The favorite is a favorite for a reason. Women's #1 Hou Yifan took advantage of FIDE k.o. champion Mariya Muzychuk's poor play in game 6 of the Women's World Championship to take a 4-2 lead in this best-of-10 game match. With (at least) 1.5 points in the next two games, Hou can end the match two games ahead of schedule and claim the women's championship title for a fourth time.
Neither woman has achieved much with the white pieces in this match, and that pattern held in game six as well. What Muzychuk did achieve was almost as important, however: a position with play. The position after 15.d4 was complex and non-traditional, and both players made some errors in the resulting middlegame. What decided the game, and probably the match, was White's knight on h4. Muzychuk failed to maintain an initiative on the kingside, and in the end her knight was stranded on that awful square. Her position was "officially" lost after her blunder on move 33, but even before and aside from that White's position was a disaster.
The game, with my notes, is here; game 7 is scheduled for Friday.