Hou Yifan scored the third victory in game six of the FIDE Women’s World Championship Match and is now leading by 4,5-1,5. Yifan only needs one point from remaining four games to recapture the title of World Champion.
The reigning Women’s World Champion Anna Ushenina deviated from the Nimzo-Indian defence, which earlier brought her two losses, so Yifan used the Queen’s Indian defence instead.
Later black set the pawn structure that resembled the Benoni, but the position remained equal throughout the first 30 moves.
Once again Ushenina had a poor handling of the clock and she run into time trouble having around three minutes to complete ten moves.
Precisely then Yifan decided to complicate matters with 31…c4. This proved to be success as Ushenina erred 33.Bd4? and her position quickly collapsed.
This was the third loss with white pieces for Ushenina. With black she made three draws.
Replay the game with computer analysis
Shameful match.
The knock-out format Ushenina won under last year is clearly a flawed system.
It would be like Vishy losing his World Champion title getting knocked out early in the Chess World Cup.
I see the same system is being adopted next year too. One mistake and Hou Yifan will lose her title. Crazy.
I agree with Daniel. FIDE should use the same system for Women’s World Champion (WC) as the men’s. Yifan will defend her Crown by one challenger next year. That would be more reasonable and respectable for the WC. Her leading position ahead of other women chess players is even larger that Carlsen vs. other men’ s players.