English Chess Forum

Pogonina and Lagno have drawn tie-breaks five and six, so does that put us into Armageddon?

(No it doesn't)

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:09 pm

Pogonina and Lagno have drawn tie-breaks five and six, so does that put us into Armageddon?

Not yet.

But now, yes?

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:58 pm

But now, yes?

Yes

Lagno wins with White, so the next round shapes up as follows:

Ju, Wenjun v Tokhirjonova (of whom I had never heard before this event)
Anna Muzychuk v Kosteniuk

Abdumalik v Mariya Muzychuk
Lagno v Lei, Tingjie

So an all-China final or an all-Muzychuk final is still possible; somehow the former seems more probable.

"So an all-China final or an all-Muzychuk final is still possible;"

Would we get the usual game played repeatedly then an exciting Armageddon game?

Great report from Jovanka Houska on the last 16 matches including the four golden rules for the tie-breaks:

Rule number 1: Do NOT lose control of the initiative
Rule number 2: Do NOT walk into preparation, duck and dive
Rule number 3: In the midst of chaos there is always opportunity
Rule number 4: "Bang, BANG your moves and hope it pays off"

Muzychuk M fighting for a draw with white against Abdumalik. (Not the first R and N v R, with pawns, we've seen recently, I think.)

Lagno beat Lei with White, Abdumalik beat Muzychuk (M) with Black. Kosteniuk drew with the other Muzychuk and Ju drew with Tokhirjonova, giving the Uzbek a chance with White to knock out the champion.

Muzychuk (M) has gone for a Sicilian, not unusual when needing to win with Black, though the particular version, a Taimanov without a6, is a little more unorthodox.

After 13 moves she seems to me to just have a Scheveningen where White's played a3 and she's played Qb8, which seems OK to me even if the computers think White has a small edge.

Tokhirjonova taking a terrible pasting from Wu today.

Impressed that the spelling of the player with 12 letters is correct.

She's fighting back and despite being two pawns down may now have a real chance (she's gone from minus seven to minus less than one). Meanwhile Abdumalik, who was just shuffling pieces to get the draw she needs, seems to have messed up the shuffling.