Emotional exhaustion

   The games in Khanty become more and more interesting. Favorites continue to nearly get knocked out. Antoaneta Stefanova, who had a very good tournament until now,scoring a 5,5 out of 6 score got crashed by the French Marie Sebag. I think that rating doesn't matter that much anymore. The most important thing is to keep an emotional balance.  Everyone is tired by now and there are made a lot of mistakes, the point is to be cold-blooded and to be 110 % into the game.

    Here's a photo of the encounter between Marie Sebag and Antoaneta Stefanova, from the official site of the event (  http://chess2012.ugrasport.com/?p=2210 ), followed by the game.

  

   Another interesting game was the one between Nadezhda Kosintseva and Anna Ushenina. Nadia had a very big advantage, but in the mutual time trouble she missed the win and prefered to settle for a draw.
   The game between Zhao Xue and Harika Dronavalli ened with a draw. Harika looked vey confident and though she had lower Elo than her opponent, I think she's the favorite in this match.
   The Chinese encounter ( Ju Wenjun- Huan Qian) is still continuing. Huang has a pawn up, but Ju keeps big chances for a draw.
   I remember talking to Marie in Agde. She seemed very relaxed before going to Khanty and I think that her very calm and apparently not carrying attitude is a big advantage for her. It also seems that it was a wise decision for her to play the rapid in Cap d'Agde, she shows a very impressive level of chess here and I wish her all the best!

   It will be interesting to see who will advance to the semifinals!