The Women’s World Chess Cup 2012 is being staged by the Ugorian
Chess Academy in Khanty-Mansiysk from 11 November to 2 December. The best
64 chess
players in the world are taking part in the competition, which consist
of six knock-out rounds of two games, which reduce the participants from
64 to 32, 16, 8, 4, and 2. The final consists of four games, the winner
will play a match against the winner of FIDE Women’s Grand Prix
2011-2012 (Hou Yifan), which will determine the World Champion among women.
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The Opening Ceremony
The first participants arrive in Khanty-Mansiysk and are greeted with the
traditional bread and salt
The strongest female players in the world come from nine different countries:
China,
Russia, India, USA, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Qatar, Lithuania and Slovenia
The opening ceremony was attended by Natalia Komarova (above), the Governor
of Khanty
Mansiysk, and Evgeny Redkin, director of the Department of Physical Education
and Sports.
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov holds a welcome speech and declares the
championship officially open
For the drawing of colors reigning Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan (China)
chose one of the two chess sets and found it contained a white pawn. This meant
that Hou Yifan and all participants with the odd numbers would have the white
pieces in the first game.
The Illusion show at the Opening Ceremony
A colorful theatrical show followed, where participants and guests of the
championship
could see the performances of the artists of local dance theaters
| You can watch the whole opening ceremony in the above video stream,
including the dance theater “Ugra-Classic”, an ensemble of
wind instruments, the dance group “Courage”, illusionist Yevgeniy
Kaverzina, and the dance theater “Show-karapuz”. The program
is completed with the fantastic vocals and music of “AngeliQuie
and The Band”. Switch to HD and full screen, lean back and enjoy.
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The live video coverage is provided by Mark Gluhovsky from ChessTV.
There will be English language commentary by GM Alexander Khalifman. For the
first time Mark is going to try to supply commentary in Chinese: GM Peng Zhaoqing
speaking from her home in Holland. The Russian commentary will come from GM
Sergei Shipov, working out of Moscow.
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