İş Bankası - Women Grand Prix Series in Istanbul

The Closing Ceremony was held on the 41st floor of Is Bank Towers, which is the highest place of Istanbul and Southern Europe. İş Bankasi is the corporate sponsor of the Turkish Chess Federation and has supported the "Turkish Chess in School Curriculum" for the last four years.

Before the closing ceremony: Zhao Xue, Hou Yifan, her mother, Shen Yang, Ashok Koneru, daughter Humpy

Another group, with Maia Chiburdanidze, Elina Danielian, Zeinab Mamedyerova, Marie Sebag

The dignitaries: TCF President and FIDE Vice President Ali Nihat Yazici, Sports Minister Murat Başesgioğlu, TCF Board Member Ahmet Duysak, CEO of Is Bank Ersin Özince, FIDE Deputy President Georgios, FIDE Vice President GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili Makropoulos.

The President of the Is Bank Board, Caner Çimenbiçer, delivering his speech

Everybody: in the front row you will recognise Zeinab, Xue, Pia, Martha, Eti, Yifan, Humpy, Yang and Elina, in the second row Betül, Marie and Maia (click on the picture to enlarge)

This is what the statistics for top level women's chess look like: seventy percent of the games decided, a majority in favour os Black, with just thirty percent draws. Remind us again: why do we keep staging high-level men's tournaments?

Final standings

Links Official tournament page Main sponsor: Türkiye Is Bankasi All games in PGN You can use ChessBase Light to read, replay and analyse the PGN games. It also gives you immediate access to play and watch events on Playchess.com server.