The 1993

Women's World Chess Championship The Women's World Chess Championship is a chess match played to determine the Women's World Chess Champion. It has been administered by FIDE since its inception in 1927, unlike the absolute World Chess Championship, which only came under FIDE's ...

was won by

Xie Jun Xie Jun (born October 30, 1970) is a Chinese chess grandmaster and is the first Asian woman to become a chess grandmaster. She had two separate reigns as Women's World Chess Champion, from 1991 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2001. Xie is one ...

, who successfully defended her title against challenger

Nana Ioseliani Nana Ioseliani ( ka, ნანა იოსელიანი; born 12 February 1962) is a Georgian chess player. FIDE awarded her the Woman Grandmaster title in 1980 and the International Master title in 1993. Biography Already in 1978 she w ...

in the title match.

1991 Interzonal Tournament

As part of the qualification process, an

Interzonal Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the Ca ...

tournament was held in

Subotica Subotica (, ; , , ) is a List of cities in Serbia, city in Central Europe and the administrative center of the North Bačka District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. Formerly the largest city of Vojvodina region, contemporary Sub ...

in November 1991, featuring the best players from each FIDE zone. 35 players took part with the top six qualifying for the Candidates Tournament. For the first time, the women's Interzonal was played as a 13-round

Swiss system tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

. : Sylvia Chidi of Nigeria didn't enter the tournament until after the first two rounds were played, so her first two games are listed as forfeited.

1992–93 Candidates Tournament

The six qualifiers from the Interzonal Tournament were joined by Chiburdanidze, who had lost the last title match, and Marić, the runner-up from the previous Candidates Tournament. In addition to these eight,

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

decided to give a wild card to Polgár, who the year before had been the first woman to achieve the grandmaster title through tournament play (world champions Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze had only been awarded the title through special judgment by FIDE). Once again, the Candidates Tournament was contested as a double round-robin tournament in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

in October and November 1992, but this time the top two would then play a short 8-game match to determine the challenger. As expected, Polgár dominated the tournament, finishing a full three points ahead of Ioseliani, who advanced on a better tie-break score than ex-champion Chiburdanidze. Few observers expected the final to be more than a formality. At the start of the match in

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

in February 1993, Polgár outrated her opponent by 100 points. After Polgár won the first two games and drew the next three, she needed only one point in the last three games to clinch the win. However, Ioseliani won the sixth game, drew the seventh, and won the eighth to take the match into a two-game tiebreak. Polgár won the first game, but Ioseliani won the second, forcing a second tiebreak. When the pattern repeated – Polgár winning first, then Ioselani – FIDE ruled that the match would be decided by a lottery. This time Ioseliani won, eliminating Polgar from the cycle. : :

1993 Championship Match

The championship match was played in

from October 25 to November 17, 1993. It was quite an anticlimax after the controversy of the Candidates Tournament, with Xie Jun winning decisively. :

References

{{Women's World Chess Championships Women's World Chess Championships 1993 in chess 1993 in Monégasque sport 1993 in women's sport