The 17-year-old Chinese world women's championship has a plus four score and a 2650 performance, and leads by half a point ahead of GM Zhao Xue. Anna Muzychuk and Ruan Lufei share the third/fourth places another half-point further down. Friday is a free day, where the players will visit local schools. Our report after round eight includes photos provided by the organisers.

　　Round 6 – Tuesday, 13 September 2011

　　This round was quite peaceful – five games were drawn and the only one game was decisive. Playing White a former World Champion, Zhu Chen, managed to win against Armenian Elina Danielian. Ruan Lufey and Munguntuul Bathhuyagh signed the score sheets after 14 moves, while other players continue to play. The games between four leaders Hou Yifan-Anna Muzychuk, Zhao Xue-Tan Zhongyi finished with drawn results, and this outcome didn’t change the tournament situation among the leaders. Viktorija Cmilyte saved the worse position against Betul Yildiz.

　　Round 7 – Wednesday, 14 September 2011

　　Two out of five leading players managed to win – Hou Yifan defeated Tan Zhongyi and Ruan Lufey was stronger in the game against Betul Yildiz. All other games were finished with drawn results. Viktorija Cmilyte missed some chances to win in the game against Zhao Xue. Three other games Ju Wenjun-Munguntuul Bathhuyagh, Anna Muzychuk-Zhu Chen and Elina Danielian-Ekatrina Kovalevskaya finished peacefully. After seven games World Champion Hou Yifan and silver medallist of the World Championship Ruan Lufey share first place, half a point ahead of Zhao Xue and Anna Muzychuk.

　　Round 8 – Thursday, 15 September 2011

　　This round produced four decisive games, including two wins with the black pieces – by Elina Danielian over Munguntuul Bathhuyagh and Ju Wenjun over Betul Yildiz (Danielian took five and a half hours and 87 moves for her win). The other winners were Women's World Champion Hou Yifan, who defeated Viktorija Cmilyte and Zhao Xue, who won a 32-mover against Ruan Lufei. This put Yifan in the sole lead with a 2650 performance.

Photos by Anastasiya Karlovich and He Long

From chessbase.com