The Women's World Chess Championship 2011 was the 35th of its kind. It was organised by FIDE and was played in a match format between the defending champion and a challenger, determined via the FIDE Grand Prix series.[2]

On 8 August 2011 the match was awarded to Tirana, Albania. The prize fund was $200,000.[3] The match took place from 13 to 30 November 2011.[4] Champion Hou Yifan retained her title,[5] defeating challenger Koneru Humpy by 5½ - 2½.[6][7][8]

Match format

Women's World Chess Championship, Tirana 2011

The match was scheduled to be played over 10 games with classical time controls: 90 minutes for first 40 moves with added 30 minutes for the rest of the game and a 30-second increment per move starting from the first move.

Koneru Humpy played White in the first game.[9] Colours then alternated, except after game 4. The two players were ranked second and third in the world at the time, behind only Judit Polgár.[10]

Should the match have been tied after ten games, tie-breaks would have kicked in. Those were:

  • Up to four rapid games (25 minutes per player with a 10-second increment from the first move)
  • two rapid games (5 minutes per player with a 3-second increment from the first move)
  • One armageddon game that Black only needs to draw to win the match (5 minutes for White and 4 minutes for Black with a 3-second increment from move 61)

Match stats

Women's World Chess Championship 2011
Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total
India Koneru Humpy 2600 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 0 ½
China Hou Yifan 2578 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 1 ½

After eight out of ten games the match was decided, by Hou Yifan drawing with Black and reaching 5½ points.

Head-to-head record

Prior to the match, Hou Yifan and Koneru Humpy had played 16 games against each other at classical time control with the following statistics:[11]

Hou Yifan Draws Koneru Humpy Total
Hou Yifan (White) – Koneru Humpy (Black) 5 2 0 7
Koneru Humpy (White) – Hou Yifan (Black) 3 4 2 9
Total 8 6 2 16

References

  1. ^ a b "Top 100 Women November 2011". FIDE. Retrieved 1 September 2013.
  2. ^ "Women's World Championship Match 2011". FIDE. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  3. ^ "FIDE Awards Anand v Gelfand Match To Moscow". chess.com. 8 August 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  4. ^ "2011 Women's World Chess Championship".
  5. ^ "WWCC R08: Draw, Hou Yifan retains World Championship title". chessbase. 24 November 2011. Retrieved 26 November 2011.
  6. ^ ChessBase (March 5, 2011). "Humpy pulls it off – wins Doha GM and qualifies".
  7. ^ chessvibes.com (March 6, 2011). "Koneru shares first with Danielian in Doha, qualifies for title match".
  8. ^ chess.co.uk (March 5, 2011). "Koneru ties for first with Danielian in Doha and qualifies for World Title Match".
  9. ^ "Opening ceremony: Koneru gets white pieces". wwcc2011tirana.com. 13 November 2011. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
  10. ^ "Women's November 2011 rating list". FIDE. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
  11. ^ "yifan-koneru search results". Retrieved 2023-09-28.
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