The Women’s World Chess Cup 2012 will be staged by the Ugorian
Chess Academy from 11 November to 2 December. The best 64 chess players
in the world will take part in the competition, which consist of six knock-out
rounds which reduce the participants from 64 to 32, 16, 8, 4, and 2. 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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Among the 64 participants of the World Champion 2011 are Hou Yifan from China;
the WWCh Finalist 2011 Humpy Konery, India; World Girl Junior Champions Anna
Muzychuk, Slovenia, 2010, and Deysi Cori, Peru, 2011; the best chess players
in the FIDE rating list Judit Polgar, 2704, Hungary, Nana Dzagnidze, 2536 and
Maia Chiburdanidze, 2500, Georgia; players qualified from the Continental, Dronavalli
Harika, India, 2011, and the Zonal Championships Irina Berezina, Australia and
Swaminathan Soumya, India; and also the nominees of the FIDE President.
Ten strong chess players will represent Russia in the competition: players
with high FIDE rating Valentina Gunina (2498) and Alisa Galliamova (2491); players
from European Women’s Championships 2010 and 2011 Tatiana and Nadezhda
Kosintseva, Natalija Pogonina, Svetlana Matveeva, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, Anastasia
Bodnaruk, Evgenija Ovod and Marina Romanko.
The venue
The Ugra Chess Academy was built by OJSC «Gazprom neft» through
the program «Gazprom for children». Modern energy conserving technologies
were used in the construction of the unique three-level building which has no
sharp corners and is styled as a chess piece. It was built in the capital of
Ugra during two years and designed by the famous Dutch architect Erick Van Egeraat.

The construction started in 2008 and finished in 2010. The area of the building
is 2845 m², consisting of class rooms and different halls equipped the
last word in education and IT technologies. The Chess Academy consists of two
classrooms, a computer room with 25 stations, a hall, a café-bar, and
a room with items of children’s crafts on the topic of chess on the ground
floor. Almost the whole first floor is occupied by an event hall with 128 seats,
and service rooms. This building allows competitions of up to 300 chess players
at the same time. In September 2010 the General
Assembly and the 81st FIDE Congress took place in the Academy as a part
of the 39th
World Chess Olympiad, and in August 2010 the World
Chess Cup 2011 was staged here.
The 64 participants
a) From World Women’s Championships 2010-2011:
01. Hou, Yifan (CHN) – World Champion
02. Koneru, Humpy (IND) – World Champion Finalist 2011
03. Zhao Xue (CHN) – World Championship Semi finals 2010
b) World Girl Junior Champions 2010-2011:
04. Muzychuk, Anna (SLO)
05. Cori T Deysi (PER)
c) Rating List average 7/2011 & 1/2012:
06. Gunina, Valentina (RUS)
07. Galliamova, Alisa (RUS)
08. Zhu, Chen (QAT)
09. Kosteniuk, Alexandra (RUS)
10. Skripchenko, Almira (FRA)
11. Ushenina, Anna (UKR)
d) 28 players from European Women’s Championships 2010 &
2011
12. Cramling, Pia (SWE) (2010)
13. Cmilyte, Viktorija (LTU)
14. Socko Monika (POL)
15. Sebag, Marie (FRA)
16. Kosintseva Tatiana (RUS)
17. Zhukova Natalia (UKR)
18. Dembo Elena (GRE)
19. Stefanova Antoaneta (BUL)
20. Kosintseva Nadezhda (RUS)
21. Muzychuk Mariya (UKR)
22. Rajlich Iweta (POL)
23. Ziaziulkina Nastassia (BLR)
24. Kovalevskaya Ekaterina (RUS)
25. Khurtsidze Nino (GEO)
26. Danielian, Elina (ARM) (2011)
27. Matveeva, Svetlana (RUS)
28. Khotenashvili, Bela (GEO)
29. Lahno, Kateryna (UKR)
30. Javakhishvili, Lela (GEO)
31. Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan (SCO)
32. Foisor, Cristina-Adela (ROU)
33. Bodnaruk Anastasia (RUS)
34. Pogonina Natalija (RUS)
35. Ovod Evgenija (RUS)
36. Romanko Marina (RUS)
37. Hoang Thanh Trang (HUN)
38. Mkrtchian Lilit (ARM)
39. Khukhashvili Sopiko (GEO)
e) Eight players from Americas
40. Arribas Robaina, Maritza (CUB) (Continental)
41. Zatonskih, Anna (USA) (Zonal 2.1)
42. Abrahamyan, Tatev (USA) (Zonal 2.1)
43. Krush, Irina (USA) (Zonal 2.1)
44. Khoudgarian, Natalia (CAN) (Zonal 2.2)
45. Castrillon Gomez, Melissa (COL) (Zonal 2.3)
46. Aliaga Fernandez, Ingrid (PER) (Zonal 2.4)
47. Lujan, Carolina (ARG) (Zonal 2.5)
f) Twelve players from Asia/Oceania
48. Pourkashiyan, Atousa (IRI) (Continental 2010)
49. Harika, Dronavalli (IND) (Continental 2011)
50. Ghader Pour, Shayesteh (IRI) (Zonal 3.1)
51. Ranasinghe, S D (SRI) (Zonal 3.2)
52. Li, Ruofan (SIN) (Zonal 3.3)
53. Davletbayeva, Madina (KAZ) (Zonal 3.4)
54. Ju Wenjun (CHN) (Zonal 3.5)
55. Shen Yang (CHN) (Zonal 3.5)
56. Huang Qian (CHN) (Zonal 3.5)
57. Gu Xiaobing (CHN) (Zonal 3.5)
58. Berezina, Irina (AUS) (Zonal 3.6)
59. Soumya, Swaminathan (IND) (Zonal 3.7)
g) Three players from African Women’s Championship 2011
60. Mona, Khaled (EGY)
61. Mezioud, Amina (ALG)
62. Frick, Denise (RSA)
h) Two nominees of the FIDE President
63. Guo Qi (CHN)
64. Olga Girya (RUS)
Prize fund
The Championship has a total prize fund of US $450,000. Every player gets 3750
Euros, those who make it to round two get 5500 Euros, for round three it is
8000 Euros, round four 12,000 Euros, round five (semifinals) 20,000 Euros, the
silver medalist 30,000 Euros, and the winner 60,000 Euros.
Where it is
Khanty-Mansiysk is an oil boom town, located on the eastern bank of the Irtysh
River, 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) from its confluence with the Ob. Population: 80,000.
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How to get there
The nearest airports to Khanty-Mansiysk are Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk,
Omsk, Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk. The air companies «Utair» and «Transaero»
make the regular flights from Moscow to Khanty-Mansiysk.

The nearest railway stations to Khanty-Mansiysk are Pyt-Yah (270 km away from
Khanty-Mansiysk) and Surgut (300 km away from Khanty-Mansiysk). Every day more
than ten trains from different cities of Russia pass through Pyt-Yah and Surgut.
In addition there are daily buses and minibuses that depart from railway stations
Pyt-Yah and Surgut to Khanty-Mansiysk, at interval of 2-3 hours. Travel time
is about three hours. If you plan on visiting the Championship you will find
all necessary travel information here.

The official tournament hotel is the Olympic, with full booking information
here
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