Women's World Championship starts in Tirana – first game drawn

The FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship Match between the current World Champion Hou Yifan of China and her challenger, Koneru Humpy of India, is being staged in the Triana International Hotel from November 14 to 30. The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. The winner of the ten-game match is the first player to reach 5.5 points or more. The prize fund is 200,000 Euro, with 60% going to the winner. The games start at 15:00h local time, which is also Central European Time = 17:00 Moscow, 19:30 New Delhi, 22:00h Beijing and 09:00 New York. You can find the starting time for other locations here.

Game one

Pictorial impressions of game one

By Frederic Friedel

This is what the stage looked like on Sunday, when it was still being built

A choice of chairs for the players

Arbiter Panagiotis NIkolopoulos and Frederic Friedel pre-testing the table and chairs

The red one! World Champion Hou Yifan comes first and gets first pick of the chairs

Challenger Humpy (with her father right) is happy with the blue high-back

Albanian TV Channel One arrives to do a broadcast of the match

The entrance to the playing hall in the Triana International Hotel lobby

On Monday at 2:45 p.m. the players and public start to enter

The challenger ready to start game one

Note how the players have (very carefully) pointed their knights and bishops

For years now Yifan always brings along her little silver pot with Chinese raisins

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov symbolically makes the first move for Humpy

After some instructions the chief sponsor executes the first black move with the knight

The President and his sponsor: Rezart Taci of Taci Oil International

After her third move, g3, Humpy covers her eyes and sinks into thought

After a number of minutes in that position she snaps out of it and plays her fourth move

Game one under way, with around 20 spectators, which increases to fifty by the end

FIDE brass in the lobby: (clockwise from the top) Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos, Member, Appeals Committee Beatriz Marinello, President of the Turkish Chess Federation Ali Nihat Yazici, Berik Balgabaev, Advisor to FIDE President

You tell us who is winning: the President plays chess in the VIP suite

In the press room: WGMs Anastasia Karlovich and Anna Burtasova, well known to our readers

Nastja working on the pictures she has taken with her Canon 5D Mark II

Schedule

Links Official tournament site All ChessBase reports All games in PGN The games are being 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.

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