Women's World Chess Championship
The women's world chess championship is an event open only to women to determine the world's best female chess player . It has been held under the auspices of the world chess federation FIDE since 1927 . The first female world champion was Vera Menchik from 1927 until her death in 1944 , currently the Chinese Ju Wenjun is the title holder. The winner of a women's world chess championship receives the general grandmaster title , the defeated finalist the title of international master .
Since 2020, the women's world chess championship, like the open world chess championship, has been held as a duel between the reigning world chess champion and the winner of a candidates' tournament. Previously, the tournament was played annually from 2010 in an alternating format. According to FIDE regulations, a knockout tournament with 64 participants should take place in even years, and a duel between the current world champion and a challenger in odd years. Since the events have been postponed to the following year since 2014 due to organizational problems, the tournaments took place at irregular intervals.
In chess, unlike many other sports, it is common for women to compete against men. The competition for the title of world chess champion (also incorrectly called the men's world championship ) is open to both sexes, but in practice it is clearly dominated by men. Some chess players deliberately do not take part in the fights for the women's world championship. Judit Polgár , for example , who led the women's world rankings from January 1989 to February 2015 and also holds the general grandmaster title, has never played for the women's world championship title. However, until her resignation in August 2014, she was undisputedly regarded as the best female chess player, while her older sister Zsuzsa Polgár , who was always in her shadow in terms of chess, had already won the women's world championship.
1927 to 1944 - Vera Menchik's era
The first World Chess Championship for women was organized by FIDE as a round-robin tournament and took place parallel to the 1927 Chess Olympiad . Vera Menchik became the winner and thus the first world chess champion. As a result, however - in contrast to the general world chess champions - she had no special privileges and, like her challengers, first had to qualify for the world championship fight. She remained undefeated and successfully defended her world title in 1930, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937 and 1939 in tournaments held parallel to the Chess Olympiad. In 1930 and 1931 only one participant from each country was allowed, this was changed at Menchik's request.
During the Second World War , she died with her mother and sister in a German V1 attack on Kent in 1944 .
1950 to 1991 - Soviet domination
After Menchik's death, the next women's world chess championship took place in 1949/50 . It was again a round-robin tournament. The Soviet player Lyudmila Rudenko won and became the second world champion. Afterwards, a cycle of interzone and candidate tournaments was set up analogous to the men in order to determine the respective challenger for the title holder.
The first candidates tournament took place in Moscow in 1952 . The Russian Jelisaweta Bykowa emerged as the winner and then defeated Rudenko 8 to 6 (+7 = 2 −5), which made her the third world champion. The next candidate tournament was won by Olga Rubzowa . But instead of having them play directly against Bykowa, FIDE decided that the world championship should be decided between the three best players in the world: Rubzowa, Rudenko and Bykowa. Rubzowa won this World Cup, which took place in Moscow in 1956, one point ahead of Bykowa, who in turn had five points more than Rudenko. However, Bykova regained the title in 1958 and defended it in 1959 against Kira Sworykina , the winner of the 1959 Candidates' tournament.
The fourth candidate tournament was held in Vrnjačka Banja ( Serbia ) in 1961 and was dominated by the Georgian player Nona Gaprindashvili , who suffered no defeat with ten wins and six draws . Then she beat Bykowa in the 1962 World Cup fight with 9: 2 (+7 = 4 −0) and became the fourth world champion. Gaprindashvili defended the title against the Russian Alla Kuschnir in 1965 in Riga and 1969 in Tbilisi and Moscow.
In 1971, FIDE also introduced rules for women that had been in use for men since 1965: the challengers were no longer to be determined in round-robin tournaments, but in knockout competitions . Kuschnir qualified again as a challenger, but was again defeated by Gaprindashvili in the 1972 title fight in Riga. Gaprindashvili defended the title one last time against Nana Alexandria from Georgia in Pizunda and Tbilisi in 1975.
In the candidate cycle from 1976 to 1978, the 17-year-old Georgian Maia Tschiburdanidze caused a surprise when she successively defeated Nana Alexandria, Jelena Akhmilovskaya and Alla Kuschnir and won the 1978 World Cup against Gaprindashvili in Tbilisi. It was a culmination of Georgia's dominance in women's chess . Chiburdanidze defended the title against Alexandria in Borjomi and Tbilisi in 1981 and against Irina Levitina in Volgograd in 1984. Akmilovskaya won the next candidate tournament, but lost the World Cup fight against Chiburdanidze in Sofia in 1986. Chiburdanidze's last title defense was in Telavi in 1988 against Nana Iosseliani .
Since 1991 - the triumphant advance of the Chinese women
Chiburdanidze lost the title in Manila in 1991 to the young Chinese Xie Jun , who was second behind Gaprindashvili in the interzonal tournament and first shared with Alisa Marić in the candidates' tournament , against whom she retained the upper hand in a playoff.
At this time, the three Hungarian Polgár sisters Zsuzsa , Zsófia and Judit made for the first sensational victories against grandmasters. The family decided that Judit, as the strongest of the three, should concentrate exclusively on men's tournaments, while Zsuzsa and Zsófia should take part in the women's tournaments.
Zsuzsa Polgár won the candidates' tournament in Shanghai in 1992. The candidate final - a match of eight games between the two first-placed winners of the tournament - between Polgár and Iosseliani was still a draw even after two tie-breaks . So the lot had to decide, whereby Iosseliani was identified as the challenger for Xie Jun. In the 1993 World Cup fight in Monaco , however, she had no chance.
As part of the qualification for the women's chess world championship, the last interzonal tournament took place in 1995 in Chișinău .
The next cycle was dominated by Polgár. After the Candidates Tournament shared first with Chiburdanidze, they defeated them in the final and then took Xie Jun the world title at the 1996 World Cup in Jaén .
1997 Alissa Galljamowa and Xie Jun were first and second in the Candidates Tournament. However, Galljamowa refused to play the final completely in China, whereupon FIDE Xie Jun proclaimed the challenger without a fight. In the meantime, Polgár had given birth to her first child and therefore asked for the fight to be postponed. FIDE refused and instead set the world championship between Galliamova and Xie Jun. It took place in Kazan (Russia) and Shenyang (China). Xie Jun won with 8.5: 6.5 (+5 = 7 −3).
In 2000, the world championship took place parallel to the men's world championship and, like this, was also played in knockout mode. The winner was Xie Jun. In 2001, Zhu Chen won , the mode used was again the knockout mode. Another knockout tournament, this time not at the same time as the Men's World Cup, took place from May 21 to June 8, 2004 in Elista , Russia . The Bulgarian player Antoaneta Stefanowa became the new world champion. Similar to Polgár seven years earlier, Zhu Chen did not participate because of a pregnancy.
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Eventually the title returned to China in 2006 when Xu Yuhua won the title in Yekaterinburg . The 2008 World Cup took place in Nalchik from August 28th to September 17th . Because of the Caucasus conflict , six Georgian players, including ex-world champion Chiburdanidze, and five other players did not attend. In the final, Alexandra Kostenjuk prevailed against Hou Yifan with 2.5: 1.5 .
At the 2010 World Cup from December 2 to 24, 2010, Kosteniuk was eliminated in the third round. Hou Yifan defeated her compatriot Ruan Lufei in the final in a tie-break of four rapid games 3: 1 after the four regular games had ended 2: 2, and at the age of 16 years, 9 months and 27 days she was the one to date youngest world chess champion.
The 2011 World Cup took place in Tirana from November 14th to 30th . Hou Yifan defended her title early in a ten-game competition with 5.5: 2.5 (+3 = 5 −0) against K. Humpy , who came second behind the world champion at the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2009– Qualified in 2011. The game was played with a time limit of 90 minutes for 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus 30 seconds per move. The winner received 120,000 euros in prize money, the loser 80,000 euros.
From November 10th to December 2nd, 2012 a world championship took place in Khanty-Mansiysk , which was played with 64 players in the knockout system. The reigning world champion Hou Yifan was surprisingly eliminated in the second round against Monika Soćko . In the final, Anna Uschenina prevailed in a tie-break against former world champion Antoaneta Stefanowa . In 2013 , Hou Yifan regained the title with a competitive win against Anna Uschenina.
There was no World Cup in 2014 as the tournament was postponed to 2015 . Defending champion Hou Yifan did not take part due to scheduling problems resulting from this; Ukrainian Marija Musytschuk became the new world champion . In the 2016 duel, Hou Yifan was able to win the title again, but shortly afterwards announced that he would no longer participate in the existing world championship cycle in protest against the current mode.
Chinese Tan Zhongyi became the new world champion in 2017 . The following year she lost the title in a duel against her compatriot Ju Wenjun . She defended her title at the knockout world championship 2018 in the final against Jekaterina Lagno and in the tie-break against Alexandra Goryachkina in the 2020 world championship, which was again held as a duel .
List of world chess champions
After the Menchik era, the Soviet Union first dominated, after which Chinese and Eastern European players won the title.
| Surname | Period | country |
|---|---|---|
| Vera Menchik | 1927-1944 |
 Czechoslovakia / Great Britain
|
| no world champion | 1944-1950 | - |
| Lyudmila Rudenko | 1950-1953 |
.svg){kind=small} Soviet Union
|
| Yelisaveta Bykova | 1953-1956 |
Soviet Union
|
| Olga Rubzowa | 1956-1958 |
.svg){kind=small} Soviet Union
|
| Yelisaveta Bykova | 1958–1962 |
Soviet Union
|
| Nona Gaprindashvili | 1962-1988 |
Soviet Union
|
| Maia Chiburdanidze | 1978-1991 |
 Soviet Union
|
| Xie Jun | 1991-1996 |
 People's Republic of China
|
| Zsuzsa Polgár | 1996-1999 |
 Hungary
|
| Xie Jun | 1999-2001 |
People's Republic of China
|
| Zhu Chen | 2001-2004 |
People's Republic of China
|
| Antoaneta Stefanova | 2004-2006 |
 Bulgaria
|
| Xu Yuhua | 2006-2008 |
People's Republic of China
|
| Alexandra Kostenjuk | 2008-2010 |
 Russia
|
| Hou Yifan | 2010–2012 |
People's Republic of China
|
| Anna Uschenina | 2012-2013 |
 Ukraine
|
| Hou Yifan | 2013-2015 |
People's Republic of China
|
| Maria Musychuk | 2015-2016 |
Ukraine
|
| Hou Yifan | 2016-2017 |
People's Republic of China
|
| Tan Zhongyi | 2017-2018 |
People's Republic of China
|
| Ju Wenjun | since 2018 |
People's Republic of China
|
Different claims to the world championship title
Sonja Graf , who finished second in the 1939 World Cup, considered herself to be a “world chess champion” after Vera Menchik's death. Max Euwe saw Graf as uncrowned champion from 1944 to 1950 and demanded a duel between her and Rudenko after she had become world champion in 1950. Graf refused to participate in any tournament before 1952.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ FIDE Handbook: Table for Direct Titles effective from July 1, 2017 , accessed on January 24, 2020.
- ↑ Johannes Fischer: Women's World Cup: FIDE changes the mode. chessbase.com, November 29, 2018, accessed January 24, 2020 .
- ^ FIDE: Regulations for the Women's World Chess Championship Cycle. Retrieved March 7, 2017 .
- ↑ WWCh G8: Game drawn, Hou Yifan retains world title , Chessvibes.com, November 24, 2011.
- ^ Frederic Friedel : Why Hou Yifan has dropped out of the cycle. March 7, 2017, accessed July 5, 2016 .
- ↑ Michael Negele: Fate of a "Miss Miracle" - the life path of Sonja Graf-Stevenson ( Memento from May 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) . February 10, 2007. PDF file accessed May 17, 2015.
