English Chess Forum

The Women's World Championship starts this weekend - according to the Chessbase site it consists of a 64 player knock out, with the winner playing a match against Hou Yifan. But Hou Yifan herself is listed as one of the 64 participants. How does that work? - is it because she won the Grand Prix, so she effectively gets two bites at the cherry? (I assume if she wins the 64 player knock out she won't be required to play a match against herself! )

The Chessbase article isn't very clear.

This year's knockout is a World Championships in it's own right, which is why Hou Yifan is participating - she is trying to defend her World Championship title.

The 2013 World Championship will be a match between Hou Yifan and the winner (or runner-up) of the 2012 World Championship.

They did a match to decide the 2011 World Championship, I'm not sure why they reverted to a knockout format for this year's version? Maybe they didn't have enough time to do a proper candidates cycle.

Could be wrong, but I think the 2 Kosintseva sisters have been paired against each other. Wonder how many times they'll repeat the same forced- draw Lopez line they've used a million times over before one of them tries to win?

They could repeat the line over and over - allowing the result to (effectively) be determined by the toss of a coin.

benedgell wrote:Could be wrong, but I think the 2 Kosintseva sisters have been paired against each other. Wonder how many times they'll repeat the same forced- draw Lopez line they've used a million times over before one of them tries to win?

Yes, the pairing tree is here:
http://chess2012.ugrasport.com/?page_id=1264

The tiebreaks end in an armageddon game if necessary

benedgell wrote: Wonder how many times they'll repeat the same forced- draw Lopez line they've used a million times over before one of them tries to win?

The report on the FIDE site hints that they will have to play for once. One of them talks of the novelty of having to prepare for her sister.

benedgell wrote:Could be wrong, but I think the 2 Kosintseva sisters have been paired against each other. Wonder how many times they'll repeat the same forced- draw Lopez line they've used a million times over before one of them tries to win?

65 move draw in game 1
http://chess2012.ugrasport.com/?page_id ... 1000310006

You Hifan was knocked out in round 2, BTW

Matt Mackenzie wrote:You Hifan was knocked out in round 2, BTW

You mean Hou Yifan!

Nadezhda won the battle of the Kosintseva sisters. Anyone played through all six games?

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

Matt Mackenzie wrote:You Hifan was knocked out in round 2, BTW

You mean Hou Yifan!

Nadezhda won the battle of the Kosintseva sisters. Anyone played through all six games?

Only the first - a long draw. A quick look at the others suggests no quarter given or asked.

Game 4 (last classical game) of the final has just started. Ushenina leads Stefanova 2-1 and has White. GM Alexander Khalifman is commentating.

Ian Kingston wrote:Game 4 (last classical game) of the final has just started. Ushenina leads Stefanova 2-1 and has White. GM Alexander Khalifman is commentating.

OK - something went wrong there. The video stream on the official site was actually showing Game 3. In fact, Stefanova had White in Game 4 and (if I've got it right this time) she has equalised. Tie break games tomorrow.

Hou Yifan has regained her title in crushing style - just shows that she should never have lost it, really

Chessbase News report with analysis of the final game by a strong woman player, see -
Elisabeth Paehtz

Despite having actually somehow managed to sort out the supreme title reasonably satisfactorily, it would appear that FIDE are persisting with their knockout farce for this one - and easily the world's strongest woman player (after J Polgar's retirement) isn't going to bother taking part.

What's the point, FFS?