FIDE World Womens, Nov 2-23 Khanty-Mansiysk

[Kevin Bonham]

Ju beats Kosteniuk with black and the other game was a boring draw.

[Kevin Bonham]

Ju eliminates Kosteniuk and reaches final. Other match to playoff.

[Kevin Bonham]

Playoff game 1 Lagno - Muzychuk, exchange sac to reach OCB ending with equal pawns must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

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[Kevin Bonham]

Playoff game 2. Muzychuk begs to be smashed and Lagno obliges. Lagno to final.

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[ElevatorEscapee]

^^ Thanks Kevin.

Ju Wenjun has gone through in "straight sets" (as a tennis analogy) against all opponents, but on the other hand, she may be rusty with a lack of practice at rapid / blitz games, which will come into play in a tie-break scenario.

This does give Ju the ability to see what variations her opponents might wheel out in desperation in the faster time limits against each other.

Lagno, in contrast, has already experienced several rapid games and the desperation of an Armageddon game.

[Garvinator]

^^ Thanks Kevin.

Ju Wenjun has gone through in "straight sets" (as a tennis analogy) against all opponents, but on the other hand, she may be rusty with a lack of practice at rapid / blitz games, which will come into play in a tie-break scenario.

Final is four games, not two

[ElevatorEscapee]

Final is four games, not two

Thanks for the info Garvin!

Wikipedia:

The final is the only match of the tournament which consists of four classical games. Those are played on consecutive days with a rest-day between the semi-final tie-breaks and match 1. Eventual tie-breaks are scheduled to 23 November, in the same manner as the whole tournament (two rapid games of 25+10, i.e. 25 minutes for the whole game plus 10 seconds increment, the two rapid games of 10+10, two blitz games of 5+3 and an armageddon decider).

[MichaelBaron]

Apparently, Lahno has given birth to her 4th child only 1 month ago! The same report suggests that her current husband is...Grishuk (who has previously been married to Zhukova)!

[ElevatorEscapee]

To be Frank, who is "Lahno"? Is he the comedy partner of Woodley?

[Kevin Bonham]

She used the spelling "Lahno" before transferring from Ukraine to Russia, then changed it to "Lagno".

[MichaelBaron]

She used the spelling "Lahno" before transferring from Ukraine to Russia, then changed it to "Lagno".

Sorry, I am falling behind with her name changes and husband changes

[Kevin Bonham]

Game 1 Ju - Lagno:

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At times white was in trouble here. Rather lenient draw offer at the end.

[Garvinator]

At times white was in trouble here. Rather lenient draw offer at the end.

Yes, indeed. Especially when Ju has been mowing over the opposition throughout this tournament, so for Lagno to get a better position in game 1 as black and then decide to offer a soft draw seems rather weak. Wonder if that decision will come back to bite her hard.

[Kevin Bonham]

I thought Ju had offered the draw. In the final position white is better.

[MichaelBaron]

I thought Ju had offered the draw. In the final position white is better.

After struggling for a while, it is quite common to be happy to ''equalize'' and sometimes not to realize that the paradigm has shifted.