It is perhaps the ultimate proof what FIDE thinks of chess and chessplayers – a World Championship match completely ignored. If the best players are ignored, then what do you think is left for the others?

If you wanted to follow the match, you had to put in some effort. In English, there was no media coverage, no live commentary, no press conferences. Sometimes it made me regret not learning Chinese. But at least I could get the moves.

I usually avoid political comments, but this time FIDE just went too far. They are so concerned about the elections in September, worrying and protecting their own interests, that the definition of it being a World Chess Federation is suspended. Gens una sumus? Doesn’t look like it.

Going back to chess, the match was quite an exciting one. There were 5 (!) decisive games in the first 6 of the match! Then things calmed down a bit as Ju Wenjun learned how to keep things under control.

It seemed to me that Ju Wenjun was clearly the better player. She won her games because she played better than Tan, she lost when she blundered badly. This reminds me of Kasparov’s conclusion about his losses to Karpov in one of his matches – he concluded that he was losing only when blundering badly. Once he stopped blundering, he stopped losing. This is what happened in the second half of the match in China – Ju learned how to avoid the blunders and that was basically the end of the match because Tan couldn’t outplay her. In fact, Ju could have won one or two more games and the score would have been quite convincing then. The final score of 5.5-4.5 doesn’t reflect her domination.

Ju’s best game was the third one, after which she led 2.5-0.5.

The stronger player won and one of the strongerst women players in the world is now a World Champion. If only FIDE would acknowledge the fact and pay respect by more than just posting it on their website.