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.
The reigning Women's World Champion won the sixth game of the match and is now two points ahead of the challenger Humpy Koneru. Although White got an edge from the opening, the Chinese GM managed to equalize and break the position in the time trouble to come out a winner.
The outcome is even more surprising when one knows that Hou Yifan spent several hours in the hospital the previous night. The 17-year-old experienced severe pains in her stomach area and was immediately taken into the best hospital of Tirana by the organizers and FIDE officials. The doctors checked her medical condition, but the necessary tests revealed nothing and the conclusion was that the problem could be mainly psychological. Yifan declined to take any pain killers, but still managed to come to the game in perfect fighting condition. Such are the pressures of a World Championship match.
Note that you can click on the evaluation profile below the board to jump to the corresponding position. The evaluations were collected from the computers of spectators watching the game with the Fritz 13 feature "Let's Check" switched on.
The press at the start of game six – note the time on the clock on
the wall
The players shake...
... and arbiter Panagiotis Nikolopoulos starts the clocks
Our 5D photographer Anastasiya Karlovich has five minutes to get close-up shots
Her colleague WGM Anna Burtosova works with a legendary Canon fixed focal length
F/1.8
EF lens that produces nice bokeh
and smiles on the face of the photographer
Challenger Humpy Koneru in the press conference after the game
Her dejected father Ashok Koneru can hardly bear to watch
Even the winner Hou Yifan is subdued after the pressures of despearte time
trouble
| Players | Rating |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
Total |
Perf. |
+/– |
| Hou Yifan | 2578 |
½ |
½ |
1 |
½ |
½ |
1 |
4.0 |
2720 |
+12 |
||||
| Koneru Humpy | 2600 |
½ |
½ |
0 |
½ |
½ |
0 |
2.0 |
2508 |
–12 |
| Tuesday | 22 November 2011 | Rest day |
| Wednesday | 23 November 2011 | Game seven |
| Thursday | 24 November 2011 | Game eight |
| Friday | 25 November 2011 | Rest day |
| Saturday | 26 November 2011 | Game nine |
| Sunday | 27 November 2011 | Rest day |
| Monday | 28 November 2011 | Game ten |
| Tuesday | 29 November 2011 | Rest day |
| Wednesday | 30 November 2011 | Tie-break, closing |
Photos and news from Tirana by WGMs Anastasiya Karlovich
and Anna Burtasova, with kind permission of FIDE
LinksThe 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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