European Women's Championship: Hoang in the sole lead

The European Individual Women Chess Championships are being held from 2 to 13 March, 2012, in the Anatolian Hotel in Gaziantep, Turkey. The event will be followed by the European Rapid Championship and European Blitz Championship (15-18 of March). The EIWCC consists of eleven games. The rate of is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. Games start at 16:00h local time.

Organizers and prize fund: The Turkish Chess Federation, with the sponsorship and support of the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality, under the auspices of the City of Gaziantep and the European Chess Union, provided a prize fund of 150,000 Euro for all three events. This is the biggest prize fund in the history of European Women's Chess events. For the first time in the chess history the European Women's Champion will get a higher prize sum, 20,500 Euros, than the Champion of the (Open or "Men's") European Individual Championship, which will be held in Plovdiv after this event.

Round five

The tournament leader, French GM Marie Sebag, who had thus far maintained an absolute result, gave away her first half a point, making a draw against the Russian IM Valentina Gunina. She was immediately caught by Cristina-Adela Foisor, who defeated Nino Khurtsidze. The Georgian player blundered a rook in slightly better endgame and had to resign immediately.

Thanh Trang Hoang became the third leader after beating Nastassia Ziaziulkina with the black pieces. Behind Sebag, Foisor and Hoang at 4½ points there were six players at four points. Nana Dzagnidze and Nadezhda Kosintseva, players from top ten, were still unable to improve their tournament situation.

• Full results of round five

Round six

Hungarian GM Thanh Trang Hoang took over the sole lead after beating her sixth round opponent Olga Girya (who exchanged queens and got a disadvantage knight endgame). On the first board Cristina-Adela Foisor allowed Marie Sebag to get an advantage. Under the time pressure the French GM offered a draw even though she still had winning chances.

Valentina Gunina, who had the black pieces against Antoaneta Stefanova, gave away two pawns for the attack. Former women's world champion grabbed the material and got a position with clear edge, but her inaccurate play let Black find the way to her king. Stefanova was mated on move 77.

Before the free day Hungarian GM Thanh Trang Hoang (above) has 5.5 points in her pocket. Four other participants, Marie Sebag, Valentina Gunina, Cristina-Adela Foisor and Viktorija Cmilyte, are half a point behind.

The youngest participant, Nisa Sahin Hayrun, acquiring experience in tournments

• Full results of round six

Top standings after six rounds     

• Full results with all 103 players here

Remaining schedule

All photos by WGM Anastasiya Karlovich, with kind permission of the TCF

Links Official tournament site Games in PGN: R01, R02, R03, R04, All (zipped). The game file is non-standard (e.g. everything in CAPS) and will be cleaned up at the end of the event. The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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