Tingjie Lei Wins Women's Candidates Final
She'll play Ju Wenjun for the Women's World Championship in July
The Women’s Candidates final between the Chinese players Tingjie Lei and Zhongyi Tan finished on Sunday with a convincing 3.5-1.5 victory in favor of Lei. Six games is not very long for such a prestigious match, but that’s where things stand these days. Super-GM rapid and blitz tournaments can go on for a week or more, but a Candidates final? Gotta get that over with, ASAP.
At any rate, the match was brief but lively, and had its swings. In the first game, Lei was better, sometimes winning, but a blunder (at one of those moments when she had a winning advantage) turned everything around, and she lost. Unfortunately for Tan, she blundered in a drawn opposite-colored bishop ending in game 2, and the match was tied 1-1. Game 3 was a clean draw, but game 4 was a ragged mess. When someone was better in that game, it was generally Lei, who eventually won, but Tan missed a big chance on move 28. Had she spotted it, she probably would have won; instead, she was down a point with two games to go. With White, Tan went for the Zukertort System, but played very badly against Lei’s setup and was soon much worse. Black won very easily to finish the match a game ahead of schedule.
So, Lei will get a Women’s World Championship match against Ju Wenjun this July. Ju has held the title since 2018, but as their ratings are very close one can expect a tight match. We’ll see. For now, here are the games of the Lei-Tan match, with my annotations.