World Women’s tiff on in Russia

The FIDE Women’s World Championship, a 64-player knockout match play, begins today in the Autonomous Okrug’s famous city of Khanty Mansiysk, Russia.

The 64 participants selected were filtered by the following requirements:

(a) last cycle’s finalists and semifinalists (b) current ratings (c) continental and zonal qualifiers (Europe, America, Asia and Africa)

(d) FIDE nominated format will be two match games, with tiebreaks, for rounds of 64, 32, 16, 8 and 4. The finals will be played over four games, including tiebreaks, and time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves and 30 minutes to finish the game, will be adopted.

Reigning world women’s champion and Olympiad gold medalist Ju Wenjun of China, headlined the participants, including former world champions Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia, Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine, Tan Zhongi of China, Antoanetta Stefanova of Bulgaria and Anna Ushenina of Ukraine.

The championship, which offers $60,000 to the winner, will run up to Nov. 23.

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The second Shenzhen Masters Classic, which opens tomorrow in Shenzhen, China, is one of the year’s strongest tournaments thus far.

The Chinese tandem of Ding Liren and Yu Yangi, Olympiad gold medalists and ranked fourth and 12th in the world, led the list of six super GMs competing in the Category 20, double round-robin event. The field included world No. 5 Anish Giri of the Netherlands; world No. 6 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France; Poland’s Radoslav Wojtaszek, winner of the 2018 Isle of Man and ranked 16th in the world, and Olympiad bronze medalist Nikita Vitiugov of the host city.

A total cash prize of $90,000 will be at stake with the champion getting $20,000.

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Here Black’s Knight maneuver in the opening looked good, but it proved ineffective, as the Knight, later in the game, was driven from square to square by a pair of Rooks, bringing about a short and spicy finish. A fine performance by the Chinese stalwart.