The

Women's World Chess Championship The Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC) is played to determine the world champion in women's chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE. Unlike with most sports recognized by the International Olympic Committee, wher ...

2012 was a

knockout tournament A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

, to decide the women's world champion. The title was won by

Anna Ushenina Anna Yuriyivna Ushenina (; born 30 August 1985) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster who was Women's World Chess Champion from November 2012 to September 2013. Personal life Ushenina lives in Kharkiv, where she was born. She is of Jewish ethnici ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

for the first time. Defending champion

Hou Yifan Hou Yifan ( ; born 27 February 1994) is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and the second highest rated female player of all time.

went out in the second round. The tournament was played as a 64-player knockout type in

Khanty Mansiysk Khanty-Mansiysk ( rus, Ха́нты-Манси́йск, Khánty-Mansíysk, lit. ''Khanty-Mansi Town''; Khanty: , ''Jomvoćś''; Mansi: , ''Abga'') is a city and the administrative center of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra, Russia. It stand ...

, Russia, from 10 November to 1 December 2012. Each pairing consisted of two games, and tie-breaks at faster time controls, if necessary. After only two wins by lower rated players in the first round, the second round saw the top three seeds all going out to players rated 150 Elo points below them, of those third seed Anna Muzychuk lost to the eventual world champion. The fourth seed went out in the quarter-final. The final consisted of four games at classical

time control A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. Time controls are typically enforced by means of a game cloc ...

, followed by tie-break games; in it Anna Ushenina beat former women's world champion

Antoaneta Stefanova Antoaneta Stefanova ( bg, Антоанета Стефанова; born 19 April 1979) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and Women's World Champion from 2004 to 2006. She has represented Bulgaria in the Chess Olympiad in 2000 and the Women's Chess ...

in the first set of tie-breaks. The unexpected final of two lower seeded players raised questions, if a single match knock-out system is the best way to determine the world champion. Ushenina lost her title in the

Women's World Chess Championship 2013 The Women's World Chess Championship 2013 was a chess match for the championship. The match was scheduled over ten games from 10 to 27 September 2013 in Taizhou, Jiangsu, China. The match was played between defending champion Anna Ushenina, win ...

, after game seven of a ten-game match against

Hou Yifan Hou Yifan ( ; born 27 February 1994) is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and the second highest rated female player of all time.

, winner of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012.

Participants

Players qualified to the tournament through the previous world championship, the FIDE rating list, continental championships and two FIDE president nominees. Players were seeded by their Elo ratings (November 2012 list), except that defending champion

Hou Yifan Hou Yifan ( ; born 27 February 1994) is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and the second highest rated female player of all time.

was the no. 1 seed. # , 2606, GM (WC) # , 2610, GM (WC) # , 2586, GM (J10) # , 2565, GM (WC) # , 2553, GM (E11) # , 2539, GM (E10) # , 2524, GM (E10) # , 2521, GM (E10) # , 2517, IM (R) # , 2516, GM (E10) # , 2515, GM (E10) # , 2512, GM (AS11) # , 2504, IM (E11) # , 2501, GM (R) # , 2501, WGM (Z3.5) # , 2491, GM (E10) # , 2491, GM (R) # , 2489, IM (Z2.1) # , 2478, WGM (E11) # , 2476, IM (E10) # , 2476, GM (E11) # , 2470, GM (E11) # , 2470, IM (Z2.1) # , 2468, IM (R) # , 2467, WGM (PN) # , 2465, WGM (Z3.5) # , 2457, IM (E11) # , 2455, IM (E11) # , 2454, IM (E10) # , 2452, IM (R) # , 2451, GM (E10) # , 2445, GM (E10) # , 2441, IM (R) # , 2432, WGM (PN) # , 2429, WGM (J11) # , 2428, IM (E10) # , 2415, IM (E11) # , 2414, GM (E11) # , 2413, WGM (Z3.5) # , 2410, IM (E10) # , 2409, IM (E10) # , 2394, IM (Z3.3) # , 2384, IM (E11) # , 2383, IM (E11) # , 2383, IM (E11) # , 2377, IM (E11) # , 2369, IM (Z2.5) # , 2367, WGM (E10) # , 2355, IM (E11) # , 2321, WGM (AS10) # , 2304, WGM (Z2.1) # , 2273, WGM (AM) # , 2251, WGM (Z3.7) # , 2220,

WIM Wim is a masculine given name or a shortened form of Willem and other names and may refer to: * Wim Anderiesen (1903–1944), Dutch footballer * Wim Aantjes (1923–2015), Dutch politician * Wim Arras (born 1964), Belgian cyclist * Wim Blockma ...

(Z3.4) # , 2219, WIM (Z3.1) # , 2209, WGM (Z3.5) # , 2190, IM (Z3.6) # , 2175, WFM (Z2.4) # , 2159, WIM (Z2.3) # , 2155, WGM (AF) # , 2138, WIM (Z2.2) # , 2055, WIM (AF) # , 1871, WIM (AF) # , 1821, WIM (Z3.2)

Qualification paths

*WC: Women's World Champion, runner-up of Women's World Chess Championship 2011, semifinalist of

Women's World Chess Championship 2010 The Women's World Chess Championship 2010 took place in Antakya, Turkey from December 2 through 24, 2010. The tournament, like the previous ones, was played in a 64-player knock-out format. Each pairing consisted of two games, one with white and o ...

*J10 and J11: World Junior Champions 2010 and 2011 *R: Rating (average of all published ratings from July 2011 to January 2012 was used) (6) *E10 and E11: European Individual Championships 2010 and 2011 (28) *AM: American Continental Chess Championship 2011 *AS10 and AS11:

Asian Chess Championship The Asian Chess Championship is a chess tournament open to all players from Asian chess federations ( FIDE zones from 3.1 to 3.7). It's held with the Swiss system and consists in two divisions, Open and Women's, the latter of which is reserved to f ...

s 2010 and 2011 *AF:

African Chess Championship The first African Chess Championship was played in 1998. Ibrahim Hasan Labib and Mohamed Tissir both shared first place with 7/10, but the former took the title. The 2007 championship was the FIDE Zone 4 qualifier for the Chess World Cup 2007, th ...

2011 (3) * Z2.1 (3), Z2.2, Z2.3, Z2.4, Z2.5, Z3.1, Z3.2, Z3.3, Z3.4, Z3.5 (4), Z3.6, Z3.7: Zonal tournaments *PN:

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

President nominee (2)

Notable non-participants

The number one woman in the world,

Judit Polgár Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster, generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the yo ...

, has never competed for the women's title and did not enter this time either. Other notable absentees were: women's number six

Nana Dzagnidze Nana Dzagnidze ( ka, ნანა ძაგნიძე; born 1 January 1987) is a Georgian chess player. She was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2008. Dzagnidze was a member of the gold medal-winning Georg ...

, 2010 finalist Ruan Lufei, and ex-champion

Maia Chiburdanidze Maia Chiburdanidze ( ka, მაია ჩიბურდანიძე; born 17 January 1961) is a Georgian chess Grandmaster. She is the sixth Women's World Chess Champion, a title she held from 1978 to 1991, and was the youngest one until 2 ...

(inactive).

Format

Each pairing consisted of two games played over two days, one with white and one with black. The time controls in the classical games were 90 minutes for the first 40 moves with a 30-minute addition on move 41. In case of a tie, tiebreaks were played the next day. The format for the tie breaks was as follows: * Two rapid games (25 minutes plus 10 second increment) were played. * If the score was still tied, two rapid games (10 minutes plus 10 second increment) were played. * If the match is tied after these two games, the opponents played two blitz games (5 minutes plus 3-second increment). * If the score was still tied after pair of blitz games, a single Armageddon game (white must win, black only needs to

draw Draw, drawing, draws, or drawn may refer to: Common uses * Draw (terrain), a terrain feature formed by two parallel ridges or spurs with low ground in between them * Drawing (manufacturing), a process where metal, glass, or plastic or anything ...

) would be played. White had 5 minutes, black had 4 minutes, and both players had three-second increments beginning with move 61.

Prize pool

The championship had a prize-pool of 450,000 US-Dollar. Prizes were $3,750 for first round losers, $5,500 for the second round, 8,000 for the third. Losing quarter-finalists picked up $12,000, the semi-finalists $20,000. Stefanova then got $30,000 for finishing runner-up to Ushenina, who got $60,000 prize money. It was the same distribution as in the 2010 knock-out championship.

Coverage

Stefanowa antoaneta 20081119 olympiade dresden

The tournament was streamed on the tournament website each day in full length. Live coverage was interrupted only for advertising breaks. The videostream was also playable on demand until the next day started. Coverage was provided in low and high definition with Grand Master commentary in three languages: English, Russian and for the first time Chinese. In the final days the broadcast was watched by several hundred thousand live viewers.

Results

Final match

The final match was decided after four matches at classical time controls and two rapid tie-breaks. Anna Ushenina won the title, beating 2004 Women's World Chess champion Stefanova. Stefanova also was the reigning Women's World Rapid champion. :

Bracket

First round pairings were published on 1 November 2012.

References

External links

Chessdom: Women's World Chess Championship 2012 participants and qualification criteria
{{Women's World Chess Championships Women's World Chess Championships 2012 in chess 2012 in Russian sport Chess in Russia International sports competitions hosted by Russia Sport in Khanty-Mansiysk