Women's World Championship Semi-Finals, Day 1
Both of today's games at the Women's World Championship were decided in endgames, and in both endgames there may have been missed opportunities. Mariya Muzychuk enjoyed a fairly significant advantage against Harika Dronavalli both shortly before the time control on move 40 and then again a few moves afterwards, but didn't managed to maintain her edge against the Indian grandmaster's stout defense. The game finished in a draw after 60 moves.
Meanwhile, Natalia Pogonina played Lasker's Defense against Pia Cramling's Queen's Gambit, an approach which generally leads to two-result play - either White wins a long game or Black holds a draw. That's just what happened here: Black had to suffer forever. (To adapt a phrase from Dmitry Komarov, commenting on one of Magnus Carlsen's games from the World Blitz Championship last year in Dubai, "Pia Cramling will play this position until her opponent dies.") Cramling took her time carving up her opponent, and perhaps the critical moment came on Black's 49th move. After Pogonina's 49...Kd7 and Cramling's 50.h5, White's advantage is clearly decisive, and Cramling never gave her opponent another chance to survive. (Maybe she could have won more simply, e.g. with 71.d7+ Kxd7 72.Rg6, but she never endangered the win.)
Instead, Black could have tried 49...gxh4+ 50.Kxh4 and then 50...Kd7, waiting. I'm far from sure that Black is surviving this, but she has a shot. A possible line: 51.Rb5 Kc8! 52.Kh5 Kc7 53.Rb6 Rxb6 54.axb6+ Kxb6 55.Kxh6 Ka5 56.Kg7 b5 57.Kxf7 b4 58.g5 b3 59.g6 b2 60.g7 b1Q 61.g8Q Qf5+ 62.Ke7 Kb5. Maybe someone can plug this into a 7-man tablebase somewhere or to FinalGen to let us know the assessment, but at least practically speaking Black has good chances to hold.
So Pogonina must win tomorrow, but her fans need not fret too much - she has been in this position the past two rounds as well. Whatever happens - both in this match or in the other one - we will have a first-time women's world champion in a week or so.
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