Sixth FIDE Women's Grand Prix to start in Ankara

From 15th to 29th September 2012 the sixth Women's Grand Prix will take place in Ankara, the capital of Turkey and the country’s second largest city after Istanbul. This is the last of the 2011–2012 series of elite events organised by FIDE and Global Chess. The winner of each tournament takes home 6,500 Euros, the total prize fund is 40,000 Euros. The overall winner will get a further 15,000 Euros at the end of the series, and qualifies to challenge the Women's World Champion in 2013 (see below).

Participants and schedule of the 2012 Women's Grand Prix in Ankara

Starting time of the games is 15:00h (check your local time here). The final round starts five hours earlier – at 10:00 a.m. local time. A full shedule with all pairings is given at the bottom of the page.

During the technical meeting the Chief Arbiter Ozgur Salokoglu drew the attention of the participants to the “no-draw offer” and "zero tolerance" rules. Any draw claim will be permitted only through the chief arbiter in the cases of the triple-repetition of the position, perpetual check, in case of theoretically drawn position and the 50 moves rule. Nona Gaprindashvili and Nana Alexandria will be the Technical Adviser and the Head of Appeal Committee respectively.

Pictures from the opening reception

The welcome dinner was attended by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, FIDE Vice-President and President of TCF Ali Nihat Yazici, FIDE CEO Geoffrey Borg, Assistant to the FIDE President Berik Balgabaev, Suat Sözen, the corporate communications Manager of Türkiye Is Bankasi, former women's world champions Nona Gaprindashvili and Nana Alexandria, as well as other guests and of course the players.

Ali Nihat Yazici(above right) welcomed participants and honorary guests and thanked the government of Türkiye Is Bankasi for their great support. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov thanked the board of TCF, the President of TCF Ali Nihat Yazici, the sponsor Is Bankasi for the organization of the sixth stage of FIDE Women Grand Prix in Ankara.

A grand dinner for all the players, family members and trainers

Secrets? Second seed Humpy Koneru, with her mother (left) and Monika Socko

GMs Viktorija Cmilyte, Antoaneta Stefanova and top seed Anna Muzychuk

The Chinese are there! WGM Ju Wenjun, GM Zhao Xue, WGM Ruan Lufei

The Turkish players WGMs Kubra Ozturk and Betül Cemre Yildiz

The Chief Arbiter conducted the drawing of colors – Betül got the five...

... and the youngest player (with the most diacritics), Kübra Öztürk, the three

Good spirits: FIDE CEO Geoffrey Borg and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

Pictures by Anastasiya Karlovich, courtesy FIDE

Current Women's Grand Prix standings

Grand prix points were then allocated according to each player's final standing in a tournament: 160 grand prix points for first place, 130 for second place, 110 for third place, and then 90 down to 10 points by steps of 10. In case of a tie in points the grand prix points are shared evenly by the tied players. Players only counted their best three tournament results. The player with the most grand prix points is the winner.

The current Women's World Champion Hou Yifan has already won the Grand Prix three times and collected 3x160=480 points. She cannot be caught by any of the other players, and thus has already qualified as challenger for the 2013 World Championship. Should Yifan win the 2012 64-player Women's World Championship tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk (9 November to 3 December 2012) then the runner-up of the current Women's Grand Prix cycle will be her challenger in the 2013 Championship. Muzychuk, Humpy, Ju Wenjun and Zhao Xue are the only players in contention for this slot.

Schedule and results of the Sixth Grand Prix in Ankara

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be 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.