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.