Yury Bukayev's next publication includes his consideration of this fact: https://jeromegambit.blogspot.com/2... . Moreover, we can see, Yury makes his new recommendation for Ju Wenjun - to avoid her usual 1.Nf3 in the final future game of this Match. And Ju Wenjun follows this new recommendation too, with a success again!

"4…Bc5?! <...> I recommend to play 5.Nc3!, and White gets an advantage (here are my old analytical researches on it, by transposition of moves: https://chessproblem.my-free-games.... , https://chessproblem.my-free-games.... )" .

The Women’s Chess World Championship 2025 was held on April 3 to 20 in China between two Chinese women, Ju Wenjun the title holder and Tan Zhongyi the challenger.

Name: FIDE Women's World Championship
Event Date: April 3 - 20, 2025
Site: Shanghai & Chongquing CHN
Format: 12 Rds Classical (tie-breaks, if necessary). TC: 90m:30m+30spm(1)

(A classical game is one in which the time limit is at least 90 minutes in 30 moves, plus 30 seconds per move (after 30 moves). All quicker time controls are regarded as quick games, including rapid, blitz and Armaggedon.)

The match actually ended on 16 April 2025 rather on 20 April 2025. Ju won the match after posting an insurmountable lead of 6½ to 2½, with 5 wins, 1 loss, and 3 draws.

The men’s World Championship (WC) match at present essentially follows the same format. Format: 14 Rds Classical (tie-breaks, if necessary). TC: 120m:30m+30spm(41)

as in the 2024 Ding - Gukesh World Championship match.

It must be said that the strongest chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, did not and does not like this format, and so for this and a myriad of other reasons abdicated the WC title. He was succeeded by Ding and now Gukesh. See previous article.

This is the second World Championship match Ju and Tan have played. Previously in May 2018 the World Champion title holder was Tan, and the challenger was Ju. Tan grabbed the Women's World Chess Championship of 2017 by winning a 64-player knock-out tournament. Tan Zhongyi beat Anna Muzychuk in the rapid tie-breaks to win the title. Ju qualified by winning the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2015–16, a series of five chess tournaments, which determined the challenger for the Women’s World Chess Championship match of May 2018, a 10-game match.

Ju won that first match against Tan thus grabbing the Women’s Chess World Championship title. She has been the world champion since then. Also since then, Ju has defended the title 4 times, in November 2018, 2020, 2023, and 2025.

The November 2018 Women’s World Chess Championship event was a knock-out tournament to crown a new women's world champion in chess. It was a 64-player knockout type on 2 to 23 November in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Ju won it by beating 5 players in two game KO matches and then Russian Kateryna Lagno in the final. Ju had advanced to the final without playing a tie-break, winning all her two-game mini-matches in classical games.

To put it in perspective, say Ju Wenjun had the (high for argument’s sake) probability of winning a KO game match of 80%. Ju won 6 KO matches. That would mean that the probability of wining the tournament would be:

0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 = 0.3276. Only about 33%.

Lucky Ju Wenjun. And my congratulations and eternal gratitude to her for persevering under such conditions.

Challenger Kateryna Lagno played three tie-breaks, winning two mini-matches in classical games and three in tie-breaks. The final was the only match with four classical games, followed by tie-breaks. It ended in a tie after four classical games 2-2. Then Ju won on tie-breaks, which consisted of four more quick games.

Lucky break, since the World Championship has been determined traditionally by a world champion surviving unbeaten in a match with a challenger, in classical games. Ju survived a four game classical match unbeaten (tied 2-2). Had Ju lost either the classical 4-game match or the 4-game tie break, the Women’s World Championship would have been disconnected from tradition, as Lagno would have grabbed the WC title without beating the champion in a classical match.

That the world championship has been determined traditionally by a world champion surviving unbeaten in a match with a challenger, in classical games, had also been the case for the Men’s Chess World Championship throughout the 20th century. Note that Ju was forced to play two World Championship events in a single year, in a space of 4 months, May and November 2018. Over-all Ju has played in five World Championship events in eight years.

Traditionally, there was Candidates Tournament, wherein the top players of the world as determined by a series of qualification events, met. The winner of the Candidates Tournament was declared the challenger to the titleholder of Women’s World Champion. They met in a match for the title of Women’s World Champion. This format is the same as the traditional Men’s World Championship system until the 1980s.

Then FIDE changed it into a knock out tournament form. Players played two game matches, knocking off each other, until the end. The winner became the Women’s World Champion. Since a single loss in a two-game match was enough to knock one off, it essentially became a game of luck, akin to Russian roulette. World Champion Ju had to endure this event in November 2018, instead of facing off a challenger chosen in a Candidates tournament in a match. She actually won the November 2018 WC Event against the odds. Thus retaining her Title of Women’s World Champion.

No one liked this system except for the idiots in FIDE who came up with it. But that’s what you get if you come up with a powerful centralized governing structure without players’ say.

The negative feedback was so overwhelming such that even the idiots in FIDE noticed it. The strongest active woman chess player, Chinese Hou Yifan withdrew from FIDE women’s events because of the silly Grand Prix and Knock Out formats. Hou is a three-time Women's World Chess Champion, the second highest rated female player of all time, the youngest female player ever become Grandmaster (at 14 years, 6 months, 16 days), and the youngest ever to win the Women's World Chess Championship at 16.

And so, FIDE changed it back to the traditional format of Candidate’s Tournament, the winner of which challenged the champion in a match. Unfortunately, a tie was and still is determined by non-classical quick game tie-breaks.

Thus later on Ju retained her WC title against Russian Aleksandra Goryachkina in the Women's World Chess Championship 2020 (6–6, in classical games; 2½–1½ in tiebreaks), then against fellow Chinese Lei Tingjie in the Women's World Chess Championship 2023 (6½–5½ in classical games).

Ju has had to endure five World Championship Events since May 2018. She grittily took it all in and didn’t quit Women’s Chess, as Hou did.

1. Best Qualifiers?

The credible, fair, tried and tested Zonals - Interzonals - Candidates (with known strong players directly seeded into the Interzonals and Candidates; and here ratings may be used with caveats) over the random World Cup - type 'lottery' like tournaments. If possible long Candidate matches and 20 to 24 game World Championship matches.

2. My thoughts regarding the quick game tiebreakers for the World Championship Match:

The Romance of the Chess World Championship Match and the World Champions that won them: There can only be two.
The champion to hold the title he beat all the masters for. The challenger on quest for same title of yore.

i. Ideally the champion must have beaten the old one to be champion.

ii. Stop these FIDE quick game tie-breaks to decide the Classical Champion.

iii. The tiebreakers should be as fair as possible.

Notice that in the traditional champion-retains-title-in-a-tie, all the champion needs is a tied match to retain his title. Advantage champion.

My recommendation is we give more Whites to the challenger. Advantage challenger.

So things even out.

We still retain the tradition of the challenger beating the champ to get the Title.

The challenger gets to do it in a classical game, not a quick game.

Thus, suggestions if the World Championship match ends in a tie:

Additional classical games with a limit, wherein the challenger receives more Whites. If the champion manages to tie or win at the end, he retains the title.

Thus the tiebreaker can be one extra White game for the challenger. Or two, three, or four.

Concretely, we have three additional games. Challenger gets to play two whites and one black. He has to win at least one game and draw the other two. If the score is tied after three games, the titleholder retains the World Championship. We could even vary further, say one Black followed by one to three Whites for the challenger. Studies can be made in order to determine the best specific format (of Blacks and Whites) that can afford the challenger a fair chance at winning.

In my opinion, this would probably be welcomed by most of the chess world in terms of the sporting excitement it affords. Here we have the challenger; forced to try all means to win in classical games against a sitting champion that only needs to draw all the tiebreak games. A real drama at the end of the match. If the match still ends in a tie, the champion retains his title, and deservedly so since he got more Blacks.