Women’s World Championship – Stefanova, Harika, Ju Wenjun

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.

Round four – tiebreaks

Antoaneta Stefanova (above right, Bulgaria) convincingly defeated Marie Sebag (France). In the first game of the match emotions took over logic, and the spectators witnessed a completely crazy game with brilliant moves and horrible blunders coming from both sides at an alarming rate. Finally the French player got an overwhelming position with an extra piece, but the Bulgarian kept cool and capitalized on her opponent’s final blunder by promoting a passed pawn. Sebag had to return material, ended up down an exchange and resigned.

The second game was one-sided, and Stefanova won convincingly, thus wrapping up the match 2-0. The former World Champion advanced to the semifinal.

The Chinese players Huang Qian and Ju Wenjun were unable to determine the winner in rapid games, drawing both after very tenacious struggle. In the first ten-minute game Ju Wenjun had a big advantage and excellent winning chances, but misplayed in the end, allowing the opponent to make a draw. The second game was also a roller coaster ride: Huang Qian obtained a big advantage with complete domination on the board, but then made several mistakes, and Black turned the tables.

Ju Wenjun played flawlessly for the rest of the game, and secured the match victory.

The match between Harika Dronavalli (India) and Zhao Xue (China) was another tense encounter. The Chinese GM, playing white in the first game, got a promising position, but her hesitation allowed the opponent to advance her passed pawn a bit too far. Harika combined threats in the center and on the kingside, and finished the game with a nice attack against the king.

In the second game the Indian got an opening advantage, pushed in the middlegame, and found the right moment to transpose to a drawn ending, as she was content with a draw. Harika won the match 1.5-0.5 and looked very happy at the press-conference. She thanked her parents, friends, trainers, ...

... and especially her grandmother, who also came with her to Khanty-Mansiysk.

Replay all the tiebreak games here

All results of round four

In the semifinals Antoaneta Stefanova plays Harika Dronavalli, while Anna Ushenina plays Ju Wenjun. The games start on Friday, at 15:00h local time. You will find the starting time at your location here.

Credit: The above report was based on article published by the official web site, which has some extraordinary pictures, were made by Anna Burtasova, Etery Kublashvili, Vladimir Barsky and local photographers. Many more images are to be found here.

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.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN: R1 – R2 – R3 – R4 The games will be 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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