Thursday, May 3, 2018

Oxford-style debating

 http://tass.ru/sport/5172936
Chinese 谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí) and 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn) play a match for the title of Women’s World Chess Champion

Ten games and eventual tie-break will be held in 上海 (Shànghǎi) and 重庆 (Chóngqìng)

TASS, May 3. The Women’s World Chess Championship match between the crown holder 谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí) from China and her compatriot 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn) starts on Thursday in 上海 (Shànghǎi). The largest city of China will host the first five games of the match, the remaining five games will be played in 重庆 (Chóngqìng).
谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí) won the Knockout Women’s World Championship Tournament in Tehran, Iran last year, defeating Anna Olehivna Muzychuk in the final. 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn) became challenger for the world crown in October 2016, after winning FIDE Women’s Grand Prix series 2015–2016.
谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí), 25, is ranked ninth in FIDE rating, while 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn), who turned 26 in January, is second only to the strongest female player of our time, another Chinese woman, 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán). The current Women’s World Champion was born in 重庆 (Chóngqìng), which will host the latter half of the match, while 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn) was born in 上海 (Shànghǎi), where the opening ceremony and drawing of lots were held yesterday.
As a result of the drawing lot, 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn) will play White in the first game. Players switch colours after four games. The games in 上海 (Shànghǎi) will be played on 3-4, 6-7 and 9 May, while in 重庆 (Chóngqìng) on 12-13, 15-16 and 18 May. If necessary, tie-breaks will be played on 19 May. Time control classic: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, plus half an hour for the rest of the game, with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.
The total prize money is €uros 200,000 to be shared in the proportion of 60 percent to the winner and 40 percent to the loser if the match concludes within 10 games. If, instead, a tie-break is needed to determine the winner, the proportion will be of 55 percent to 45 percent.

World Championships without 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán)

Unlike men’s chess, where FIDE returned to the classic system in which the World Chess Champion defends his title in a match with the winner of the Candidates Tournament, the Women’s World Chess Championship is regulated by a more intricate system. Since 2011, FIDE has alternated Championship matches with Knockout Tournaments, in which the current Women’s World Champion must take part from the lowest ranks.
This induced 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) to give up the women’s arena for competing with men. 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) won the Knockout Women’s World Championship Tournament in 2010, and then, twice, she won the title in matches with the winners of the subsequent “knockouts”: Ukrainian Anna Yuriyivna Ushenina and Mariya Olehivna Muzychuk. In 2016, 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) refused to further participate in FIDE Women’s Grand Prix series, which was eventually won by 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn).
In this same year the winner of the Women’s World Championship match will have to take part in the next Knockout Women’s World Chess Championship Tournament, scheduled for November in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.
The first Women’s World Chess Champion was Vera Frantsevna Menchik in 1927, when she won a round-robin tournament with the participation of the 12 best female players in the world. Menchik was born in Moscow, but at 15 she moved with her parents to Great Britain. She held the title for life – until 1944, when she died in London under German bombs. From 1950 to 1988 the Women’s World Chess Championship was exclusively dominated by Soviet players: Lyudmila Vladimirovna Rudenko, Elisaveta Ivanovna Bykova, Olga Nikolaevna Rubtsova, till to Nona Terentevna Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, two Georgians who held the crown for 13 years.
Russian Women’s Chess Champion Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk was Women’s World Chess Champion from 2008 to 2010, and her greatest success so far has been to win the Knockout Women’s World Chess Championship in Nalchik, Russia in 2008.

(Free translation by Nobody’s Perfect)

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