2025 Women's World Chess Championship Game 6: Ju Extends Her Lead

Lichess is providing a live stream for every day of the Women's World Championship. Make sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube channels for live stream coverage with our hosts GM Toms Kantāns and WIM Jesse February, joined by a rotating panel of guests. Game 7 starts at 07:00 UTC on Sunday, April 13th, and WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea will join our stream!

Additionally, we will cover every game in our blog, with annotations by WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea for games 1-6 and WGM Petra Papp for games 7-12.

The annotations by WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea for Game 6 can be found here.

Lichess has also run player profiles on GM Ju Wenjun and GM Tan Zhongyi, and published a Match Preview ahead of the match.

Schedule

Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGsnws77sAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TttiM23Fq-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAbyjBAC8MQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmBIlTe7uaY

Annotations by WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea

Match Score

Recap

Tan once more stuck to the English opening approach in the match - this time unsuccessfully. She deviated from the 3.g3/Nc3 paths and went for 3.b3, which is becoming increasingly popular. Ju took a principled approach to the position, aiming to control the center with d5-c5 and threatening d4. After the pawn exchanges, Tan opted for a double fianchetto setup, and Ju did indeed get d4, but only temporarily.

Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Ju has managed to equalize; however her space advantage in the center can easily be challenged by Tan, while White's bishops have the potential to become very powerful on the long diagonals, and the a3 knight, while currently (seemingly) out of play, can be re-routed via c4 at the right moment. Overall, we could claim that the position is still fairly complex positionally, but probably equal.

10.e3 indeed came to challenge Ju's strong center and open up White's dark-squared bishop. Black is, of course, not obliged to capture yet, and keeping the tension while improving her position would have been an interesting approach as well. However, she chose another path - 10...dxe3 11. dxe3 Bf5, planning to exchange the fianchetto bishop. This is a common theme in fianchetto positions; in our game this plan is more about exchanging White's strong piece, and a long-term positional idea of exploiting the light square weaknesses, rather than an immediate attack plan for checkmate, which is also a frequent theme, but usually in different structures and where there are sufficient pieces ready to exploit the weakened king tactically. This positional exploitation of the light squares did in fact come later in the game.

Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Ju's pieces and overall position start to look comfortable. The knight occupies a strong square on e4, which can - and will - be further secured later with f5. Her bishop has room for improvement, but an f5 idea would also help in that direction, followed by Bf6, challenging Tan's most active piece. Tan's knight, on the other hand, has still not found a good square, or specific task, in the game.

Tan played Nd3, aiming for Nf4-h4. Should she achieve this, she would solidify her position and have an equal fight, with ideas for both sides. However, she is a move too late, as Ju is in time to play 21...g5! preventing both. In this particular position, continuing with g4, exploiting the light square weaknesses, or even c4, exchanging a potential weakness of her own and creating a passed pawn could have been more accurate. Ju decided to exchange the bishops instead, which was a logical idea in the game. The double rook exchange soon followed. This position may look drawish - and most engines will concur to that - however, it's still a challenging position for White while most of Black's moves will come naturally, and it's also easy for White to become impatient and create more weaknesses in her camp in an attempt to find counterplay.

Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Tan had managed to find the best defensive moves so far, but her task was particularly challenging. 31.h4 was one of those probably impatient moves in an attempt to find a game of your own, which did more harm than good in Tan's position. Had Ju taken the pawn, or even ignored it and allowed Tan to take it instead, this move might actually have worked. However, there's no need for that - Ju went for g4! - and, after the queen exchange, forced the knight into a passive position with no good squares available.

Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Tan tried to keep fighting and create some counterplay by getting a passed pawn. It would take Ju some technique to win the resulting position, but she definitely doesn't lack the technique, and the advantage was more than sufficient. Tan's passive king and knight were simply no match for Ju's strong king and knight, and they were unable to support any counterplay ideas.

By the time she was able to activate her king and knight, Tan had given up material and Ju had made enough progress that the position was hopeless for Tan. So Tan resigned a few moves later, now 2 points behind in the match. We will have to wait until the second leg to see if she can recover and come back into the match!

Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Stream

• Part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMmyaLSEy0Y

• Part 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLfP5YEBYLk