatening to go b5 in a lot of positions for example let's say black played the move 96 just an example can't i just go b5 i guess one idea for black here is that you you might be able to play the move queen a5 if you want to get super tricky i might have played this position myself with white you know just recently that would be funny if i don't remember my own game but yeah i i think it was a draw in the end and something like this might be possible so maybe white has to protect the queen first what about a move like bishop to b2 or bishop to b2 mm-hmm black might continue with bishop b7 but then or maybe black could play d3 just to make sure that i'm not in time to bring the rook on d1 but now i threaten b5 because the bishop defends the queen right exactly so bishop b7 b5 looks dangerous because i don't think you can take because after takes takes b6 check but there's queen d7 but now i can just take the knight that's the point all right because everything's protected correctly exactly yeah yeah as i was saying both both sides need to be aware of their computer analysis you know they really do this this could this could get out of line all right let's let's move on it's going to be a big task here for subpoena uh marcell playing ravi haria and we have an italian a joker pianissimo so a slow italian which we've seen a lot pawns at d6 we won't get into the details and marcell this time goes for a quick expansion on the queen side with a4 and b4 ravi stops it with a5 b5 and the knight comes to e7 okay the knight d2 castles and bishop to b3 very standard making way for this knight to come to c4 knight to g6 knight to c4 and it's on ravi haria and i think the opening has gone pretty well for marcell i have to say i was actually thinking the other way around that it has gone pretty well for ravi yeah you could argue that white is doing fine or black is doing fine anyhow none of the players have made any mistakes so far so all natural developing moves i'm not sure how how to assess those pawns on the queen side like normally you get those positions with a pawn on b4 and one on a6 but here they are fixed so for who is it better i think in general black might want to just go bishop e6 here allowing knight takes b6 right because now um you have some play down down the c file and uh sometimes this knight can re-route to here but i'm not entirely sure because the other thing is like where else you put your bishop after bishop a7 i am just going to take on a5 and yes you don't lose a pawn but this cannot be good for black because i can create an outside pass pawn um i can play lots of ideas i can play c4 here is uh possible with the idea of bishop d2 and a5 you don't like c4 okay but i like the fact that the f file is opened and perhaps we could put potentially some pressure on on f7 maybe yeah i move like bishop a3 here exactly threading this and then well maybe not there but some kind of doubling on the f file and yeah you you can't really play like this and if you go bishop c5 are you not now running into d4 immediately yeah that is interesting because now after e takes d4 c takes d4 i have this extra square on b4 but i'm not sure how uh how good it is right yeah it's gonna be and actually did he did he just play bishop c5 yeah he played bishop c5 this is on the board yeah a very critical uh move and we could see that marcel is uh 23 minutes ahead on the clock so uh i suppose she is familiar uh with these types of positions perhaps she's prepared exactly this plan for the game um yeah i could see this one actually turning to be a crazy game yeah because it looks like a very calm italian but after potential d4 e takes c takes the center is already uh unbalanced and who knows yeah agreed all right let's go to another game and let's go to pier crumbling against eric rosen pier playing white has played night of three which he's played various times and we get a queen's gambit declined and an early bishop g5 which is um believe the favor of mark heptons actually of course the main move is to go knight c3 here so the question is why would you go bishop g5 early and the point is that sometimes after d takes c4 you can actually develop this knight to d2 and try and recapture like this or as per the game after d takes c4 to recapture via queen a4 check knight bd7 and e3 to play like this i mean eric is playing very standard but white is doing fine bishop takes c4 castles and now queen to c2 to avoid knight b6 so pier keeping the two bishops but pawn to c5 that's actually quite strange because now it actually looks like an accepted queens gambit right but white has made some unusual moves for the for that line yeah moved the queen twice and so on and actually after d takes c5 i really like how eric is playing queen a5 check knight c3 queen takes c5 the bishop now dropped back and b6 and on a3 bishop b7 and this is the position we have on the board we have a very standard position here yeah and if you look now at the position we could see that actually black is ahead with the development precisely because white has played two was it two moves with the queen right two moves with the queen two moves with the bishop yeah so i'm not convinced by pier's play here now of course she shouldn't really be much worse but you have to be a little bit careful here bishop takes f3 might be a threat already because this bishop is loose all right so for example if you castle i can probably just take i would force you to take here and now black has got a very pleasant choice of many moves i mean in the in the absolute worst case scenario you take taken black is not worse so but probably even bishop takes f6 might might might be interesting because then after g takes bishop takes c3 you probably don't have time to take my pawn on h7 right for sure king h8 and then g6 and the bishop is trapped so yeah i'm not convinced at all about pier's opening but she does go for b4 so she she puts the question to the queen oh i actually have an idea what if pier wants to go for an end game in this uh in this particular game because we've seen that eric was comfortable playing complicated positions and struggling a bit with the end game uh what if she just has this strategy for this game to to try and play a long end game with as we see all the pieces except the queens on the board that might be the case right yeah absolutely i mean eric has struggled in the latter phases of the game uh and maybe pier has just decided to keep it as dry as possible and that eric doesn't actually enjoy those positions so much so we'll see how that works out but okay the position is definitely fine for black right it has to be fine for black although i have i have like queen c6 yeah but i i have seen an idea here on queen c6 i have to calculate it can i play bishop takes h7 check isn't it risky knight takes h7 yeah so and rook f2c8 okay yeah if uh you're um but now perhaps i have or f6 b5 i was thinking to give room for this bishop it could be actually that knight f6 might be better here knight f6 yeah knight h2f6 but i'm a pawn upright no because my threat is to play knight to d5 you know so i want to say that after bishop takes a knight i take back with the knight and after castling i have knight d5 and i'm winning am i yeah it looks like i'm winning some material probably yes yeah that does look like it went so yeah okay so i can't castle here but i can play well my moves are not that easy actually yeah somehow you don't really feel that pawn on h7 which is missing so much and i have quite a good bishop on b7 you have some troubles on the c file but yeah this is definitely an idea to to check because otherwise you might be just pawn down with black right so he's now debating whether to move the queen back either here or here or to put the queen on d6 but the queen on d6 now runs into um a discovery this way so maybe just maybe pierce found something but as you said i think a lot of those lines are a spot on and you have to be a bit precise yeah let's uh move through and let's move to the eye game of iran sukanda playing against jargalega now this game especially resonates with me because i think one of my last tournament well the last tournament i played in which was um just before corona in uh the wonderful batavia pub in amsterdam yeah i was gonna say belgium but no batavia the famous the famous all play all in that pub um i played against the legend manuel bosboom oh he plays this uh all off-beat opening fantastic fantastic guy are super interesting and i played something i played this exact opening against him so it went knight c3 knight c6 and what i call the english variation bishop b5 because uh when when i was a junior um a lot of the top juniors from the english chess squad played this line and it's okay the knight comes to d4 and you go knight f3 anyway and my game against manuel went something similar here you can of course take and that's fine for black but white gets also very quick development and it's all right so one of the critical lines is to play the move a6 um and now this bishop makes a very weird move ostensibly yeah bishop to d3 and the point is that you can't really put the bishop anywhere else because if you put it here you run into a quick b5 and if you put it on e2 this is possible but black has got no problems he can always just chop it off if he wants so you put it on d3 with the idea that sometimes let's say after the move e6 white actually has the opportunity of taking this knight coming back hitting here and then at some moment i think i had a game against harry christina maybe even in this exact position you play the move c3 and now the bishop can always sneak back so after this you can either take here or you can just take here with the pawn the bishop is out and you have a very interesting middle game yeah it looks quite quite interesting for white i was not aware of this of the system actually yeah my game against manwell i can't remember he actually came back with the knight which is looks outrageous but it's it's the main line because now your claim is that the the white pieces are all a bit silly and i can't remember exactly how it went but i think it went something like uh i think i played like iran i i've tried to move this bishop here i think manwell now played here or something it might have been this position and suddenly he went g5 against typical manwell now i can't remember again it's perhaps somebody in chat can look at the game but uh you know typical manwell and i think here things started to get completely out of line i i think i might have even played king h1 here to be able to reroute the knight to here it was a crazy game it was actually a really fun game that i ended up winning but so yeah fond memories of the system but but joe plays with the fiancetta with g6 you know i believe i remember reading about manwell boosboom that he managed to to win against kasparov in a blitz game could that be right it's true it was i can't remember the year but he did beat kasparov yeah yeah yeah that's that's true story that's not that's not very dangerous play he's he's he's got such a talent he's got a talented chest brain he's just um a bit too wild sometimes right so iran oh by the way iran was at that tournament was she yeah i was it was she no yes did i i played iran i played iran i played i i'm sure i played iran there i think i played iran so she might have seen something anyway so joe played g6 which is a typical move a fine move of course what about iran's next move it looks a bit strange to me ruby one i mean it's uh it's strange but i actually quite like it the idea is that sometimes firstly you might play b4 and try and undermine the square and if you don't play b4 well actually that's the reason why joe moved the knight back is you can play b3 and put the bishop on b2 and this rook actually does a good job of protecting this bishop which actually does mean a lot because in some variations you want to play a very quick knight d5 so it it's not a stupid move i mean the rook is performing a job here but even with all of this considered black has still got a perfectly good position after d6 h3 okay e6 h3 also well just h3 was there to stop to stop bishop g4 which is annoying and conquering these squares so h3 e6 castles and 97 and now iran plays rookie one and we have this position and i have to say i think joe's going to be very happy yeah with this position on the board all the pieces still on plenty of play yeah the problem for white is that it's gonna be quite difficult to make d4 happen exactly if you don't play d4 then you're gonna struggle finding a good plan the rook is already on e1 and that means that you're never gonna go for f4 plans then to make a free before happen you would need a lot of time yeah i actually prefer black in this position yeah me too i have to say i like black and i like joe's chances and he just castles and we'll keep an eye on that one now is there any other game that we haven't looked at yet i think we've looked at all the games pretty much oh no there's one game olgogiria's game we haven't looked at against hussein yeah let's check that one oh let's just start from here shall we because well we had a queen's gambit decline but we have a position here where well i don't understand what's going on is that bishop hanging queen f3 and the point is that olga's last move just threatens to win the win the rook now what why did he go here and then why didn't he go bishop to d7 perhaps he was afraid of something on h7 who knows some bishop bishop f6 and knight h7 yeah could be rook e8 but how bad is this no that's not bad at all exactly maybe some queen e4 after bishop takes f6 bishop f6 queen e4 g6 how is this one looks okay for black to me because if you take i can just take and take i can just block yeah and this is fine so what was her idea after bishop d7 maybe she just wanted to go 94 and after now if you take take you know you have to make some concession here but i i don't know how bad this is for black yeah it actually looks all right bishop b7 is is just an incredibly i mean this move is insane actually and you know olga takes i mean i guess taking is not the only move for example queen h3 is actually a move here because if you take now i take and i'm threatening a mate on h7 but queen b7 is probably the most principled way because you get a pair of bishops and that's diagonal h1 to a8 is clearly weak so perhaps white could argue that because of that white is better also the king on g8 now that the point has moved from h6 to g5 just let's imagine our queen from b7 going suddenly to h3 right then black will be in big trouble yeah i've got a bad feeling here for zane i don't know objectively whether this is just crushing wait what if i just play queen of three in this position just threatening to go on h3 because my point is that after knight to d7 i go to h3 anyway threatening a mate on h7 and you can play g6 because of queen h8 mate so probably this is just i have a five you're you're trying to say this is all right but bishop c4 i'm not i'm not sure it's all right i mean yeah that's that might be actually just very bad no no but i can take i'm just in time because about a d takes yeah d takes and then i'll just play a move like queen c8 i guess but i might go for e4 here i think it's not not so clear no it's not so clear i've got g6 i mean i i i've got moves it's it's not that pleasant though that's for sure i think after queen f3 though black of course isn't doing something else yeah yeah but what what should that be yeah that's a good question maybe some do we have time for bishop d6 but then again queen h3 right and then maybe you could play g6 yeah that's what i wanted to try and play g6 at the right moment but are we we're not running into that no might be who knows actually you are running into that one bishop takes g6 yeah yeah so i believe i believe but wait he has a huge advantage on the clock what is that i don't know i believe that white should be definitely better in this position perhaps even much better we'll see maybe maybe not as clear as it looks it feels like white should be better though you're right i mean instinctively it feels like feels like that all right let's go to one more game let's go back to gunai's game because we have a position which is actually uh oh uh from this rylopers and this this is all theory i'm afraid to say i seem to recall all of this and if my memory is right black was supposed to be doing fine here i believe these variations were ending in some strange draws yeah there's it is a drawing variation i also can't exactly remember how but yeah this bishop goes i think it was something with uh no perhaps i'm wrong the point uh uh black has is that that bishop from g3 is not easy to be attacked right so you don't actually have a way to do it immediately the knight from e5 is covering the g4 and the f3 right and the d3 squares so um but perhaps here you just threaten to play rook a3 and then the bishop doesn't have really a good place to go you will be forced to play bishop h4 and then maybe you have to to look at queen h5 um yeah this is a very double edged position but if black knows his uh his theory he should be doing fine and judging by by uh what we see on oh wow he played 97 yeah i have a feeling ballash is actually very well prepared and i like this move you know it was a funny moment actually yesterday if if you remember during the analysis or was it today's it was maybe uh before the rest day uh he said that um uh he prepared a line no it was actually yesterday uh and he had checked this course so from chessabal right and actually he said that you know i'm going to share this one with you if you ever want to use that it seems like he has a lot of ideas in the openings and he even is prepared to share those right i'm wondering if it's the same scenario here with the black pieces as well he's actually i believe the top scorer in men's team yeah because he's on plus two he hasn't lost a game he won two of them uh yeah and i could feel that day after day you know it seemed like um he was getting more and more excited and i think he just really wants to play interesting chess in the remaining games and he was actually saying yesterday that he would love to of course be able to get a GM norm here i would that would be i would love him to get the norm because he's such a nice guy he's been so pleasant and sociable as well seeing him in the lobby at the hotel very talkative um when you're there and very pleasant to be around young guy i'd love to see him get the norm playing great chess so uh yes the 97 played and the idea of this is the bishop has now got a retreat square on e5 and after queen h5 you can now very handily play the move knight f6 and you would gain the tempo and you know this kind of construction looks very solid for black um and you can start getting going on the queen side and doesn't feel like white has got too much you know i was thinking that perhaps it was this moment i was remembering that strange repetition with knight f3 95 95 could very well be one wouldn't surprise me if that's a computer line yeah wouldn't surprise me at all and balash again today if he gets a droid it's a perfectly fine result for him that's nothing to worry about okay well i we've covered the beginnings of most of the actually all of the games uh we've got uh certainly no quick results on the horizon so i think we're we're in for quite a fighting long day and uh we will be back in just a few minutes uh we're going to take a short break and round seven will continue here on jib chess please don't go anywhere we'll be back very very soon pretty welcome back to round seven of battle and sex is here in Gibraltar we are at the garrison library uh where this tournament is being hosted one of the most famous beautiful buildings in Gibraltar let's take a look at the garrison library and where they are playing in the upstairs of this building beautiful the sunlight coming through today after a week of rain and wind we've now got the sun towards we actually see the arbiter one of the arbiter's ana srebrenic who has a really nice chest themed dress that's true i really like it nice to see ana here after um i believe she had some difficulties before and she came a bit later but really great that she's here and there you can see the players uh no games have finished yet but judging by the positions on the board i have to say i'm very optimistic about the ladies chances today uh lots of games that look like they can push um let's start with gunai mama zada against chonka the ballash chonka because we discussed in the break it a little bit and you came up with this interesting idea which i said that it cannot work and actually it might just be very very good and i believe that might be exactly why gunai is taking such a long thing in this position so which one was the move that you were well it's the move very unexpected move really the move night h night takes porn on h7 now the point is really you have to take that otherwise white just wins a pawn and throughout this entire game the thing that white is struggling most with is getting this normally very powerful uh light-squared bishop in these uh rylopers in the interaction and here you can play the move f6 clearing the path for this bishop to the king now obviously if you can start getting in moves like queen here and then following up by finally clearing that diagonal you're going to be checkmating black very quickly so for example in this position here perhaps the only move for black is to play g6 because if you play knight takes f6 the move e5 check is already winning for white you attack the knight you attack the king would check and if the king comes back you play e takes f6 and get to the piece back right yeah you get the piece back and you're not even material down now black would have to play a move like g6 and here probably white has got a number of ways of of getting a winning position um or at least a very good position for example i don't know um actually even bishop uh f4 bishop h6 bishop h6 bishop g5 looks good i was even thinking were you thinking about a queen d2 one yeah i wanted to go queen d2 but after bishop e5 i didn't see uh but here we can just go queen g5 so quick just to put a queen d2 threatens just the very standard in and after bishop e5 i think we can just go queen g5 play queen h4 on the next move then replenish with bishop g5 or even h4 and h5 looks also very good also sorry bishop takes g6 is just a massive threat here yeah definitely so this position just looks crushing so you can't do that so you have to go g6 after f6 and now white i believe can just attack this bishop with queen g4 or maybe again queen d2 makes a lot of sense looking to come in and actually uh but now you can take on f6 uh but if you take on f6 the point is i give check and bishop g5 but i still have bishop e5 here you have bishop e5 and queen h4 and now i'm threatening to play rook takes f6 on the next move so i probably have to play something like king to g7 king to g7 and now if you play bishop h6 i can go back to g8 and say all right i'm happy if you take uh the exchange and a repetition is also fine for me yeah and we could we have a weird repetition here actually i can i can actually do this and that that is a repetition if i want it i mean that's just one idea another idea of course is instead of queen d2 is that you could play queen to g4 hitting the bishop and now when the bishop goes to e5 you could play queen h4 check and now bishop to g5 and that plan on f6 is worth perhaps even more than a piece could be worth more than a piece yeah that said it's not easy for white to break through here because after queen h6 then you can take the pawn but maybe here um white has got ideas of let's say rook f3 and then doubling protecting the pawn then finally coming in it's it's a very tricky position for black and i'm just wondering how well prepared ballashes against a move like knight's h7 now gunai has been thinking here for probably 20 minutes i would say might be even more even more yeah i'm not sure it'll come up on the screen so important moment here for gunai now if she doesn't do that i don't think she's gonna have much advantage at all so critical critical critical moment indeed and let's have a look at another interesting game the one between the very good friend of gunai jhansaya against bobby are they best friends uh at least oh and gunai has just played knight of three she could oh she went back well she went back and and that's a sign that she's kind of actually okay with the draw i think so well we'll see because they can repeat the position right and meanwhile we see that the queens are off the board in jhansaya's game and actually if i remember correctly this should be this should be good for black because all these end games might actually mean trouble for white because of black's pair of bishops also black has a lot of targets here the ponon g4 is weak at points even the ponon e4 might be weak so i believe that move knight to e2 which jhansaya made on on the 13th move if if we go back here actually allowed bobby to play a very nice queen to a5 move and the point is that white cannot really avoid trading queens because the ponon e2 is hanging and perhaps king b1 was actually what the theory recommends and why why it should be a bit better here right so yeah i believe jhansaya has perhaps forgot the line or who knows perhaps she got a bit confused and now i actually like bobby's position here after rook h to g8 yeah we have a position with the queens off you're attacking this pawn and and this king does a marvelous job in these rictors i again i've had i've played the rictor quite a lot myself where the king just protects this wall of pawns especially d6 and f6 and white actually has got relatively bad pieces especially this bishop on this bishop yeah this bishop on f1 is actually a pretty terrible piece um and it is it's not easy to play this position i mean for a start this this pawn is on priest so what do you do you play a move like h3 let's say right yeah because rook g1 isn't something i want to play because of bishop e3 right so where is my rook going to g2 it would look really awkward yeah so let's just say h3 and now as black you have a lot of freedom in this position you can play a move like rook c8 right with the idea of bringing knight c4 might even be able to play knight c4 immediately although i don't see any particular rush you can play moves like bishop c6 putting the bishop on the long diagonal then actually i'm thinking that maybe that knight from a5 might come to c5 at some point exactly and then the pawn on e4 might run into some trouble and in case it seems like it's black who can create threats in this position and it looks like white will have to be really careful to not to not get in serious trouble yeah totally agree i think it's uh i think it's a very deceptive looking position right definitely um let's move on to another game should we check the one between olgagiria and aziz hussein because it looked like black has has run into some trouble out of the opening i mean i can't believe that hussein can play like this and survive he played this just incredible move after queen f3 hitting this rook the the rook is already in trouble but he played bishop to b7 here which is just an insane concept giving up the bishop and after hd5 now olga goes for the kill i love it she plays the move pawn to f4 which makes a lot of sense yeah a lot of sense trying to now get this rook in because this king side is weak and after and here he just played g6 just giving the pawn and after hd5 i see absolutely no way black is supposed to survive because what are you supposed to do here a move like knight to d5 is that his idea you know i have uh i have a theory okay looking at the players clocks so we see that hussein has about one hour and nine minutes olga has 33 minutes what if hussein liked how the game went for him yesterday so he was very bad he was actually lost at some point but he had time compared to his opponent who didn't what if he tries to do the same today trying to provoke white to go long time and then say that perhaps even if i have a bad position you won't have time to to convert that it's a very risky strategy especially especially against somebody like olga who's clearly in better form than nino so you don't really want to do that against the players in form but i'm wondering if it is uh you know somehow like a conscious choice or is it just the way it happens i don't i don't know really um but uh it's it's definitely not a strategy i would approve whatever it is i mean this position here um it looks like big trouble but how do you but it's but we have to find the killer you know i was actually thinking that perhaps i could try a move even like c4 yeah knight takes e3 and now something like rook um but then rook a3 i don't like that i give up the g5 pawn actually also takes here as possible it looks like a bit too much but it could work even that one wait wait wait after c takes d4 what about rook a3 threatening mate on h8 that's mate and then if you play a move like f6 then i could play something like queen to e4 maybe even you can just take or just take but queen e4 was also looking nice with the threat of playing queen h4 it all looks good looks like yeah now take probably on f6 and some something like lose it but black is black is still holding on but just g takes f6 just wins on the spot all right because it's a mate on h7 exactly oh you're right definitely so that doesn't actually work so c4 is that the idea so knight takes e3 and what about taking g5 is the other option you have but now you can take can i sure right because now after f takes g6 there is a mate on g7 coming oh then black is totally busted so c4 hold on a second knight e3 rook f3 now is there any other move here well knight f5 we have the same the same deal i mean rook h3 is looking oops rook h3 just looks crushing because of mate here if f6 i can just take yeah perhaps as black oh yeah you couldn't even throw in a move like rook b8 because the bishop is covering that exactly that's one of the key ideas here so actually that's why aziz is taking so long because knight d5 is kind of shouting out to be played and if you go knight d7 here is black this is another idea can white now i've got an idea that looks amazing look at this i don't know if it quite works oh it's so close to working and now your point is that after f takes g6 you play queen to e4 yeah but it then i have 95 right yeah yes maybe not so quick no it doesn't doesn't quite work but i can play bishop c7 no i can't i can actually what about queen c8 and now bishop you want to trap all of my pieces yeah but i do really want to trade queens perhaps not yet okay let's have a think hold on but you could play a move like rook a to d1 just just like that because i think the queen on d8 is in a terrible position and then all those fireworks but then bishop takes g5 i know what she wants to do here bishop f4 simple yeah because now you can't take because i take and then i know you can because my e my d3 bishop is yeah right hanging down so it has to be a bit careful now but it looks like it's it should be terrible let's let's think 97 it's interesting feels like there should be about a move like bishop to e4 ah bishop to e4 okay and i take now i could try queen takes a 8 actually okay and it's not exactly what i was hoping for i thought maybe i could go for a mate but if it's good enough then it's just good enough but probably you could even take on a 8 yeah i can also take on a 8 here right this this this might not be too bad for black at all or maybe it still is maybe it still is it's it's close to me i mean it could be but i was wondering with the knight on the board because i take and then take i'd actually get two pawns by force i'm attacking your bishop you have to move it and let's say i take i'm now attacking the rook and you move it and now i can take and this for sure is not bad for black but wait it's just one pawn you've got as a compensation for for the exchange that's true but it still feels okay for black because we've got this opposite colored bishops so it's not so easy for white to to do something yeah perhaps that might be blacks blacks idea because otherwise you might just be in big trouble people are saying Olga is low on time she's got 33 minutes which is just an eternity in this position a lot of the lines are forcing and she's calculating while he uh while hussain is thinking i've got a feeling this game is just over by some way but i can't you know i i think uh no yeah i was trying to figure out a way to punish black after 97 but i cannot can't come up with something direct actually there's so many night moves here here here here here even here has to be mildly considered all the night moves are actually legal which is why hussain is actually having a think here uh so okay so what actually if after night d7 i play a move like rook to f3 i can't give up trying you know night takes d takes queen takes d3 queen takes e7 how is this one ah perhaps you i don't know queen queen d8 queen b7 ah but then g5 is hanging and after rook f7 you can't even take everything yeah no that's not the way definitely not the way okay we'll see because hussain he's he's he's deep in the tank and we'll we'll find out shortly let's go to another game and i can see some action has happened in the eric rosen game so let's check that one yeah but i have to say it looks as though eric has come out incredibly well here so we last saw it around b4 queen c7 and here pier did not go for bishop takes h7 so she went for the move rook c1 instead which is the other of course very natural move here and i'll actually the threat might be bishop h7 because you have protected the knight on c3 one more time but eric found a very nice solution to my eyes he took on f3 and played the move knight into e5 very forcing because now you attack on f3 you want to take the bishop so pier took on f6 and now eric just found the in-between check knight takes d3 check queen takes three and bishop takes f6 and importantly this rook has pinned otherwise some knight d5 or knight e4 move would be available but you know i think that might actually dry out after a move like king to e2 and i think pier actually played it yeah that was what i was checking because after rook d8 you might have something like knight d5 or knight b5 yeah and even this is knight d5 perhaps yeah and after queen e5 you have knight f6 queen f6 and queen to c3 and yeah this is just not very exciting is it yeah but actually it will be white who will be trying if eric will go for a rook hand game there because the c file will be more important as white's king is on e2 sort of covering those squares on the d file so yeah can black play queen e5 immediately here though and claim that actually he's better because rook f8 is coming white is still quite loose what about to move like knight to e4 aren't we getting to the same positions check rook c2 ah rook c2 sorry okay and if i right yeah so the point is to try and trade the knight for the bishop because the bishop is better here as the position is opened let's try bishop to e7 that looks a bit risky probably is all right so let's say let's say i don't want to calculate too much and i play rook to or queen to c3 actually queen to c3 yeah okay but i thought that these endings after takes rook takes now i don't know if i want to go f5 immediately but i'm i'm tempted let's say i go f5 knight to d2 knight d2 and now let's say i go a5 now that's a very good a very good move i believe but i can still go for b5 i guess yeah you can but because if i play a4 then i'm fine you probably have to play a4 yourself if you want to yeah i might try a4 or maybe maybe i don't have to go a5 here i mean i don't i'm not forced to i mean no i see what you're saying because normally with pawns on two flanks the bishop is somewhat better than the knight that's definitely true but from another point of view is it really that much because the knight might come to b3 you know i have the nice c file yeah i don't know i i i'm not convinced that it's much better for black but i might my my spidey senses here at least tell me that black should just be doing fine i mean it really shouldn't be that bad for black here no definitely it will be black who's slightly better i believe but yeah might be not that much and actually it might be you know what i was mentioning in the beginning that eric might not not feel comfortable going to an endgame he might want to keep the queens on the board just because he i feel that he likes having those attacking ideas so i will actually be surprised if if he trades queens okay interesting all right let us then go to another game should we check the game between marcel and ravi sure because it looked very interesting that italian with an early b4 and a4 and now actually we see the black pawn from a5 is on b4 and that might actually be a problem at some point because how are you planning to defend that one i believe black is not planning to defend it at all actually he's just not planning on defending it let's assume then that white does try and pick it up immediately with the move queens d2 i believe he'll be going to try to make some sacrifices work let's say knight uh which knight to f4 oh maybe knight h2f4 because everyone might still go to a4 at times actually here's an idea a good one a good idea yeah so that pawn for the moment is actually untouchable how it it's the same how in that song do do do do can't touch it yeah exactly yeah perhaps some of like rookie free would be one i would consider here because i somehow try and defend the d3 square it points even the pawn on h3 now i'm very tempted to play d5 d5 sure are you what about knight c to e5 can can that one work now things are starting to get completely out of control yeah definitely d takes e4 i have to take the bishop on a6 i believe yeah and i i have to take back here but i've got a pleasant choice of how to take back let's say i take with the rook now rook takes e4 this doesn't look like it's worked out well for white at all it looks like the piece is a really poorly placed yeah could even play something like knight to d5 exactly and actually i have an isolated pawn the pawn on a4 is weak the pawn on b4 is actually quite good exactly i'm pinned over the e file yeah that's not something i want to deal with let's go back then a few moves so after rookie free d5 do i have anything better perhaps he takes but he takes now i've got a pleasant choice i'd probably take with the knight yeah might be actually that rookie free is not a great move but otherwise i'm a bit worried about my king i mean the pawns on h3 and g2 are just screaming there please protect me because after some bishop h3 g takes even a move like queen d7 might be possible hitting h3 and then with the bishop on b3 rather than on f1 i might get mated exactly you've got to be careful here as white many games where you know a knight lands on f4 and you sacrifice and then the next knight lands here and the queen comes in as you said and he can get out of control now ravi has given himself great practical chances today because as you saw just there by a sample of those variations things can things can get out of hand but wait now that you've pointed out that d5 is actually a threat what if i play d5 myself with white i hate it yeah i'm also not a big fan of this move but maybe it just work it works out bishop d7 and now maybe something like like what maybe now rookie free i don't know why i like this move so much perhaps i could play something like knight d4 instead queen to f6 yeah somehow from the point of view of a human being this attack might not be pleasant at all to deal with yeah i believe Marcel will have to be very precise here in order to avoid all of these yeah i i i'm a bit concerned just play d5 actually oh my goodness d5 and i believe bishop d7 might follow shortly perhaps it's too early to take on h3 right yeah i think it's too early to take it but what's the idea after bishop d7 maybe knight d4 actually to attack the knight on h5 okay 94 i'll go i've also got queen g5 here oh queen g5 might be actually i don't know but let's say i go knight f4 anyways yeah i'm not sure what she's hoping for looks horrible to me yeah it looks like we are struggling to find the best setup for white here but d5 should be the move because as we've seen this d5 for black was quite quite maybe it's to go b6 okay then it makes then it makes some sense i don't know does it yeah because you try to make because black is going to stabilize and all of your pawns are going to be fixed on light square so b6 might be the grand plan but even this is just a complete mess yeah because those tactics on the light squares on g2 and h3 will be in the air definitely for a long time uh yeah if d5 followed up by b6 is is right then i don't mind it otherwise of course strategically it's a horrible move right just from a general point of strategic points of view because well you give up e5 and you make this bishop extremely bad right and you lose some definitely you lose the tension in the center but if it's got a concrete follow-up then then of course i i don't mind it yeah yeah i believe that's gonna be very interesting how how this position will develop especially since marcel has about 30 extra minutes on her clock ravi's taking quite a lot of time uh yeah that might cost him yeah it that that might become a feature because 28 minutes 20 moves is not that much time and it's a complicated position so i am i am curious all right let's go to uh let's go to another game let's see let's go back to mariel mosey tooks game we haven't seen that for a while yeah that promise to be really exciting and what is going on here well we have a typical rouser looking position where white has got in f5 with the bishop on h3 which tends to be uh you know very good for white and of course what is being calculated at the moment by maria is if if i take the pawn in e6 you take my knight on d4 you're attacking my queen so i have to take and then i can take back like this but but here you should be ready for moves like rook to c4 times now yeah rook's rook c4 queen to b6 bishop e3 yeah i'm careful because i'm threatening here and bishop e3 this this kind of stuff can can get out of hand very quickly but perhaps here after queen a5 oh but wait maybe i will have some rook g5 at the time yeah rook g5 and if e5 e5 or d5 i don't know let's let's try e5 i mean i don't love it ah you want to take on d7 with the knight or yeah i guess but then you can take here and you know these sorts of positions are in general very good for white yeah very good for white just a3 or something giving some king some lift you've got the d5 square black structure is fixed and i don't love it also there's it feels as though like you can just get tons of play yeah the queen is feeling very uncomfortable really uncomfortable like all of this sort of stuff wouldn't surprise me if there's there's a forcing way there so i think maria is is calculating that basically what about rook takes d4 bishop takes e6 trying to trade some extra pieces yeah that that definitely makes sense that's probably the correct move actually now let's say white probably has uh has to take yeah i believe white has to take because the bishop on h3 is not doesn't have a better square no okay and now now what there are are lots of interesting moves rook c4 one move rook g2 d1 actually might be an upper move yep no lots of ideas and as i say i don't think uh i don't think maria is going to be too unhappy here yeah definitely oh she took on c6 that's a different uh approach and now she says that black has to take on c6 with with the queen i guess because the bishop has to protect the pawn on e6 okay queen takes and maybe i could even go for moves like e5 whoa why not i like it because then bishop g2 will be coming in and if i take queen takes check oh it looks like it might be just very big trouble very dangerous yeah i actually like maria's move a lot yeah and you can't take with the pawn either because queen takes a6 is in here right so actually it's actually forcing queen takes and jillion could just be losing here and he is yeah definitely this is very very big trouble for jillion yeah nice spot well done very very nice yeah jillion as i said before the for the round today i looked at the men's pairings and i thought wow there's jillion black against maria that that is that is not a pleasant pairing and uh yeah it might be actually the game where where the ladies team will bring home the first point of the day yeah could be all right we carry on now let's go to janzai's game because something happened that was very interesting we last left it after rook hg8 and janzai here played a move which i completely didn't see after 12 minutes movie five oh so her point is that after f takes e5 she's got this f6 check i guess yeah this is the game ah that was actually played and after d takes e5 she's got a pleasant choice between rook takes d7 check first and then knight takes f6 with the fork with the fork and this kind of position here has to be fine for white probably many good moves here actually probably right uh so that's fine so bobby says okay i'll take here you take on d6 and bishop to c6 so why does regain the point now if she was just slightly better developed here but isn't it just big trouble on the long light diagonal i mean it could be the knight on a free is hanging yeah so like if you go bishop e2 let's say you still don't want to take on e5 because rook from h1 is hanging right probably yeah you yeah you have to protect the knight bishop e2 and what do i do here do i play no i don't want to play moves like e4 but perhaps i could play something like bishop f8 maybe yeah bishop f8 rook i don't know let's say back to d1 i really want to take that pawn on g4 but i'm not sure it's working after 95 exactly no you can't do that so what else yeah that's that's a very complicated one no i don't like my bishop f8 okay let me try something else what if i take here on g4 i want after 95 to take on h1 okay now when you take on g4 maybe with the knight i don't know mm-hmm and now where should be careful yeah but look at this bishop f8 but i think it works 97 check bishop takes okay take and king is seven oops oopsie you're very tricky i'm not very tricky i am a classical player arena you're a classical tricky i'm a classical player right this is a bit this is you're right this this is this is not so easy so bishop c6 on the board now what's the time now chance has got 42 minutes bobby 37 so a lot to consider here um yeah somehow that king on e8 is in trouble that knight g7 is in the air so all right what i've understood from these variations is that i don't have to take on g4 and after bishop e2 i think the best move should be rook d8 actually let's try that one bishop e2 rook to d8 because i want to escape with the king from e8 okay i'm not gonna let you i'm gonna go here but now perhaps i can take on i'm threatening me okay you have to yeah no definitely i take takes and then i was thinking again about this rook g4 but i'm not sure that works oh yeah knight 65 rook g1 you want to back yeah and actually that rook is very good on g4 because if you play a move like b4 you're not trying to win my piece i can take it exactly but maybe you've got some some other idea maybe i can just go a3 here then you have to calculate something like rook to g2 maybe i'm not sure how this one is i have no idea now when i take on e2 you take i take rook takes how is this one that's knight on h5 is a bit strange there you want to take here um yeah yeah because after knight g7 i have king d7 actually i'm not forced to take there very very weird position i think white is still doing well though feels not sure what about bishop e3 because somehow the bishop does a better job running from one flank to another that's true rook a5 this is king to c6 makes perfect sense oh he actually played bishop to f8 right he did i think we have we have it on the board bishop e2 bishop f8 bishop e2 bishop f this is our main line right oh no no i actually tried rook d8 now the latest one oh bishop f8 it was one of the lines right so now you play rook d1 i believe yeah maybe that's but that makes perfect sense because then you could try to take on e5 at points yes yeah this suddenly got a lot more complicated after this really interesting e5 move and just when i thought that white is getting into trouble just have find an interesting resource yeah i i i can't really but now also oh no yeah it's a difficult one what about the moves like knight to c4 here after rook to d1 could i try that one out knight to c4 knight c4 now the point being that if you take on c4 this knight on f3 will be hanging so perhaps you don't want to take but in the same time i have protected e5 it might be a reasonable move because also knight e3 with the idea of a fork is in there uh yeah and that's probably exactly why you have to play rook d1 and not rook d2 right because exactly mm-hmm yeah it feels completely unclear to me yeah i just i just don't have a and she played rook d1 so we have this on the board i'm very curious to see what what move bob is going to choose i agree let's keep it on it let's go to another game and olga girya i mean this i mean we i know there are a few games we haven't seen for a while but um the olga the olga girya game uh is kind of critical because it looked it looked close oh wait she's a piece up but he's got oh no he's got a check okay so let's just see what happened actually so he ended up going i told you all the night moves he ended up going for knight g4 the bishop came to c7 which looks logical queen d7 pinning and now queen e4 unpinning and bishop takes g5 she takes but this is her idea after takes force you take and now she wants to take here for sure you think yeah because after f takes g6 there is queen to e6 and now it's basically a double attack the king uh is uh checked and the bishop on e3 is checked as well you might even be able to take immediately on g6 check what about king h8 queen h5 king to g7 and you sort of make a staircase but i have king king h7 queen e4 yeah king h7 queen e4 that's a good one and the other point is if you block queen h7 once again i have a check that's a really pretty way of uh i'm handling this position yeah and obviously if you block with the queen here i'd take here check um so it looks as though Olga is gonna be at least a pawn up but maybe she can find something uh but no it looks just fine this bishop g6 looks great it looks like the well if you don't play bishop takes g6 i could try something like rook f6 that was what i was thinking wow try to make that a mate but i'm not sure that works perhaps it's too risky maybe no because i want also to bring the second rook to f1 and then you don't have the pieces of the right colors to protect the light the pawns on the light squares it looks it looks bad for hussain but then i remember yesterday's game when it was also looking bad so i don't want to jinx it for the ladies teams let's just say that he's in a tough spot and we'll see how that will go okay now people in the chat saying eric is doing very well all of a sudden and let's check that one now what happened in the game is we last sorry bishop f6 king e2 and rook a c8 so i have suggested queen e5 but rook a c8 is good and now pia played knight a2 protecting the rook but this now puts the knight passive and after queen e5 feels good and a4 oh that is a move which i have to say dislike somehow it feels like those pawns might be in trouble but hold on how do you take advantage here let me think what about a move like queen to be to check yeah you are forced to play queen to d2 because otherwise you lose and now a very strange move like queen a3 or queen b3 yeah that's what that's what i was thinking isn't that pawn just gonna fall i probably have to go a5 a5 oh this uh this begs for for trouble okay wait wait wait i could even have after rook d8 you've got the intermediate but still it looks bad wait yeah rook d8 rook fd8 actually or rook cd8 rook fd8 i believe fd8 i probably have to take yeah and then i take back now rook c2 is a threat yeah i this this isn't gonna work is it no no so i have to go rook c1 no but now i could even take on c1 and this is gonna be i believe a bad end game maybe something like queen to c3 oh queen c3 or maybe even queen c4 probably not that bad though takes takes takes b5 um b5 how bad can life be i mean black is not that bad no no no there has to be something i have to keep the queens there has to be something no but it definitely should be queen b2 yeah queen b2 queen b2 queen b3 was good i believe yeah after a5 i like queen b3 a5 maybe here you can just take mm-hmm just to make sure that this pawn is far away right yeah and now perhaps i could play even a move like h6 or g6 just to make sure that i don't run in trouble on the last rank and then still the knight on a2 is a bad piece yeah i believe i believe eric is doing great in this game so far it feels like there should be a way here that's for sure it feels like there should be a way i and i can't i can't put my finger on it but pier down to 19 minutes she's really really struggling isn't she that that loss yesterday has taken the wind out of her sails and is pier also getting a bit tired i mean yeah because it's not not an easy job to be uh the team's captain but wait just it might be just over yeah any any any of these moves you've suggested apparently is just unsurvivable and it doesn't surprise me yeah yeah it's very difficult and yeah you know sometimes you try to cheer up your teammates and this and that but then you end up losing quite a lot of energy on that don't you think oh absolutely yeah because you try to make everyone feel comfortable and pa is so nice she's supporting the girls so much and perhaps perhaps this has turned out a little bit against her but yeah definitely eric in a good spot really good and actually i have to say you know before the round if you would have said eric to beat pier today i would have said meh i'm not of all the games i would be less confident about this one um but uh you know uh seems as though uh he's he's got a basically a winning position which is huge in the context of today because definitely a lot of the positions for the guys uh at least earlier on looked a little shaky i mean for example jillian is definitely losing against olga shansaya she she can win that position because it's just a complete mess yeah it's complete mess uh let's check the men's team captain uh how sabino is doing against marie all right because actually i saw somebody asking in the chat uh if in such an event uh being a team captain means really having some actual tasks and that's exactly the case because the captains try to stick around the playing hall you know wait for all the games to finish then they are coming over to the studio to share their impressions and a few words about what's going on and yeah then they have team meetings they try to cheer up the players they have to make sure that everyone makes this every day uh covid test right so yeah all right so what's going on in marie versus sabino well we haven't had that many moves such a complex position they've both got about half an hour here um sabino managed to block the diagonal with the rook but 92 threatens just to win this pawn and as i say i was kind of a bit um pessimistic towards sabino's general uh opening i think it's a very dangerous line if you don't know it really really thoroughly and um i would take white here you like white yeah i really like white because you you don't want to but you might actually be forced to take on c2 because i dislike d3 as then the knight comes to e3 and then the bishop on f5 feels strange uh so take take maybe castle here now my point is that i want to take the pawn on e5 finally rook to d1 what if i take with the g knight yeah knight takes d4 i'm dropping c4 am i i hope so maybe not yeah knight takes d4 it gets c4 ah you want to take you want to take on c take on i you can you can take here but no i don't i don't lose a pawn at least i don't lose a pawn because i have a lot of um then you might be in trouble on over the d file no if you take on c on h7 here so yeah exactly king h7 queen c2 let's say king g8 queen c4 now rook f2 d8 i think black is fine here yeah no black black for sure is fine here but i wasn't thinking that i was thinking here um that i can't make it work if i play queen b3 first huh i was trying to consider most like bishop takes g7 actually yeah also yeah but i thought i could bring my queen back and now i have to go away with the knight well b5 might also exist but let's assume you go away with the knight sure just to start and now some queen g3 queen g3 bishop f6 i mean it's so close bishop g3 yeah yeah that's that looks like an exciting line because now after moves like f4 i could maybe take on d4 actually yeah exactly but i was wondering it's also it's also forcing if i take here i have to take with the bishop i believe but now rook takes d7 and bishop g3 and bishop g3 yeah and it's gonna be a draw most likely yeah crazy and that's just one line i mean there's so many things to consider here no definitely it's a really really tough position to analyze yeah so it seems like sabina is doing all right dish if i could say so yeah yeah no he he he probably it's touch and go it's one of those positions which could just be very bad for black mm-hmm i again my spidey senses are telling me that it's bad but it's not easy to find why right no not at all definitely he does take to con i see too yeah makes sense he does okay let's keep an eye on that um could we check the game between yovanka and leandro yep uh oh i guess we can just take it from here but you know i'm seeing a similar pattern with yovanka in this that her openings are kind of all right and then she's she's starting to get outplayed low low on time and starting to get outplayed sort of after move 20 25 30 and isn't black just doing really well here or am i insane do you know what is the problem that when you don't play so many tournaments it becomes difficult to keep up with the pace during the game you tend to take a little bit more time for every decision you know you doubt yourself a bit more than usually and that's perhaps what we could see here actually in yovanka's case no absolutely and i isn't she already in trouble like after night sexy for do i have that as a tactic definitely because after rook c4 there's queen d5 and you'll be just a piece up exactly she actually played rook d2c1 i can see rook d2c1 so do we have a way to keep that pawn with with black also there is another interesting idea that you see now the rook from c3 is taking the square away for for the knight so if we imagine that the rook or some other piece could attack the knight on b5 it would actually be lost so maybe we can try to make that work how do we make that work it's tough to tough to make work that yeah i don't see a direct way of that um okay uh rook d2c rook d2c1 rook d2c1 uh is there a knockout blow here i don't know maybe there's not maybe she's just in time you know i want to play e5 here as well like e5 is just begging to be played but maybe again this is just a time i'd have knight takes c4 yeah knight takes c4 okay oh he takes d4 and if you play knight takes b6 i have queen b7 check more tactics but even here is this point yeah i can play d takes c3 yeah perhaps i have to take on c4 with the rook okay so rook takes c4 okay let's say i exchange one pair oh i dislike this position to be honest for white knight takes c4 and e takes d4 yeah you've got the pawn right yeah because you still can't do this because i've got this very important check there's something about this position which just doesn't feel right no definitely what about d takes e5 let's so let's check d takes e5 but the knight ah and then i take on f6 yeah you take on f6 sorry i kind of just actually forgot that my my own knight was hanging yeah sorry no if that works then then of course this is this is the way but maybe here things are not so easy as well somehow um hmm knight g4 okay let's say knight g4 you can take with the knight on c4 yeah i might knight c4 crazy crazy position i don't know it looks okay for white yeah i'm very curious oh but wait maybe after i know i was thinking that maybe you can throw in a rook c5 somewhere there but i believe it might not work in the end of our previous variation which one after e5 yeah takes knight g4 knight c4 i was trying to make rook c5 work but no i'm not sure feels all wrong yeah you could even have a move like i don't know why but it feels so wrong this move yeah it might be in trouble on the like even this now might might work because if you give check let's say i go king g1 you go rook c3 i can go bc3 at the very least queen takes b6 queen after oh you're mating me damn you're mating me oh but there should be another reason it cannot be really the move perhaps knight c2 d6 even like something i would be shocked but yeah for sure this is what one thing for sure i'm telling you now that this position if i i'm just gonna cheat very quickly to get an evaluation well it thinks black is only slightly better which is kind of shocking to me so there is nothing special and if there's nothing special then your anchor is fine but she has to be really careful about her time she she doesn't want to go low on time again today she needs to be careful and then i believe she will be all right let's be optimistic right okay uh let's go back to another game let's go to nino's game we haven't seen that for a second yeah and we've we're gonna just take it from this position here and we have um oh quite quite a lot of things happened yeah a lot of things have happened actually how did black get rid of white's very nice doubled pause i well he just did it here apparently there was so here actually i actually it was nino who played c5 yeah which is a typical idea to get rid of those pawns actually billel ended up getting this construction that we were talking about earlier on right and like this and this is the position now you have to say looks bad for black you've undoubled the pawns ideas of c takes d6 and e5 winning are in the position and if you now take i'm happily taking because suddenly all of my pieces spring into action so why aren't i better here why isn't white just much much better here why why why shouldn't she be she absolutely should be yeah i think it's great and if white manages to open up the bishop from b2 as well look at that center it's just amazing oh yeah i see billel in a bit of a trouble today yeah me too perhaps he he went uh to risky he was trying to to go for the smell of blood but it might work actually against him yeah we'll see if that will be the case and actually the standings can be checked um both on the official side of the event jeep chess start calm i believe right and also on chess results if you go for the england eng yeah you can find it there jeep chess chess 24 will have the standings anywhere you like definitely all right so nino in good shape let us now go to uh you know what we have well let's go to eric because actually a lot has happened there let's check that one and it is a catastrophe he's a point up he's a point up and pia kramling he did play it seems the move queen to be three that we were discussing she did take a pair of rooks off the board and she played the move rook to c1 so she agreed to just to give up the point right yeah she did and now eric just played the very simple rook takes c1 you have to take with the knight otherwise you lose the knight and queen takes a four and this position is just um a catastrophe and you know why because that bishop on f6 does a very good way in helping the a pawn running towards queening and perhaps you could start with a move like g6 just making sure that the king has a loop exactly and then you just start to run with the pawn a5 yeah you can play a5 you can position the queen on b5 first and then go a5 you can you can do pretty much whatever you like here definitely and even if a pawn would be on a3 it would still be great for black but now that white is missing that pawn it's probably just lost i just don't see any way white has even i hope this bishop is just so strong you create an a pawn and you just run him down the board and there's just no counts of play the black king is perfectly safe this is a really just very unpleasant position for for pia who's got i would say less than a one percent chance of saving this position i would say yeah that's gonna be difficult for her and actually i believe that we're gonna see today again a lot of decisive results all of the games are still in progress all are pretty unbalanced actually yeah and everything can happen absolutely yeah i mean this is a huge win though for the boys thing this could be a critical moment because there are a lot of other games nino's position looks good maria is crushing olgogiria is crushing i liked marisa baggs position jansayah's position was unclear as was marcell froensky said literally six or seven games there which could go in favor of the of the women and as a result any points scored now by the men is just critical for this match definitely i mean joe gallagher is the only other player i would say with black who whose position i actually really like so if the if the guys manage to not lose by more than two today i think i'm going to be quite quite surprised actually so well i tell you what we will we'll go for another breather now as we are sort of midway through this round nine sorry all games still going on and looking good for the girls so we'll see if they can finish the job when we come back we'll have another interview though and we'll see you in just a few moments be right back back to round seven of the battle of the sexes live from the garrison library here in Gibraltar the games are still in all in progress and we're going to get to them again very very shortly but in the meantime i'm delighted to introduce a man who has effectively revolutionized the way chess is seen as a sport as a science as an art in i would say uh latin let's let's call it latin or spanish speaking the spanish speaking world if i can call it mr leandro garcia many of you guys out there will of course know leon chose seen him heard him read his uh read his work he uh he has been a uh a a a stalwart for chess for what 30 40 50 years now as a journalist especially specialized in chess 39 years and as a chess player you have to add 11 more years there you go writes for el baís and you can see his columns all the time so please do that but leon sure i wanted to discuss with you this tournament you've been coming to this tournament when it was at the caleta every year i saw you you go everywhere in just but this year is very special predominantly because of the concept which is men against women and people will also know that you don't just write about well this happened in this tournament you attend a lot of the a lot of the meetings about chess in education and the scientific elements when it comes to chess so can you perhaps give us your thoughts on on the format and the importance of this tournament well first of all i was always very happy to see brian calaghan's concept to uh approach to chess because gibraltar tournament was always different than other tournaments then attractive side of the gibraltar tournament was not only in the playing hole during the playing times but also outside of the playing hole any time during the day the atmosphere was very attractive now we are under very special conditions the pandemic and so on and then this new concept i think has a clear scientific interest because there are basically two ways to understand why there is only one girl among the top 100 players uh the first one is education i mean in most countries in the world unfortunately today at the 21st century is still i mean giving a doll to a boy is almost as strange as giving a chess set to a girl right so that could be one explanation chess is labeled has a label of masculinity yes but on the other hand we still don't know the last word from the science about the differences between male's brain and female's brain so the possibility of being different enough for the women to be better genetically for certain activities and vice versa is still open we cannot say the opposite categorically right today with the knowledge we have today so this format is very interesting because alone a hundred games we can compare we can see if the women's are underrated or not of course doing this only one year is not enough right we need a large sample size right that's right but it's a very good step forward as an starting point yeah it it is and it is important because it is the question that is posed most when i think about from people actually outside of chess why aren't there more elite women players and i think you're right about education the societal expectations as well as you said of of young girls especially what do you think we can in we can do in the chess community to to improve the state of i mean i i would say that women's chess as a as a as a concept has improved over the past few years women can now be professional players there is a women's circuits and women's tournaments and but what what more can we do to improve that that world let's say well one of my lectures is specifically about this subject oh right okay now the first thing i think we should do from tomorrow morning is introducing chess as an educational tool in preschool massively preschool so that's for from three to six years old three to six years old this is already done in hundreds of schools in spain argentina uruguay hongary and other countries i think in the united kingdom as well thanks to the malcom paints foundation right yeah and as far as i know the level of satisfaction among the school teachers is extremely high of course we are not talking about teaching real chess right three year old boy or girl we are talking about using a giant floor board combined with music and dancing and then you can use chess to work on very important pedagogical fields or goals at that age like psychometricity laterality memory concentration vertical horizontal diagonal respect for the rules respect for the opponent first impulse control and so on basic maths maybe as well as well yes therefore for those girls chess becomes something normal on daily basis so the label of masculinity disappears right that i think that will be the first step then of course we should do more tournaments like this one or the chess clubs should be perhaps be designed by women not by men in order to make an atmosphere more attractive for girls and women in general and so on and let me ask you okay this is i don't know if this is controversial or not but i want to ask you because i'm genuinely fascinated um some people propose the argument that having women's tournaments apart from men's tournaments or women's tournaments integrated into a general tournament just like we had in Gibraltar all those years people who saw who who watched over the years would know that we had the Gibraltar masters but then we had the women's prizes within that masters is that a hindrance to the development of women's chess or do you think that is a necessary function a necessary feature at the moment to improve the state of women's chess because there are people that say women should not have their own tournaments they should only play within the men's tournaments or against men yeah but being very categorical in this subject is dangerous it's a very delicate subject if we talk about very developed countries then perhaps we can eliminate a female's tournament tomorrow morning but even so we i i recommend it to do it gradually but think about for instance muslim countries especially the very radical muslim countries well it's up if there is a nonsense about making a mixed tournament with men and women together so in those in some countries in the world and not only muslim other countries as well you have to wait several years to do so i mean you have to do it very gradually but do you do you think then that is the that at some point in the future that the concept of women's tournaments should be eradicated or do you think we will arrive at that point or do you think it's still important theoretically yes but you have to do it with a lot of care i mean stimulating the women because for instance now in spain the spanish female championship was eliminated several years ago but the spanish female champion could be the the lady who ends on the 22nd place in the open tournament open spanish championship well this is not very stimulating in principle so you have to somehow compensate or think about how to compensate that somehow yeah it is it's extremely delicate isn't it and do you think therefore that let me ask well another question do you think the chances of there being a group of elite women are in the next 10 20 30 years are very high do you think because we said well actually it was with um i'm sorry you said it and it was also said earlier that we only have one one woman at the moment in the top 100 that's right so we i mean i think it has to be a priority for the chess world to increase that number doesn't it i mean well i'm not don't forget the other big number i mean the other very impressive number we have depending on the country by every 8 10 or 12 or 14 men playing chess we have only one lady so there's the ratio the rate so so so the number of men playing chess is 10 times the number of women playing chess as a round number yes 10 times could be and a good number to say yes right so then for instance one of the theories say that when puberty comes the male's brain becomes plenty full of testosterone and testosterone makes the boys very competitive most of the boys at that age 12 years old for instance want to be number one in some activities some activity but for girls the brain is full of estrogens at that age is much more normal for them to be i mean the goal is to get a bigger social network to meet new people and things like that at that age being number one for the girls is not a priority speaking generally yes so but on the other hand polgar sisters also had puberty right and estrogens and they didn't quit chess at all on the contrary the results are amazing right so is education is hormones is genetic or what is it well it's an extremely complex subject isn't it what i do know though is that i truly hope that one day we see a women's world champion i think the benefits for chess if we got that would just be extraordinary of course and scientifically as well it would be very very relevant um but yeah i think so can people you said you've attended lectures you've written work on this can they see what you've written where can they where can they see your literature on this well if they can read the Spanish my book chess and science combine passions this is the translated title is in its seventh edition and if you can translate this somehow you can read the Spanish then the first chapter for many pages is dedicated to this subject the the first sentence is when Kasparov at the Linaris tournament i'm sorry when Judith polgar at the Linaris tournament went to the bathroom and Kasparov was there because Kasparov was using the ladies bathroom because no lady was playing Linaris tournament until Judith right right that's quite a yeah that must have been a slightly awkward situation for Judith and of course Judith wasn't it in Linaris where Judith actually beat Gary as well no the Linaris happened that uh Kasparov made something illegal oh it was the illegal move episode sorry yeah that's another story but for everybody who knows that's a very controversial story in chess history um very interesting stuff Leontje thank you so much it's a pleasure we're gonna go and take another very very short break and then we're gonna get back to the games because we're getting to a critical moment of this round i can already see some uh we're getting close to zeitnots and and and all kinds of things are blowing up so give us just a few moments thanks again make sure you go and get his book read his articles subscribe Leontje Garcia a very important man uh for the development of this game talking to you it's always a pleasure thank you thank you thank you see you okay see you soon hello everybody welcome back to round seven of the battle of the sexes jib chess tournament 2022 we just had Leontje Garcia with us always a pleasure talking into Leontje has done a lot of work a lot of research into the scientific sociological element of this game and i highly suggest you you read his stuff because he is uh uh very well read in the subject and his opinions and ideas are are are very valid very interesting talking to him but in the meantime we should just get back to the games because we're at a critical moment of this round no games finished yet and Irina who just came and sat down 10 seconds ago said zero draws today which means that we've got a lot of action to to look at the idea of so well i don't even know where to go first i'm gonna just throw it over to you let's check the game between Olga and Hussein because i believe we've come to a point where white is just upon up and with a very comfortable position with big chances for Olga to to win this one because also uh actually we see now the board the queens are still there so that means that black's king on g8 feels really uncomfortable yeah and um i think uh this is a game we can pass by quite quickly it's just a case of whether Olga wins or not now i would suggest that one idea for Olga uh Hussein has just played route to d8 and i guess here uh well if we take this pawn on e sorry if we take this pawn on e6 what about attacking it with the queen i would love to take on e6 with the queen so something like queen c4 yeah could also be a very decent move yeah feels like the black king is too exposed i mean i just wanted to take here just to illustrate that uh taking on d4 is probably impossible because of check and it looks it looks like mate this is mate otherwise the queen comes to g6 right and then after some some checks it will be also made yeah and this is this position is going to lead to mate definitely just uh and Olga actually played queen to d3 which is uh we have the same idea to bring the queen to g6 and then the pawn on e6 is falling so let's trust Olga with the conversion of her advantage and move on to another game because yep there's actually a hell of a battle today exactly so let's go to for example the game let's just quickly look at Maria Muzichuk because it looked as though she had a crushing position and that assessment hasn't really changed if we look at the board we can see that she's got two extra pawns yeah the black bishops are very bad and there's not really much to discuss here this pawn is going to be a winner the rook can come behind the queen can float into e6 I see zero practical chances for Gillian and unfortunately that will mean that Gillian is on unfortunately just one draw and she he's been the the weak point he's been struggling yeah he's been struggling and I don't see him making a comeback in this game no he's he's not gonna he's not gonna hold that today now an interesting position out the corner of my is the position between Marcel Efremsky and Ravi Haria we have this position on the board and we're just going to take it from here because as I say there isn't much time left at all and it looks as though just for the moment Ravi is holding his position together Marcel played very very energetically definitely and actually look at that rook on a8 it is out of the game and I'm a bit worried about black's king here because if I would just play