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FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2015-16

The FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2015-16 is a series of four chess tournaments exclusively for women, which determine one player to play in the Women's World Chess Championship 2017, a 10-game match probably against a knock-out world champion.

It is the fourth cycle of the tournament series. Top ranked player is former women's world champion Hou Yifan, who won the previous three editions of the Grand Prix.

Format

Sixteen women are selected to compete in these tournaments. Each player agrees to a contract to participate in exactly three of these tournaments. The players must rank their preference of tournaments once the final list of host cities is announced and the dates are allocated to each host city.

Each tournament is a 12-player, single round-robin tournament. In each round players score 1 point for a win, ½ point for a draw and 0 for a loss. Grand Prix points were then allocated according to each player's standing in the tournament: 160 grand prix points for first place, 130 for second place, 110 for third place, and then 90 down to 10 points by increments of 10. In case of a tie in points the Grand Prix points are shared evenly by the tied players.

Players only count their three best tournament results. The player with the most Grand Prix points is the winner. FIDE reserves the right to change locations and dates and increase the tournaments to six (6) and players to eighteen (18) if extra sponsorship is secured by end of April 2016.

Players and qualification

Players invited base on qualifying criteria were:

  1. Mariya Muzychuk
  2. Natalia Pogonina
  3. Pia Cramling
  4. Dronavalli Harika
  1. Hou Yifan
  2. Koneru Humpy
  3. Nana Dzagnidze
  4. Ju Wenjun
  5. Anna Muzychuk
  6. Valentina Gunina
  1. Antoaneta Stefanova
  2. Alexandra Kosteniuk
  1. Sarasadat Khademalsharieh
  2. Almira Skripchenko
  3. Natalia Zhukova

Prize money and Grand Prix points

The prize money for the single tournaments and the overall series stayed the same as the previous year.

Place Single Grand Prix event Overall standings Grand Prix points
1 €10,000 €25,000 160
2 €8,250 €20,000 130
3 €6,750 €15,000 110
4 €5,750 €10,000 90
5 €5,000 €7,500 80
6 €4,500 €5,500 70
7 €4,250 €4,000 60
8 €4,000 €3,000 50
9 €3,250 - 40
10 €3,000 - 30
11 €2,750 - 20
12 €2,500 - 10

Tie breaks

With the objective of determining a clear, single winner to play in the Challenger Match and in the case of the top two or more players having equal cumulative points, the following criteria (in descending order) will be utilized to decide the overall winner:

  1. Fourth result not already taken in the top three results.
  2. Number of actual game result points scored in the four tournaments.
  3. Number of first places (in case of a tie - points given accordingly).
  4. Number of second places (in case of a tie - points given accordingly).
  5. Number of wins.
  6. Drawing of lots.

Schedule

Like the men's last Grand Prix, the tournaments were reduced from six to four.

No. Host city Date Winner Points (Win/draw/loss)
1 Monte Carlo, Monaco 2-16 October 2015 Hou Yifan (China) 9/11 (+8=2-1)
2 Kish, Iran February 2016
3 Tbilisi, Georgia May 2016
4 Chengdu, China July 2016

Grand Prix standings

Rank Player September 2015
Rating		 Monte Carlo Kish Tibilisi Chengdu Played Best 3
1 Hou Yifan (China) 2671 160 160
2 Koneru Humpy (India) 2578 120 120
3 Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) 2528 120 120
4 Pia Cramling (Sweden) 2513 85 85
5 Natalia Pogonina (Russia) 2445 85 85
6 Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia) 2530 65 65
7 Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria) 2500 65 65
8 Nana Dzagnidze (Georgia) 2573 50 50
9 Natalia Zhukova (Ukraine) 2482 30 30
10 Almira Skripchenko (France) 2441 30 30
11 Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine) 2549 30 30
12 Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (Iran) 2397 10 10
13 Ju Wenjun (China) 2542 0
14 Valentina Gunina (Russia) 2529 0
15 Dronavalli Harika (India) 2508 0
16 Host nominee 0

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