A very strange pattern is emerging in the Women's World Championship match between ex-champ and favorite Hou Yifan and current champion Anna Ushenina. When Hou has Black, a complicated and not easily resolved position arises, and she wins. When Hou is White, Ushenina's prep is very concrete, equalizes, and leads to easy draws. This happened again in round 4 (this time in a Najdorf), and the score in the best-of-ten game match is 3-1 in Hou's favor.
This pattern may seem odd, but while it is unusual it's also understandable. Black has a lot more control over both the opening and the nature of the opening than White does, and it's also a lot easier for Black to prepare in terms of the quantity of material. If you're White and play 1.e4, you need to have something against 1...c5, 1...e5, the French and the Caro-Kann, not to mention the other less common but nevertheless playable openings like the Pirc. Black, of course, can just choose one move, like 1...c5. Then White has a brand new set of problems. Unless White plays the 2.c3 Sicilian or Bb5 lines, the first player must worry about the Najdorf, Scheveningen, Classical, Dragon, Sveshnikov, Kalashnikov, Kan and Taimanov variations, just to name the biggies, while Black can get by with just one of them.
Given that relative ease, and the presence of so many forcing variations in Sicilian lines in particular, it is in some ways easier for Ushenina to play with the black pieces against Hou. Hou's strength is likelier to arise when they get positions where they must "just play chess", and oddly enough that's likelier to happen when Ushenina has White. Maybe, then, Hou should play something slow and vague like the Reti.
We'll see if she goes for a non-sharp line in a couple of days. Monday is a rest day, and on Tuesday Hou will again have White for game 5.