ZHU Chen - ZHAO Xue

This game was played in the 3rd round of 5th FIDE women's Grand Prix. It was a crazy game with mistakes from both sides. Mistakes are common but here they were really big. Former Women World Champion sacrificed her Queen with 27.Qxc6?? and black answered with 27...Rg6??. During the press conference both players admitted they totally forgot that black could have taken the Queen not being mated ! Both are Grand Master, how is that possible ? Well, 2 moves before white sacrificed a whole Rook in g7, having probably already planned to sacrifice the Queen after. I guess black could not imagine that such a player could give a Rook followed by a Queen for free. However every chess player should know that you must never trust your opponent, even if he is very strong :-) Then the (end)game was interesting because white ended with B+N+p against Q. Finally after a long battle, the classic endgame Queen against pawn in 7th appeared on the board. Cases of c and f pawns are the most interesting, like here. As pointed out by commentators, including Susan Polgar here, black missed a somehow basic draw at move 64. That's not very good for a former Women World Champion but ok, she had to be tired with the game and obviously it wasn't her day. I'm not sure she can regret anything because she could have resign at move 27 :-) Mistakes are part of the game.