2011 World Cup Results

After updating the latest event in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix (see Ladies First), I added the results and PGN to my page on the 2011 World Cup, Khanty-Mansiysk. A comparison with my page on the 2009 World Cup revealed that I'm missing a few notes on the 2011 event : (1) which rd.1 matches were decided by forfeit, and (2) the rules of the competition explaining the time controls, etc. I also noticed that I had no links to FIDE news leading up to the 2011 event. I'll check those points at the same time I update my Index of Players to add the participants in the latest World Cup.

Winner Svidler's previous best result in a FIDE knockout competition was a loss to Ponomariov in the semifinal round (rd.6) of the 2001-02 FIDE Knockout Matches. I imagine his win over Ponomariov in the semifinal round of the 2011 version was doubly satisfying.

Ladies First

This week I had the choice between updating my page on the 2011-2012 FIDE Women's Grand Prix, where the Shenzhen event finished two days ago, and the 2011 World Cup, which finished on the same day. I chose to do the Grand Prix, won by Hou Yifan, who also won the first event in Rostov last month. The third event is scheduled for Nalchik in October, then we have the last three events spaced more evenly in 2012.

The official site for the latest Grand Prix event, shenzhen2011.fide.com, calls it the 'Snow Beer Cup - SZSZD FIDE Women Grand Prix Shenzhen 2011' on info pages like the 'Pairings & Results'. I've never had Snow Beer before. I wonder if I'm missing much.

I'll tackle the 2011 World Cup next time I do an update. Won by Peter Svidler, it was a very entertaining event to watch.

A Feedback Loop for Zonals

The mysterious ebutaljib, last seen on this blog in my post on 'Chess Results' by Gino Di Felice, has been busy working on World Championship qualification paths, tracking players as they move through a championship cycle from zonals to interzonals and (for a lucky few) beyond. This exercise, which I last addressed in a post titled Qualification Paths, is an invaluable exercise -- a feedback loop -- for checking that the list of zonals for a particular cycle is complete and correct.

He flagged a number of errors and omissions to me, which I incorporated into my page on World Championship Zonals. Once again, thanks, ebutaljib! You can find examples of his own outstanding work starting at 00001 - 1886 - Windows Live, where he has documented the history of the World Championship in picture format.

***

Later: Along with corrections to the index of zonals, ebutaljib queried a number of clippings. I've documented his queries on the corresponding pages, all marked 'EK: ... [Ref. BI072028]' with a link back to this blog post.

• C01 : 1946-51
  
• C02 : 1951-54
  
• C03 : 1954-57
  
• C08 : 1969-72
  
• C09 : 1972-75
  
• C10 : 1975-78
  
• C11 : 1978-81
  
• C12 : 1981-84
  
• C13 : 1984-87
  
• C14 : 1987-90
  
• C15 : 1990-93
  
• C16 : 1993-96
  
• C17 : 1995-97

In the pre-Internet days, the accurate transmission of tournament info was relatively error prone.

TWIC Clippings for the Current Cycle (C25)

Continuing the project I started with Zonals for the Current Cycle (C25) and Clippings for C19, C20, & C25, I added TWIC clippings to Zonals 2010-2011 (C25). While working on this, I noticed that starting with Cycle 1998-1999 (C18), I was missing all TWIC clippings for zone 2.1 (USA), plus some TWIC clippings for the continental championships (1.0 Europe, 2.0 The Americas, 3.0 Asia, & 4.0 Africa). My next task for the zonals will be to fill this gap.