2008 World Women's Chess Championship: Nalchik Russia
August 28th - September 18th

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Player Standings





Final Standings:



Official Site

You can download the games here.

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Georgian players definatelly won't participate (you can find more about the reasons here). This means that their first round opponents get a bye into the 2nd round, and the winner of 1st round Koneru vs. Alaa el Din match will get a bye into the 3rd round.

Supposingly the following players also won't take part:
Irina Krush, USA
Claudia Amura, Argentina
Monica Socko, Poland
Iweta Rajlich, Poland
Anna Gasik, Poland
Ketino Kachiani-Gersinska, Germany
Tea Lanchava-Bosboom, The Netherlands
Marie Sebag, France

meaning that there will be more 1st round bye's (and some 2nd round bye's).

Today is the opening ceremony so we will see who did and who didn't show up.

ChessDom reports that 53 players will compete, meaning that (besides 6 Georgians) 5 other players are missing. It doesn't name the players.

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OK, here is the list of non-participants:

Chiburdanidze, Maya GEO
Javakhishvili, Lela GEO
Gvetadze, Sopio GEO
Lomineishvili, Maia GEO
Khukhashvili, Sopiko GEO
Khurtsidze, Nino GEO

Sebag, Marie FRA
Krush, Irina USA
Bosboom Lanchava, Tea NED
Korbut, Ekaterina RUS
Zapata, Karen PER


Their first round opponents get a bye into the second round. Since both opponents in Korbut vs. Gvetadze and Lomineishvili vs. Khukhashvili are missing it means that their second round opponents (probably Kosteniuk and Humpy) will get a bye into the third round (they still have to play the first round though).

Already two big upsets in the first game: Paehtz(2481) loses to Kadimova(2324), and Zhukova(2489) loses to Rohonyan(2321).

So these two higher seeds are in trouble. Specially Zhukova as she lost with the white pieces today. Tomorrow they have to win or they are out.

Also Gaponenko's(2468) draw against Zhang Jilin(2344) is a little disappointment for the higher seed. Same goes for Socko(2473)-Foisor(2337) which also ended in a draw.

Paehtz and Zhukova were both up to the task and forced the rapid tie-breaks, so no favourites crashing out yet. In tomorrow's tie-breaks we will also see Bojkovic-Ju Wenjun, Mkrtchian-Moser and Foisor-Socko. All others have a free day.

Due to withdrawals Humpy Koneru and Alexandra Kosteniuk are already in the third round. They have 4 days off so they can take a nice trip somewhere (perhaps a visit to their Georgian colleagues down south ).

Rohonyan defeated Zhukova in rapid games - first upset of the tournament.
Ju Wenjun vs. Bojkovic was also decided after rapid games - Chinese is advancing to the next round.
Other matches had to go into blitz play-off where Mkrtchian managed to defeat Moser.
The remaining two matches had to go into decisive armageddon game. While Paehtz managed to defeat her lower ranked opponent (Kadimova), there was a dramatic finish in Socko-Foisor game. Pieces flew all over the board, so nobody knows the exact moves of the game. A knight vs. knight endgame was reached and black ran out of time. However the game was declared drawn, meaning that black (Foisor) advances to the next round. Socko filed a protest because in knight vs. knight endgame mate is theoretically possible, hence white wins. It took several hourse, but they made the decision - Socko wins!


Tomorrow we will see some interesting pairings, like:
Ushenina-Paehtz
Zatonskih-Kosintseva T.
Cmilyte-Kosintseva N.
and a Chinese encounter Zhao Xue-Shen Yang

Here is the log of the events:

17:20 CET

Drama in Socko-Foisor! Black run out of time, but there were only a King and Knight for each player left on the board, and the arbiters have declared a draw. Polish players are now engaged in lively discussion in front of the playing hall. Foisor progressed to the next round.

17:35 CET

Sabina Foisor explained to the interpreters that she claimed a draw before her flag fell, but the arbiters have postponed the decision. They still have the right to declare the result after one of the players forfeits on time.

18:05 CET

Monica Socko filed a complaint and Appeals Committee is now meeting to reach the final decision. The Committee's Chairman will later elaborate the outcome at the press conference.

18:40 CET

It seems like the Appeals Committee has reached the verdict. The press conference should start shortly. Earlier, the arbiters have asked the press officers for a FIDE Handbook printout.

18:45 CET

We will have to wait a bit longer, the Appeals Committee just moved to another room!

19:20 CET

Some new details about Socko-Foisor game became known - in the whole time scramble, as pieces flew around, nobody managed to write down all the moves. The arbiters are only recalling an approximate picture (all pieces in the center), as the board was cleared before the position is written down.

20:15 CET

The Appeals Committee accepted Monica Socko's complaint and granted her a win! She goes into the next round. There won't be any press conferences on this issue.



It is a right decision according to FIDE rules. In K & N vs. K & N ending mate is theoretically possible so there is no question that opponent who ran out of time loses. And about Foisor's claim for a draw (before she ran out of time) - you can't claim this in blitz. Only in "normal" games you can claim a draw if you can prove that your opponent doesn't make any attempts to win and only plays the clock. This rule is not valid for blitz.

The Appeal Committee re-read te FIDE handbook and made the right decision at the end.

Here is the rulling of Appeals Committee

http://nalchik2008.fide.com/news/?lang=eng&id=38

Here is the video of yesterdays armageddon (at around 1:20)

http://blip.tv/play/Acr2eY7tFA


one can see that Foisor claimed draw before her flag fell, but they continued playing. After the end Socko immediatelly protested and demonstrated that mate is possible with knight vs. knight. And you can hear the discussion where arbiters try to explain Socko that she is wrong. but she wasn't. the arbiters were wrong.

Already in the second round the difference in strength is getting smaller, so no easy wins are expected.

The biggest upset is that Matveeva won against the reigning World Champion Xu Yuhua and Shen Yang defeated higher ranked Zhao Xue. Other results are more or less within the expectations.

The reigning World Champion Xu Yuhua is out. She was knocked out by Svetlana Matveeva. The 7th seed Zhao Xue is also out, defeated by compatriot Shen Yang. Tatiana Kosintseva knocked out Zatonskih, Hoang Thanh Trang defeated Monika Socko and Anna Ushenina defeated Elisabeth Paehtz. Chinese wonder girl Hou Yifan is still cruising seemingly without any trouble.

We will see 5 tie-break matches tomorrow: first two rapid games (25 min + 10 sec), then two blitz games (5 min + 10 sec), and if still tied the armageddon game will decide (white has 6 min to blacks 5 min, but white has to win).

This time no armageddon game was necessary. In fact even blitz play-off fell out as it was all decided in rapid games.

Gaponenko, Stefanova, Sedina, Harika Dronavalli and N. Kosintseva advanced to the third round on expense of Rohonyan, Ju Wenjun, Nguyen, Muzychuk and Cmilyte respectively.

Surprisingly it seems like with each new round the favourites have less troubles to advance into the next round.

The only favourite which didn't advance outright is Hou Yifan (who won all her previous games). Today she surprisingly lost to Elena Sedina, and will have to play the tie-breaks tomorrow.

The only other tie-break is between Shen Yang and Nadezhda Kosintseva.


In the upper section we will see very interesting quarter-finals between Ushenina-Kosteniuk and Cramling-Stefanova.

Hou Yifan won both rapid games to advance into the quarter-final. Nedezhda Kosintseva was on her way to the quarter-final too, but panicked in a drawn ending and allowed Shen Yang to force blitz play-off. There Kosintseva also had some problems with her nerves (or so it seems) and ended up being eliminated.

Things are getting serious in the quarter-final. While in the bottom section we have two clear favourites Hou Yifan and Humpy Koneru, the pairs in upper section are too close to call.

No tie-breaks necessary in the quarter-finals (meaning that tomorrow is a rest day)

In upper section Kosteniuk knocked out Ushenina while Cramling defeated former champion Stefanova, both by 1.5-0.5 score.

In bottom section the two favourites had no troubles with their lower rated opponents - Hou defeated Mkrtchian 1.5-0.5, and Humpy defeated Shen 2-0.


This leaves us with the following semi-finals:
Alexandra Kosteniuk vs. Cramling Pia
Hou Yifan vs. Koneru Humpy

The second semi-final could be seen as a final before the final, as it features two highest rated participants (they are in the same bracket only because the champion Xu Yuhua was seeded first)

And then there were only two. 14 year old wonder girl Hou Yifan knocked out the second highest rated woman of all time Humpy Koneru.

In the final she will meet Alexandra Kosteniuk who made a remarkable come back after her baby break. Final is a 'best of 4 games' match, starting Sunday.

Tomorrow is a free day.

Experience is leading against the youth at halftime. Kosteniuk was better in both games, and Hou was somewhat lucky to save a draw in the second game.

Like in all three previous games, Alexandra Kosteniuk stood better and deservingly became 12th Women World Champion!




1927-1944 Vera Menchik (Czechoslovakia/United Kingdom)
1950-1953 Lyudmila Rudenko (Soviet Union)
1953-1956 and 1958-1962 Elisabeth Bykova (Soviet Union)
1956-1958 Olga Rubtsova (Soviet Union)
1962-1978 Nona Gaprindashvili (Soviet Union)
1978-1991 Maya Chiburdanidze (Soviet Union)
1991-1996 and 1999-2001 Xie Jun (China)
1996-1999 Susan Polgar (USA)
2001-2004 Zhu Chen (China)
2004-2006 Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria)
2006-2008 Xu Yuhua (China)
2008-20?? Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia)