2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix

I added a page on the 2009-10 FIDE Women's Grand Prix to my index page on the World Championship for Women. For now, it consists primarily of excerpts from two FIDE announcements:-

• Regulations and Bidding Procedure for the Women's Grand-Prix 2009-2010
• FIDE Women Grand Prix Starts in Istanbul

FIDE's overall plans for the Women's World Championship haven't yet been announced. The 'Regulations' say

The winner of the Grand Prix series at the end of 2010 will play the Women's World Champion in the third quarter of 2011 in a ten game match for the Women's World Championship title.

In Interview with Makropoulos, I quoted FIDE's Deputy President saying

One year, we will have a Champion after the knockout competition, and the next year this Champion will play a match with the winner of the Grand Prix. Thus, the Women's World Championship will be held every year.

That implies a knockout competition in 2010. The last three knockout competitions were played in 2004, 2006, and 2008.

Zonal Overview

The following table is based on my page for the World Chess Championship Zonals (version: 'Last updated 2007-09-14'). For each cycle it shows the number of events per zone. Like the zonal page itself, it is 'In process & preliminary!', to be used with caution.

The cycle number in the first column is an artificial number that I use internally to group events by cycle. The year corresponding to the World Championship (WCC) is a better reference for comparison with other sources.

Despite the obvious errors in the table -- three events for zone 3 in the 1978 cycle? -- it gives a useful, at-a-glance overview about the evolution of the zonals. I'll redo it after I eliminate the errors.

Cycle			Zone
No	WCC	Σ	*	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	1 0	1 1	1 2	1 3	1 4
1	1951	5	5
2	1954	8		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
3	1957	7		1	1	1	1	1	1	1
4	1960	9		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
5	1963	10		1	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
6	1966	10		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
7	1969	10		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
8	1972	10		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
9	1975	10		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
10	1978	13		1	1	3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
11	1981	11		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
12	1984	12		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	1
13	1987	18		4	3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
14	1990	18		3	2	2	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	1	1	1
15	1993	23	1	4	1	2	2	1	1	1	2	3	1	2			2
16	1996	25		14	4	4	3
17	1995	PCA
18	1997	21		9	6	5	1
19	1999	19		8	6	3	2
20	2000	24	4	10	6	2	2
21	2001	15		1	6	7	1
22	2004	14		2	5	5	2
23	2005	18		2	6	8	2
24	2007	10		1	7	2

2009 Topalov - Kamsky Links

Links of interest:-

• WCCC2009.com: Official Site
  
• Chessvibes.com: Schedule, rules, history
  
• Chessdom.com: Results / Live games

Previous posts:

• 2008-02-14: FIDE Announcements: Grand Prix, Kamsky - Topalov
  
• 2008-03-27: Kamsky - Topalov Update
  
• 2008-06-05: The FIDE Bidding Process for Kamsky - Topalov
  
• 2008-11-19: Interview with Makropoulos
  
• 2008-12-03: Troubled Matches

Background: World Chess Championship - 2008 Matches

ChessBase.com Eventlists

There aren't many primary sources for chess news online, and ChessBase.com is one of the few. In addition to round-by-round reports, photos, videos, and interviews, this major resource for chess news is always careful to collect and package the many reports on a single event.

• 2004-06: FIDE World Chess Championship (Libya)
  
• 2004-09: Dannemann World Chess Championship
  
• 2005-09: FIDE World Championship San Luis
  
• 2005-11: FIDE World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk
  
• 2006-09: FIDE World Championship Elista
  
• 2007-05: FIDE Candidates Elista
  
• 2007-09: World Championship Mexico
  
• 2007-11: FIDE World Cup 2007
  
• 2008-04: FIDE Grand Prix Baku 2008
  
• 2008-10: World Championship Bonn
  
• 2008-12: FIDE Grand Prix Elista 2008
  

The company doesn't overlook women's events, either.

• 2006-03: Womens World Championship
  
• 2008-08: Women's World Championship 2008

Thanks, Chessbase!