GM Ju Wenjun floor out a win in a pawn-up endgame to defeat GM Tan Zhongyi and stage the scores at 1.5-1.5 after three video games of the 2025 FIDE Girls’s World Championship. Tan performed quick in a Sicilian to stress her opponent, however within the run-up to the time management Ju grabbed a pawn. The alternative-colored bishop endgame was nonetheless a draw with greatest play, however Tan cracked at transfer 60 and Ju went on to win a nerve-wracking conflict in 5.5 hours and 87 strikes.
Sport 4, when Tan can have the white items, begins on Monday, April 7, at 3:00 a.m. ET / 09:00 CEST / 12:30 p.m. IST.
2025 Girls’s World Championship Match
| Identify | Score | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Rating |
| Tan Zhongyi | 2555 | ½ | 1 | 0 | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 1.5 |
| Ju Wenjun | 2561 | ½ | 0 | 1 | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 1.5 |
GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed sport three of the match beneath.
Ju has now trailed by some extent in 4 separate girls’s world championship matches, however every time she’s hit again to stage the scores. This time she did it instantly, after various with 3.c4 when the gamers had repeated the Sicilian, they performed in sport one.
That transfer, solely the seventh hottest within the place, was described as a “slight shock” by Tan, however that did not cease her from enjoying quick and happening to as soon as once more construct up a 20-minute edge on the clock. She would snicker afterward on the suggestion that enjoying quick could be a technique, saying that if something she’s enjoying extra slowly than ordinary and that she’s “fairly cautious this time—in any other case I’d be a lot faster!”
The place quickly had by no means been seen earlier than. When Tan broke within the middle with 7…d5, we received a simplified place the place it was removed from apparent whether or not White ought to goal to assault or blockade Black’s remoted d-pawn. IM Irene Sukandar highlighted among the points.
Irene Sukandar: “I believe this place requires the mix of tactical and strategical considering… I want I might dive into Ju Wenjun’s thoughts proper now!” #JuTan pic.twitter.com/wFH7bBWCds
— chess24 (@chess24com) April 6, 2025
A tense middlegame was filled with hid traps for each side, however within the run-up to the time management Ju emerged with a bonus due to her bishop pair. Then, on transfer 37, she transformed the sting into one thing concrete by grabbing the d5-pawn.
The one good response was the tough 37…Ne3!, which Tan duly discovered, however after 38.h4 she would later remorse enjoying 38…Qg4 reasonably than the intense different 38…Nxd5.
Both method, Ju would emerge a pawn up, and the place within the sport was a type of the place “objectively” the opposite-colored bishops must be sufficient for Black to carry a draw, however the rooks on the board difficult issues.
As we might already seen within the earlier sport, nonetheless, “drawn” positions are sometimes removed from simple to attract. Ju set about her process resolutely and commenced to clarify progress because the c-pawn superior two squares to c5 earlier than Tan managed to blockade it. The switch of the bishop from e6, the place it anchored the f7-pawn, to c6 proved to be flawed, with 60…Bc6? the second when the pc flagged that White was all of the sudden successful.
Ju appropriately invaded with 61.Kg5!, saving the e5-square for her bishop, and Tan was on the ropes, although it was solely after attending to play 73.f3! that Ju was positive she was “completely successful as a result of Black doesn’t perform a really sturdy plan.”
It is mate-in-one if the black bishop strikes, and checkmating threats would seemingly have ended the sport on the spot if Ju had performed 77.Bf6+! later, however her methodical strategy of bringing around her king and pushing her handed pawns additionally received the job carried out.
The one hazard was the clock, with Ju making two strikes with simply eight seconds to spare, however she by no means slipped and received to complete with a flourish by pushing her h-pawn when it might now not be stopped.
If Black captures the a5-bishop, White can sacrifice her rook for the e6-bishop and queen the c-pawn. There was no answer for Tan, who with simply two seconds to spare performed 86…Bc8, solely to lastly resign, by placing the consequence on the scoresheet, when the h-pawn was pushed one other sq..
A nerve-wracking end, however in 5.5 hours & 87 strikes, Ju Wenjun has bounced straight again to stage the Girls’s World Championship at 1.5-1.5 after Sport 3! https://t.co/p55UvAaVXM#JuTan pic.twitter.com/lT3nPuMcFK
— chess24 (@chess24com) April 6, 2025
So each gamers have now misplaced video games they seemed favourite to carry, and the scores are stage after three hard-fought encounters. Ju agreed with a questioner who requested if she was “within the zone.” Does she now have the momentum on her aspect, or can Tan strike once more?
We’ll get our first likelihood to see on Monday, when Tan has the white items for sport 4 and shall be hoping to make it three White wins in a row!
How you can watch the 2025 FIDE Girls’s World Chess Championship
The 2025 FIDE Girls’s World Championship is a very powerful girls’s over-the-board occasion of the yr. The defending girls’s world champion, GM Ju Wenjun, faces the challenger, GM Tan Zhongyi, to see who shall be topped world champion. The championship began on April 3 in Shanghai and boasts a €500,000 ($540k) prize fund.
Earlier Protection
