2025 Women's World Chess Championship Game 3: Ju Bounces Back

Lichess is providing a live stream for every day of the Women's World Championship. Make sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube channels for live stream coverage with our hosts GM Toms Kantāns and WIM Jesse February, joined by a rotating panel of guests. Round 4 starts at 07:00 UTC on Monday, April 7th!

Additionally, we will cover every game in our blog, with annotations by WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea for games 1-6 and WGM Petra Papp for games 7-12.

The annotations by WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea for Game 3 can be found here.

Lichess has also run player profiles on GM Ju Wenjun and GM Tan Zhongyi, and published a Match Preview ahead of the match.

Schedule

Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE8nttnRypY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0UxU_hCIis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SfCKNkBNoI

Annotations by WIM Silvia Raluca Sgîrcea

Match Score

Recap

As GM Tan Zhongyi repeated the e6 Sicilian she played in game 1 against GM Ju Wenjun, it was Ju who deviated, going for 3. c4, a unique, closed, more positional variation of the e6 Sicilian complex.

Handshake before the game.
Photo: Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Or that is what we would be saying, had Ju continued with 4. d3. However, Ju played 4. d4 and opened up the position, steering the game into a Maróczy-like pawn structure. Tan had several possible setups to choose from, but in the end she settled on a curious-looking development scheme with Bb4+ and Nge7 — where Nf6 would have been the more natural piece placement.

Tan settled on a curious-looking development scheme.
Photo: Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Tan’s decision seemed to have paid off as she quickly broke through with the d5 pawn push, which should usually be enough for equality in the Sicilian Defense — or, at worst, a slightly worse position. After some liquidation in the center, both sides castled, and the game was now all about Black’s isolated d-pawn. Tan then decided to change the structure and gave up her own bishop pair to get some activity against Ju’s now weakened c-pawn. Ju created counterplay of her own, attacking Tan’s a-pawn, but with 17...Rc4, Tan asked Ju’s queen some questions.

Ju's queen was asked some questions by Tan.
Photo: Anna Shtourman / FIDE

After both Ju and Tan’s queen and rook retreated, Ju’s rooks were on the d- and e-files and Tan offered a queen exchange with 20...Qd6. Ju decided to refuse the offer by trading a-pawns after the 21. Qxa5 Ra8 sequence, after which she kicked away Tan’s queen with 23. Bf4 and 24. Bb5. Later, on move 37, Ju managed to capture Tan's d-pawn. Tan replied with the only good move after thinking for 12 minutes: 37...Ne3.

Tan found the only good move with 37...Ne3.
Photo: Anna Shtourman / FIDE

An exchange of Queens and Ju's light-squared bishop on d5 for Tan's knight followed. Ju was now a pawn up. But the position still looked like ending in a draw – until move 60: Ju tried to make slow progress with her c-pawn and advance her king into Black's half of the board. Ju played 60. Kf4 and Tan responded with 60...Bc6, which turned out to be a mistake.

Ju analyzes the position.
Photo: Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Ju continued to make progress, and as the white king slowly made his way to help the c-pawn in its mission to promote via g5-h6-g7-f8-e7, the black king was completely immobilized.

Ju took complete control of the game.
Photo: Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Tan managed to defend the c8 square from White's c-pawn - but now White's h-pawn was making its way up the board. Black had no defensive resources to stop both pawns from promoting, on both sides of the board, and resigned.

Tan resigned, there was nothing to hope for in this position.
Photo: Anna Shtourman / FIDE

Stream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RopqQ7t9pVM