Humpy pulls it off – wins Doha GM and qualifies

by ChessBase
3/5/2011 – Indian GM Humpy Koneru won her final game and with that Women Grand Prix in Doha, ahead on tie-break points of Elina Danielian, Armenia, who drew against Bulgarian Antoaneta Stefanova. According to our (still unofficial) calculations Humpy has thus won the right to challenge Hou Yifan for the Women's World Championship title later this year. First report with results and games.

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The FIDE Women Grand Prix is a series of elite tournaments organised by FIDE and Global Chess, with six legs over two years in various countries around the world, with three tournaments every year. The winner of each tournament gets 6,500 Euros out of a prize fund of 40,000 Euros, and the overall winner of the series will win a further 15,000 Euros at the end of the series. The sixth event of the cycle was held from the 21st of February to 5th of March. It took place in the Sharq Village and Spa in Doha, Qatar.

Results of round eleven (final)

 Ti.
Name
Rtg
Result
Ti.
Name
Rtg
GM Chiburdanidze Maia 2502
½-½
GM Dzagnidze Nana 2550
IM Munguntuul Batkhuyag 2410
1-0
GM Sebag Marie 2489
GM Danielian Elina 2454
½-½
GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2546
GM Xu Yuhua 2484
1-0
GM Cramling Pia 2516
IM Mkrtchian Lilit 2475
½-½
IM Fierro Baquero Martha 2363
GM Zhu Chen 2495
0-1
GM Koneru Humpy 2607


A critical game in the final round: Humpy beat Zhu Chen, whose...


... adorable six-year-old daughter Dana watches mama play


The all-Georgian game Chiburdanidze vs Dzagnidze ended in a relative quick draw.
It would not have made a difference if the latter had won (see our calculations below)


Batkhuyag Munguntuul put an end to Nana Dzagnidze chances at a world championship challenge...


...Marie Sebag, who was not even in contention

Standings after eleven rounds (final)

The columns on the right of this table, automatically generated by ChessBase 11, indicate the score, the tiebreak points, the performance and the number of points the player is gaining on the FIDE rating list.

Statistics

Of the 66 games played in this event:

  • White won 26 games = 39.4%
  • Black won 19 games = 28.8%
  • 21 games were drawn = 31.8%

Grand Prix standings (before Doha)

# Player
Ist
Nan
Nal
Jer
Ula
Total
worst
GP pts
GPs
1 Hou Yifan
120
130
70
160
480
70
410
4
2 Dzagnidze
130
100
160
390
-
390
3
3 Kosintseva,T
160
130
93.3
383.3
-
383.3
3
4 Koneru
160
70
93.3
323.3
-
323.3
3
5 Zhao Xue
90
110
40
93.3
333.3
40
293.3
4
6 Stefanova
45
93.3
130
268.3
-
268.3
3
7 Xu Yuhua
160
30
60
250
-
250
3
8 Danielian
120
10
93.3
223.3
-
223.3
3
9 Cramling
65
100
55
220
-
220
3
10 Mkrtchian
80
40
93.3
213
-
213
3
11 Sebag
80
80
30
190
-
190
3
12 Shen Yang
25
60
55
45
185
25
160
4
13 Chiburdanidze
45
40
70
155
-
155
3
14 Zhu Chen
30
70
45
145
-
145
3
15 Monguntuul
50
70
20
140
-
140
3
16 Kovanova
40
40
20
100
-
100
3
17 Fierro
65
20
10
95
-
95
3
18 Ju Wenjun
80
80
-
80
1
19 Yildiz
10
10
20
10
50
10
40
4
20 Mamedjarova
25
25
-
25
1

We are still working out the exact scores of the Grand Prix. As simple rocket scientists we consulted an expert: WGM Zsuzsa Veroci, who explained it to us while the final round was still under way and final results not yet in. "If Koneru wins," Zsuzsa told us, she will play the world championship match against Hou Yifan, but in case Sebag wins, then Dzagnidze is the challenger!" Not quite easy, ist it? Our WGM friend went on to explain: "The participants get 120 + 40 bonus points for first place, 110 + 20 for second, and 100 + 10 for third. Koneru had a very bad start in the Nalchik Grand Prix. Then she tied the first place wit Danielian, and it was 145 points. All together she will have 398.5 points, 8.5 points more then Dzagndze. If she ties for first place with Danielian and Sebag, it is only 133.3 points, and she only has a total of 386.6 points, which is 3.4 points less then Dzagndze, who is then the challenger!" We are going to stick to rocket science. A full description of the qualification will follow shortly here.

All photos by Maria Bolshakova and Anastasiya Karlovich


Links

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