Sunday, February 20, 2011

Final FIDE Women's Grand Prix In Doha

Submitted by SonofPearl on Chess.com
The FIDE Women's Grand Prix series kicked off in March 2009 in Istanbul, and over nearly two years has seen further events in Nanjing, Nalchik, Jermuk and Ulaanbaatar.
The sixth and final tournament in the Women's Grand Prix series will run from 20 Feb - 6 March in Doha, Qatar.  The official website can be found here.
The winner of the series becomes the new challenger for the Women's World Championship, which FIDE now intends to make an annual contest.
Since 16 year-old Hou Yifan of China is the current Women's World Champion, having earned the title in a giant KO event in Turkey last December, she will face the winner of the Grand Prix in a 10-game match later this year.  In the event that Miss Hou wins the Grand Prix, the second placed finisher will be her challenger.
The current standings after five tournaments in the series:
Player Istanbul Nanjing Nalchik Jermuk Ulaanbaatar Played Best 3
Hou Yifan 120 - 130 70 160 4 410
Nana Dzagnidze - 130 100 160 - 3 390
Tatiana Kosintseva - - 160 130 93⅓ 3 383⅓
Koneru Humpy 160 - 70 - 93⅓ 3 323⅓
Zhao Xue 90 110 40 - 93⅓ 4 293⅓
Antoaneta Stefanova 45 - - 93⅓ 130 3 268⅓
Xu Yuhua - 160 - 30 60 3 250
Danielian Elina 120 - 10 93⅓ - 3 223⅓
Pia Cramling 65 - 100 55 - 3 220
Lilit Mkrtchian - 80 40 93⅓ - 3 213⅓
Marie Sebag 80 80 - - 30 3 190
Shen Yang 25 60 - 55 45 4 160
Maia Chiburdanidze 45 - - 40 70 3 155
Zhu Chen - 30 70 - 45 3 145
Batkhuyag Munguntuu - 50 70 - 20 3 140
Kovanova Baira - 40 40 20 - 3 100
Martha Fierro 65 20 - 10 - 3 95
Ju Wenjun - 80 withdrew 1 80

Betul Cemre Yildiz 10 10 20 - 10 4 50
Mamedjarova Zeinab 25 withdrew 1 25



The best three results (out of four) of each player count towards their total score.  160 points are awarded to the winner, 130 for the runner-up, 110 for third, then 90 points down to 10 for the rest.  Points are shared if scores between players are tied.
Since Tatiana Kosintseva will not be competing in Doha (she was due to compete in Nanjing but was unable to do so and was replaced by Ju Wenjun), the only players left in the running to become the challenger are Nana Dzagnidze and Humpy Koneru (pictured above).
Therefore, it looks like Humpy Koneru needs to finish clear first in Doha and also hope that Nana Dzagnidze doesn't finish clear second, if she is to become the challenger. Otherwise Nana Dzagnidze will face Hou Yifan for the title.
Each tournament winner gets 6,500 euros and the overall series winner gets 15,000 euros.
The line-up for Doha looks like this:
Koneru, Humpy IND
Stefanova, Antoaneta BUL
Cramling, Pia SVE
Dzagnidze, Nana GEO
Sebag Marie FRA
Chiburdanidze, Maia GEO
Chen, Zhu QTR
Danielian, Elina ARM
Yuhua, Xu CHN
Batkhuyag, Munguntuul MGL
Fierro, Martha ECU
Mrktchian, Lilit ARM

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