Monday, February 2, 2009

Women's Grand Prix: Ataturk Tournament

GM Susan Polgar is one of the invitees to this event in the FIDE "Women's Grand Prix." The first I heard of a Women's Grand Prix was reading about it at GM Polgar's blog! Evidently bids were let out in June, 2008 (?): Format of the Women’s Grand Prix 2009-2010The Grand Prix will be a series of six tournaments held over two years (2009-2010) in leading world cities. The bidding process for the final selection of cities will commence in June 2008 and be finalized by Dresden Congress, November 2008. Here are the original qualifiers/invitees: 1. Kosteniuk Alexandra (RUS) WWC 2008 2. Hou Yifan (CHN) – finalist WWCC 2008 3. Koneru Humpy (IND) – semifinalist WWCC 2008 4. Pia Cramling (SWE) – semifinalist WWCC 2008 5. Polgar Judit (HUN) 2709,50 - Oct 07 & 08 6. Polgar Zsuzsa (USA) 2577,00 - Oct 07 & 08 7. Xie Jun (CHN) 2574,00 - Oct 07 & 08 8. Zhao Xue (CHN) 2524,00 - Oct 07 & 08 9. Sebag Marie (FRA) 2521,00 - Oct 07 & 08 10. Zhu Chen (QAT) 2513,50 - Oct 07 & 0811. President’s nominee12. President’s nominee13. Host city nominee14. Host city nominee15. Host city nominee16. Host city nominee17. Host city nominee18. Host city nominee 1st reserve by rating: Stefanova Antoaneta (BUL) 2505,50 - Oct 07 & 08 2nd reserve by rating: Kosintseva Tatiana (RUS) 2502,50 - Oct 07 & 08 3rd reserve by rating: Chiburdanidze Maia (GEO) 2494,50 - Oct 07 & 08 This event is supposed to take place as follows (quoted from SP's blog): Dear qualifiers of the Women's Grand-Prix, The exact dates for Istanbul 2009 are from 6 March (arrivals) to 21 March (departures), as confirmed below by the Turkish Chess Federation. Best regards, George Mastrokoukos FIDE - World Chess Federation 9 Syggrou Ave., 11743 Athens / Greece Unfortunately, the 2009 Individual European Women's Chess Championship is scheduled to take place over the same time period in St. Petersburg, Russia (March 7 - March 21, 2009). Which players who qualify to for the Ataturk Tournament, which last year was a fab event for the ladies, will opt, instead, to play in the European Women's Chess Championship? Will substitute players be added as players drop out - I assume so - but which players? Where is the official website? Where is the final players' list? I am fairly confident that neither of the GMs Polgar will play in this event. After that - who knows? What are the prizes? What are the other events in this Women's Grand Prix??? Are there ANY?

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