The 2022-23 FIDE Women´s Candidates Tournament is an elite eight-player chess tournament which is held to determine the challenger of Women´s World Chess Champion – GM Ju Wenjun. Players also compete for their share of the €250.000 prize fund.

The prize fund is distributed as follows:

• 1st: €60,000,

• 2nd: €50,000,

• 3rd-4th: €30,000,

• 5th-8th: €20,000.

The tournament is played by a knockout system. FIDE divided eight players into two groups for scheduling purposes: Pool A and Pool B.

The time control for each pool is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move 1.

Pool A

Pool A took place in Monaco from 24th October to 6th November. The participants of Pool A were GM Humpy Koneru (India), GM Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine), GM Lei Tingjie (China) and GM Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine).

Pool A was divided into two quarterfinals, and the winners of each one qualified for the semifinals. The winner of the semifinal then qualified for the finals. Each of the matches is played with four classical games, in case the result is indecisive, the classical games are followed by four rapid games.

In the first quarterfinal played together GM Humpy Koneru and GM Anna Muzychuk. The first game ended to be a win for Koneru, who played with white. Two draws followed this game. But in the last classical game, Muzychuk equalised the match by a win with white. Because the result was indecisive, four rapid games followed. The first three of them resulted in a draw, but in the last round, Koneru blundered a bishop in the 16th move, which secured Anna Muzychuk a qualification to the semifinals.

The other quarterfinal of Pool A was played by GM Lei Tingjie and GM Mariya Muzychuk. In the first round, Tingjie won after a long fight. In the following games, Mariya Muzychuk couldn’t equalize the match which ended 2,5:1,5 with a win for Lei.

The semifinals started indecisively with three draws. But in the last game, Lei took advantage and won the game. Lei became a winner of Pool A and will now play in the finals with the winner of Pool B to fight for the right to challenge the current Women’s Chess Champion, GM Ju Wenjun.

The winner of the Pool A – GM Lei Tingjie

Pool B

Pool B of the Women’s Candidates Tournament will be in Khiva, Uzbekistan from 28th November to 11th December. The participants are – GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (FIDE), GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (FIDE), GM Kateryna Lagno (FIDE), and GM Zhongyi Tan (China).

The first quarterfinal is going to be played by GM Aleksandra Goryachkina and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk. The other is going to be between GM Kateryna Lagno and GM Zhongyi Tan.

How can you qualify for the Candidates Tournament?

The players for the Women’s Candidates Tournament are being selected based on:

• The Winner of the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament

• The player with the highest average rating for the year

• The runner-up in the previous World Championship match

• The winner and runner-up of the FIDE Grand Prix

• The top-three finishers of the FIDE Women’s World Cup

Players qualified for this year’s Women’s Candidates are:

• GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (2020 Women’s World Chess Championship runner-up)

• GM Humpy Koneru (Women’s FIDE Grand Prix runner-up)

• GM Kateryna Lagno (Women’s FIDE Grand Prix winner)

• GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (FIDE Women’s World Cup winner)

• GM Zhongyi Tan (FIDE Women’s World Cup top-three)

• GM Anna Muzychuk (FIDE Women’s World Cup top-three)

• GM Lei Tingjie (FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss winner)

• GM Mariya Muzychuk (highest-rated woman player as of January 2022)

Stay tuned for updates on the next results!

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