Ju Wenjun vs Lei Tingjie, 2023 (Game 12)

Ju Wenjun did not enter the last game protecting a lead in the match. On July 22, 2023, both players had 5.5 points: a win would decide the title, while a draw would send the match to a playoff. Ju had White, but she still needed to achieve more than a position without risks.

Their routes to that tied score had been different. Lei won game five; Ju answered in game eight. The match was split between Shanghai and Chongqing, and the champion arrived at the second venue trailing. Her eventual victory did not complete an uninterrupted spell of dominance: it concluded a recovery that first required erasing the challenger's lead.

A different problem to solve

Ju's choice when the material balance changed helps explain the game without reading it backward from the result. According to her remarks reported by Colin McGourty for Chess.com, she chose 18.Bxf6 to maintain the complexity and was unsure how to assess the alternative 18.Ra2. That explanation does not establish that her choice was best. It does document a practical decision in a position that was difficult to judge.

White's advanced queenside pawns eventually disappeared. The struggle came to revolve around two knights against an extra rook and a pawn, with other forces still on the board. Ju could no longer win by pushing those original pawns: she needed a different use for her pieces. Blockading Black's center supplied that new direction.

Lei later described her central advance 22...e5 as a serious mistake, also in McGourty's report. Identifying a turning point, however, is not the same as declaring the game over. Black's weak pawns offered targets, but both rooks remained available to invade, attack knights and give checks. That resistance is part of the story of the win.

An advantage still needing conversion

The conversion posed a different challenge from the opening: maintaining coordination as the threats changed. Ju had to contain the opposing passed pawn, attend to her kingside and bring her king toward the center before finally advancing her own pawn. The knights did not perform one fixed task throughout the ending; they took turns as blockaders, defenders and escorts. The active king helped sustain that division of work.

The score ends with 62.Rb8 and Lei's resignation, not with a promotion or a checkmate played on the board. The coordination of rook, king and knights had left Black without an adequate defense against the pawn on the seventh rank. That was the point which secured Ju's fourth Women's World Championship title at the time. What distinguishes this finish is the distance between creating an opportunity and converting it: the title was secured through several successive problems, not when the first imbalance appeared.