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