The "A": Anna Ushenina, who was the only player to win her quarterfinal match after the two classical games, and Antoaneta Stefanova, who came back from a loss and multiple lost positions to win her match.
The "B": Blunders, and goodness there were a lot of them.
The "C": Chokes - plenty of them, too.
This was a very ugly round. Chess is hard even when one is in good form and full of energy; when one is exhausted and under a lot of stress, away from home and "enjoying" sub-zero temperatures day after day, horrors are possible. If you like that sort of thing as a fan, then the quarterfinal round of the 2012 Women's World Chess Championship delivered!
Let's review the action a day at a time, starting with the first classical game on Tuesday. Nadezhda Kosintseva had just overcome her sister in a tough match, and had White against Anna Ushenina. Both sides had a tough time figuring out what to do in a slightly nonstandard Najdorf with 6.Bg5 Nbd7 7.Qe2, but in general Ushenina had a better feel for things and had some advantage in the middlegame. As the time control neared, however, the game randomized a bit, and then on move 35 it was time for a blunder. Black was doing fine despite a pawn deficit, but after she played 35...f6?? it would have been time to resign, had White found the very simple and mundane 36.exf6+ Bxf6 37.Rxf6. (As trainers never tire of telling their charges: always look at checks and captures!) Instead, Kosintseva played 36.Ka2?, which was good for some advantage but not winning on the spot. She maintained and even grew that advantage at the end of the time control, and had she played on rather than repeating her winning chances would have been excellent. So give Kosintseva a ?? for repeating as well. Maybe this was a bit of a choke, from the stresses of this game and her match with her sister.
A game that did finish with a decisive result was Marie Sebag - Antoaneta Stefanova. Sebag played 6.d3 against the Archangelsk, and a slow, maneuvering game ensued. Sebag handled the "Spanish Torture" better than her opponent, and was already winning when Stefanova blundered with 36...Rxa5, overlooking 37.Nxf7.
Next up: Ju Wenjun vs. Huang Qian. Black had better prep in a 5.h3 King's Indian, and enjoyed a very strong initiative in the opening. White correctly decided to break the pressure with an exchange sac, making the position a bit messy. Still, White's compensation was inadequate for the exchange, or later for the pawn, when Huang correctly returned the exchange for a little interest. Ju defended well, and then a series of Black inaccuracies starting with 24...Rd8 (24...a5 followed by ...a4 and pushing the pawn as fast as possible probably would have led to a win) culminating in 29...Bxc3 let White off the hook. The idea of eliminating worries about opposite-colored bishops made sense, as far as it went, but it turned out that Black's extra pawn, the passed a-pawn, was too easily and conveniently blockaded. Black tried until move 62, but neither she nor the a-pawn came close to achieving their aims.
Finally, Zhao Xue - Harika Dronavalli was a well-played, correct draw.
On to day two. If you tried to read the tea leaves based on the results from the first day, you'd go broke. So...
Ushenina - Kosintseva was a Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian that had a Saemisch-like quality to it, and Ushenina won by following the recipe of "Grandfather" Misha. Botvinnik - Capablanca from the A.V.R.O. tournament in 1938 was a classical model for what happened in this game: White owned the bishop pair, Black played ...c5-c4 and won the a-pawn, while White built up with f3 and e4. Ushenina won a very clear, thematic game, and bounced the second-highest rated player remaining in the tournament.
How about Sebag? Did she finish off her opponent? She came close, but didn't. With Black she was equal or a bit better through most of the middlegame, and Stefanova had to fight very hard just to avoid a forced draw. Only near the time control did things start to work out for White. 35...Bxc3 36.bxc3 Rf8 would have maintained equality; instead, 35...Bf4 was a first big step in the wrong direction, and Stefanova soon reached a winning ending with an extra pawn. As it was an outside passer, converting her advantage was pretty easy, and they were headed for tiebreaks.
So were Huang Qian and Ju Wenjun, who drew speedily in just 17 moves, but the game between Dronavalli and Zhao Xue was a completely different story. Dronavalli prepared a very dangerous attacking idea in the Neo-Saemisch Nimzo-Indian, and belted out her first 16 moves instantly and with a rather contented, even smug expression. As often happens when one is busy preening and engaging in self-congratulations, a powerful and unpleasant dose of reality often isn't far behind. Zhao's 16...Qa5 wasn't what one of Houdini's top choices, and so while it may not have been so good it forced Dronavalli to think for herself, and at that moment she didn't rise to the challenge. The two obvious attacking tries, 17.Rg3 and 17.Bb2, were both very strong, but at least with respect to the former Dronavalli couldn't figure out what to do about 17...Nxe4 in reply and therefore eschewed it. (17...Nxe4 is indeed principled, but it's losing to 18.Rxf8+ Kxf8 19.Rg4! For instance: 19...Qe5 20.Bf3 Nc3 [20...Nf6 21.Bxc6 and if 21...Nxg4 22.Qd8+ Kf7 23.Be8+ Kf8 24.Bg6#] 21.Qf1 Kg8 22.Bh6+-.) After 18.Rd3? Ne5 19.Bd2? (19.Rg3!+=) 19...Qc5 Black was fine, and soon she was up a pawn for nothing. After 46 moves, it was two pawns for nothing, and after 60 moves it could have been three pawns for nothing: 60...Ncxe4 was fine, meeting 61.Bf8 with 61...g5, when White's swindling chances look awfully slim. The final critical moment came on move 66, when Zhao must have suspected that 66...exf3 was a mistake and spent what would normally be more than enough time for her to spot the perpetual. And yet, three pawns up, with enough time and the chance to finish the match, she played 66...exf3??, allowing perpetual with 67.Qc7+ Kh8 68.Qe5+ and so on.
On to the tiebreaks. In the first 25' + 10" game, Stefanova played well at first against Sebag and enjoyed a nice advantage, but it took her a lot of time to achieve that good position. 19.dxc5!! Bxb1 20.Bxe5 would have been winning - e.g. 20...Nfd7 21.Bd6 Bd3 22.Rfd1 Ba6 23.cxb6 Re8 24.Ba3 and the b7 pawn will cost Black further, serious material. Instead, Stefanova lacked the time to properly calculate such variations and played 19.Ne4? Rc4 20.Rd1?(?), when she was down a piece for practically nothing. Sebag couldn't figure out how to consolidate though, joined Stefanova in time trouble, and eventually blundered and lost. One big error was 30...Bd6 (30...Nd6, 30...Nd2 and 30...Rxc5 31.dxc5 Nd2 all maintained a winning advantage), and the consistent follow-up 31...Bxc5 was just as bad. There were further errors, but rather than detail them all the point is that nerves seem to have gotten the better of the French player, and she lost again.
In the all-Chinese battle between Ju Wenjun and Huang Qian, they more than made up for the short draw on the previous day. Both players missed wins (31.Nxf5, 37.Rd8, 38...Qg6/38...Rxh3+) and after 41 moves the game was looking very drawish, while after 50 moves it was a dead draw. Perhaps in a bit of revenge for day 1, Ju played on for another 50 moves, without any objective reason and without coming within a mile of a winning chance, never mind a win.
Finally, the last game of the first tiebreak round saw Zhao Xue get punished for her failure the previous day. She was better with White in a Classical King's Indian, but it was a very complicated position and her error on move 27 completely turned the tables. She should have played 27.Nc4, aiming to plug up the d-file with Nd6. Instead, 27.a4 was too slow, and she would have been lost after 27...Qc3 or 27...Qb2. Dronavalli played something else, which gave her a smaller advantage, but Zhao was holding on by a thread. With 32.Qe3 White could have fought on, albeit in a position where she would have many ways to go wrong. Instead, 32.Be3?? lost the game immediately to 32...Qb3! 33.Rxd2 Rxd2 and White resigned, as 34.Bxd2 Qxf3 is mating.
Tiebreak round 2: Sebag-Stefanova was a third straight win for Stefanova, and a comfortable one for a change. The Bulgarian grandmaster and former women's world champion thus remains in the running to reclaim her title.
Huang Qian - Ju Wenjun was another draw, so they would need to move on to a pair of 10' + 10" games. White had a big advantage early on against the Leningrad Dutch, but couldn't figure out how to convert it, and her opponent escaped.
Finally, Harika Dronavalli only needed a draw with White against Zhao Xue, the top seed remaining in the event, to advance to the semi-finals, and she got it with ease. Zhao badly misplayed the opening and was lost almost from the start. With a lot of work, she managed to achieve a lost middlegame and then a lost ending, but in the interest of keeping things simple Dronavalli let her escape to a drawn - but, importantly, dead drawn ending that sealed the match.
On to another pair of tiebreak games for the Ju Wenjun - Huang Qian match. In the first, Ju obtained an absolutely overwhelming endgame advantage, handling the bishop pair beautifully. Unfortunately for her, rather than play 43.c6 bxc6 44.Rxd7+ Kxd7 45.bxc6+ Ke7 46.Bb4+ and game over, she went for another forced line: 43.Bxe6(?) Kxe6 44.c6(!) bxc6 45.Rxd7(?? - 45.b6! won) 45...Kxd7 46.bxc6+ Kxc6 47.Bxe5, clearly thinking the bishop ending would be won. It's true that she would win the g-pawn, but that would be the extent of her achievement - or at least, it should have been. If Black had played 55...Bxf6 it would have been a draw (Capablanca's ending, as Jonathan Hawkins calls it in his new book From Amateur to IM, but without the crucial spare tempi), and even after that there wouldn't have been any problems had Black not chosen 56...h6?? Fortunately for her, White played 58.Kf5??, and after 58...Kf7 59.Bf4 Bxf4! 60.Kxf4 Kg6! Black held easily. Instead of 58.Kf5 White could play 58.Bc5 (or 58.Bb4 or 58.Ba3 all putting Black into zugzwang. The king can't afford to move, a bishop move along the d8-h4 diagonal allows 59.Be3, and a bishop move along the c1-h6 diagonal allows 59.Kf6.
Finally, the second 10' + 10" game had a winner, and the quarterfinal round was put out of its misery. Huang Qian played wonderful, forceful chess in the opening and middlegame, and therefore, of course, she went on to lose the game. The banal 21.Be7 would have given White a big, probably winning advantage, but Huang thought she found a nice finesse: 21.Nb5 Qc8 and only now 22.Be7. Unfortunately, after 22...Qe8! 23.Bxf8 Bxf8 24.Nc3 c5! the situation had changed drastically. White enjoyed a small material advantage, but now Black was safe, better developed and in the process of taking over the initative. Huang Qian failed to adapt, and this time Ju Wenjun did not let her escape, but finished strongly.
And then there were four. The pairings for the semi-finals, which start Friday (today for most of you; tomorrow for my fellow Americans as of this writing), are as follows:
- Antoaneta Stefanova - Harika Dronavalli
- Anna Ushenina - Ju Wenjun
Saturday, December 1, 2012 at 8:36PM