2022-23 Women's Candidates, Stage I PGN

Continuing with last week's post, 2022-23 Women's Candidates, Stage I Crosstables (December 2022), I added the PGN to my page on the World Chess Championship (Women) : 2022-23 Candidates Tournament (m-w.com). Then I added the eight players to the Index of Women Players (ditto).

One last action remains from 'Stage I Crosstables', i.e. 'Add info from 'Regulations', incl. tiebreak'. It's worth noting that there were two versions of the 'Regulations'. The first ('valid till 26 June 2022') was:-

Regulations for the FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament 2022 • 4.1. Format & System; The 8 players shall play a double round robin tournament (14 rounds).

The second ('effective from 23 June 2022') was:-

Regulations for the FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament 2022-23 • 4.1. Format & System; 4.1.1. The 8 players shall play a knock-out tournament, 3 rounds. First two rounds (Stage I) shall be played with 4-game matches. The final round (Stage II) shall be played with a 6-game match.

Note the 'Stage I/II' terminology that I used for my own page. The tiebreak rules from the same document are copied here:-

4.7. Tie-breaks

4.7.1. In each match, if the score is level after the standard games, after a new drawing of colours done immediately after the last standard game, four tie-break games shall be played with time control of 15 minutes for each player + 10 seconds increment per move, starting from move 1.

4.7.2. If the scores are level after the games in Article 4.7.1, then after a new drawing of colours, 2 games shall be played with time control of 5 minutes for each player + 3 seconds increment per move, starting from move 1.

4.7.3. If the score is still level after the games in Article 4.7.2, then after a new drawing of colours, one game with a time control of 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move, starting from move 1 shall be played to determine the winner.

4.7.4. If the game described in Article 4.7.3 is drawn, another game shall be played with a time control of 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move, starting from move 1 with the colours reversed from the previous game.

4.7.5. If the game described in Article 4.7.4 is drawn, the procedure described in Article 4.7.4 shall be repeated until the first game won by one of the players.

The sudden-death sequence described in 4.7.3 to 4.7.5 is unusual. I don't recall seeing it used before at this level. The Armageddon game used in recent years has not been wholly satisfactory.

In 'Stage I', two matches went to tiebreak. Both were resolved using the rule described in 4.7.1.

2022-23 Women's Candidates, Stage I Crosstables

In last week's post, 2022-23 Women's Candidates, Pool B (December 2022), I promised, 'I'll add the crosstables and PGN to my own page as soon as I get a chance.' For this current post I added the crosstables.

Still to do:-
- Add PGN
- Add players to index for women
- Add info from 'Regulations', incl. tiebreak

Once again, I observed that an event with a complex, multi-stage format having few games, takes longer to prepare than a simple event with far more games. This might be because there are fewer opportunities to automate the various steps. Less automation of the steps means more possibility for errors and, consequently, more checking along the way.

2022-23 Women's Candidates, Pool B

A few weeks after I posted the results of the 2022-23 Women's Candidates, Pool A (November 2022), the results of the second half of the event are available. At the end of the 'Pool A' post, I wrote,

Unfortunately, circumstances intervened and I ran out of time. Instead of updating the page, I'll add a summary of Mark Crowther's most recent report. Thanks, Mark. I'll add my own work to my page when 'Pool B' finishes.

The referenced page is the 2022-23 Women's Candidates Tournament (m-w.com). In the interest of consistency, I'll document 'Pool B' in the same way for this blog.

I updated the '2022-23 Women's CT' page by adding a few more references to news from FIDE.com. I'll add the crosstables and PGN to my own page as soon as I get a chance.

The FIDE Calendar (fide.com) doesn't yet list the Candidates final match between GM Lei Tingjie and GM Tan Zhongyi, both from China. The winner will play the current Women’s World Champion, GM Ju Wenjun, also from China. That title match is also not listed. Tournaments for the following cycle -- the Women's World Cup (July 2023) and the Women’s Grand Swiss (October) -- are already scheduled.

Boris the 10th and Bobby the 11th

Last week, in the post Karpov the 12th (November 2022; video: 'Karpov on Kasparov - 1984 World Chess Championship'), I asked,

Will I find the occasion to overview the other Karpov videos? Maybe, but I might have to bounce back to my main blog to do that.

No bounce necessary. Here's another video from Youtube channel iChess.net.

Karpov analyzes the Bobby Fischer vs Spassky Rematch 1992 (17:23) • '[Published on] Jun 13, 2012'

The description teased,

The three volume "Karpov on Fischer" provides Anatoly Karpov’s perspective on why Bobby Fischer declined to play him in the World Chess Championship Match in 1975.

That discussion has been cut out and the video focuses on one game:-

Grandmasters Karpov and Henley analyze game 25 of the famous 1992 historic return match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, now both close to 50 years old. [NB: Spassky turned 55 in 1992. He was six years older than Fischer]

For context, see the previous post on my main blog, The SmartChess Saga (December 2022; 'a trailblazer among chess-on-the-web sites'). The discussion of SmartChess will continue on that blog.