Women's European Championships Plovdiv Bulgaria. Round 9 of 11.

Time for the games is 90 mins then at move 40 add 30 mins plus add 30 seconds for each move from move one.
Games begin at 12:30 BST.
All the live games can be seen here

http://www.eicc2008.com/en/

There are 3 leaders on 6.5 and our own Yelena Dembo plus 3 others on 6.0.
Today Yelena on board 3 plays with white against Natalia Zhukova.
With just 2 more rounds to play after today Yelena needs a win to keep her in contention for a top place.

As in yesterdays relay the board here will be updated every 15/20 mins depending on speed of play and reliability of feed from Plovdiv.
Yesterday we had plenty of kibitzers but few comments so today please be a little bolder and join in.

game begins

 

 

 

Pete, Thank you for arranging this coverage! Great Stuff.

Yes, thanks Pete.  I enjoyed the game yesterday and hope that Yelena can get the win again today!

Black took a very long time to make move 11, I wonder what she was seeing, because O-O looked like a pretty logical move to me. But Im a patzer, so I could be missing something obvious.

looking at chessbase games dbase there is a fair split  between 11. ..0-0 and 11. ..Nb4.

However what is more likely is that after the first 10/12 moves players tend to take stock and assess a game plan from the opening that has developed. 

By move 8. I was freaking out it was looking pretty bad for her but she is pulling the game back her way maybe if black had've taken more of an intiative when she was in a vunerable position. 8...Rb8 would've been my personal choice but I can see that black needs a good square for his bishop.

8. .. Rb8 just gives the N away with 9. cxd5. 8. .. Ba6 is the standard book move and pins the cpawn against the Q so the N can remain on d5

This is proving to be an exciting game!

By move 14, I'd much prefer to play white, black feels really cramped to me.

sorry I think I might be talking about move nine where g6 was played I agree with Ba6 but g6 seemed a bit slow.
 so after 9.b3 Rb8 is my continuation.

 

Baseballfan wrote: By move 14, I'd much prefer to play white, black feels really cramped to me.

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 I agree completely, though I'd have trouble defending all of my points and maintaining the space advantage.

possibly black likes the cramped or closed position that baseballfan refers to. and g6 would build this for her. some players like this closed play but it requires patience and sharp play to be effective.

White avoided 15. cxd5 because this would undouble blacks pawns and leave her with a strong passed pawn on the d file which could eventually become a game winner

Im a bit concerned for her time.. 17 moves gone and she has only 35 min left, compared to 57 min for her opponent.. leaving 23 moves to be made in 35 min to reach the timecheck..

At what point should time become a more worrying factor or am i worrying unnessessarily?

One thing to note pistoleer, she has closer to 45 minutes to the time check, because there are 30 seconds added after every move, but as it is the same for black, the difference in time is still significant.

Well, there goes that significant time difference, as black is taking a very long time on this move (18)...

Move 18 and clocks are now equal at 34 mins

heh true.. even in time again now. Ah yes i fergot about the bonus seconds per move as well, ta.

What was Natalia's 23rd move about? Running out of ideas and waiting for Yelena to move? Now Yelena has a 13 min advantage (Natalia only has 7 mins left now....) though the game seems pretty even except Natalia has 2 potentially passed pawns and pressure on Yelena's king side, which i guess is what her 23rd move was about starting..?

edit: Oof i think Natalia took about 7 mins for move 25, only 5 mins left now compared to 20.