| Oct-19-11 | | Jamboree: I think white went astray with 21. bxc6? and 22. Rfc1? Better would have been to maintain the integrity of the Q-side pawns with just 21. Ng3. After that, if black tries 21. ... e4, then just 22. Nd4. Or, if black then retreats the bishop with 21. ... Bd7 or 21. ... Ba8, then just 22. c6. Looks much safer for White that way. But after 21. bxc6? dxe2, white's position begins to disintegrate, especially after the time wasting rook-shuffles. Zhao Xue is now 8.5/9 -- destroying the competition. |
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| Oct-19-11 | | Jamboree: Oh, and I think black sealed the victory with 25. ... Rfd8! . The white knight simply can't move, due to ...Nh3+ and then Nxf7+ or Qxf7+, depending on where the king goes. But the white knight can't be protected either! So the only option, to avoid mate or loss of a piece is 26. gxf4, ruining the pawn structure and fatally opening the white king to mate threats. |
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| Oct-19-11 | | kamalakanta: Hi, Jamboree!
It seems to me that if 21.Ng3 Nc3! 22.Qb3 Nxb5 and White is simply a pawn down. Black threatens 23...Bxf3 and 24..Nd4 with a dominating position. |
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| Oct-19-11 | | kamalakanta: Maybe 18.BXe7 was the first big mistake. It seems that 18.Bd2 would have maintained some kind of balance.... |
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| Oct-19-11 | | xanadu: I agree with the last comment of Kamalakanta. The Black pawn in d4 is the support for placing a horse at c3; thus a Withe Bishop at d2 would play the role of defending c3. |
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| Oct-19-11 | | xanadu: It is amazing to see that in almost all her games in this tournement, Zhao Xue gets advantage at the opening by being advanced in development with respect to her adversaries at around moves 10-13. |
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Oct-20-11
 | | HeMateMe: Strange looking opening. Stefanova didn't see far enough ahead, tactically. Black's passed pawns were better than whites. |
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