Women's World Championship

All Things Chess
1

The US has two representatives in the 64 player knock out tournament for the Women’s World Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk Russia. The format is 2 games at 40/90 SD30 +30inc. If the score is 1-1 after those games then there is a tie break day in each round. The first 2 tie break games are G25 +10inc. If the match is still tied the next two are G10 +10inc, then G5 +3inc then an Armageddon final with 5/4 +3inc and black has draw odds.

Sabina Foisor and Irina Krush qualified through our last zonal championship. Irina started the tournament right on the 32-33 break line while Sabina was ranked 52nd and paired up. Both finished the round 1 longer games at 1-1. Irina won both of the G25 tie break games to advance to round 2, while Sabina lost both of those games and ended her tournament after round 1.

Irina’s reward is to be paired against defending world champion Wenjun Ju of China starting tomorrow.

The new FIDE president announced his plan to make the WWC cycle match that of the Open championship by holding a challenger’s event with ta subsequent match between the winner of that event and the defending world champion. No details of how this will be done have been announced. the issue will be funding it as several ties the women’s championship has been delayed for lack of a sponsor to fund holding the event. (That is how the tournament came to be held in Iran.)

2

Irina lost the first game of her second round match. She has an uphill battle to come back against the defending world champion.

3

After losing game 1 of her match with black yesterday, Irina drew today with white. That was not enough and so Ju will advance to the round of 16 winning the match 1.5-.5. The defending world champ is a tough out for sure.

4

Those exiting in round 1 are supposed to receive a minimum of$3,750 while those exiting in round 2 are to receive a minimum of $5,500. Out of that the players have to get there and back, cover other costs, and cover lost compensation from being away from other pursuits.

US Chess provided a travel stipend of $2,000 for each of our players to help cover costs. I know that allowed at least one of the players to go in a bit early to try to adjust to the time differences before the event started. But what they decided to do with it was up to them.

The top players committee brought that issue to us, indicating that players who went out early either barely covered costs or lost money. As they had earned their spots at our zonal championship, the EB felt that we did not want our top players losing money in a world championship event. Hence the assistance.