New tournament promotes women in the chess world

The Turkish Chess Federation in collaboration with the World Chess Federation, FIDE, and Global Chess has organized the first women’s chess event of the year in the new Women Grand Prix series 2009/2010. Having competed in the tournament for the past two weeks at the İş Bankası's Kibele Gallery in Istanbul, Turkish international master, Betul Cemre Yilmaz drew with her opponent ranked 11 out of the original 12 components.

Humpy Koneru from India took the crown for the women’s Grand Prix after she defeated Marie Sebag in the final 11th round of the tournament. Tensions were high throughout each round as Hou Yifan faltered against Shen Yang. Elina Danielian scored an important victory and outplayed Xue Zhao to take second spot. Martha Fierro beat Maia Chiburdanidze while Pia Cramling closed the tournament with a win against Antoaneta Stefanova. Zeinab Mamedyarova and Betül Cemre Yıldız drew. Koneru achieved 8.5 out of 11 to win the tournament and Elina Danielian took second place with a better tie-break having eight points while Hou Yifan came third. Koneru won 6,500 of the 40,000 euros been put forward for the entire competition.

Betül Cemre Yildiz is a Women's International Master and has won the Turkish women's championship each year from 2001 through 2006. Playing chess since she was eight, Yıldız is only 19 years old. Her three older brothers play chess as well and together the siblings run a chess center in Izmir. With chess scholarships, Yıldız is studying law and management at two different universities. Considered a prodigy in Turkey, she won the Turkish title for her age group only one year after she started playing chess and won five Turkish Women's championship titles in a row, between 2001 and 2006. In the third round of the Women’s Grand Prix tournament she showed determination to force a draw against Rossolimo after a seven-hour match.

Yildiz- a true chess star

"The game started slowly and when I reached a reached a winning position I made a mistake that set me back, however, I later defended the position and reached rook vs. rook knight endgame. In the end after playing for another fifty moves, I grasped my first half-point as I drew," Yildiz said at a press conference after the tournament.

In response to the success of the tournament, the Turkish Chess Federation President Ali Nihat Yazıcı said the interest and talent in chess in Turkey was ever growing. Yazıcı said: "We could not have dreamt of holding such an event eight years ago when I first assumed office. This is a proud day for us to hold this event for the second time". He also emphasized the strong cooperation of the corporate sponsor the federation İş Bank. "We were not planning to raise world champions with the bank when we signed this protocol. We first wanted to improve our base but successes started coming with some World Schools, World and European Youth Championships and of course the European Championship. Now we want to be successful in every category.

With only 5 percent of the worlds registered chess players being female, Pia Cramling of Sweden said the tournament would help promote females to pursue their talents in chess and play at a professional and competitive level. "I believe there is no difference between male and female players but the problem is there are too few female players and therefore this tournament and the ones that will follow are important," Cramling sai

Biography of the winner - Humpy Konera from India

Koneru Humpy is the No. 2 female chess player in the world, ranking her behind only Judit Polgar, who has been leading the list for more than a decade and is widely accepted as the strongest female player ever. While taking the second spot, Humpy broke Judit Polgar's elder sister, Susan Polgar’s, record and became the second woman player ever to pass the 2,600 mark. From 2002 to 2008, she held the record for the youngest woman ever to become a grandmaster, which she achieved when she was 15 years, 1 month and 27 days old, beating Judit Polgar's record, and was recently broken by Hou Yifan. Humpy won the World Junior Girls Chess Championship in 2001 and she won the first edition of the North Urals Cup, the women's super tournament held in Krasnoturinsk, Russia. In 2006, she participated in the Women's World Chess Championship, but her campaign ended early in the second round. In the Women's World Chess Championship 2008 she made it to the semi-finals, but was eliminated by Hou Yifan. She played in the first board of the Monte Carlo Chess Club, and was the winner of the last two editions of the European Club Cup.

The Grand Prix will be a series of six tournaments held in leading world cities over two years, from 2009 to 2010. The top 18 world players will be selected to compete in the tournaments. Each player must agree and be under contract to participate in exactly four of the tournaments. 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 will have 12 players playing over 17 days. The months allocated for the organization of the Grand Prix tournaments are March, June and September of each respective year. These months have been selected to ensure there is no conflict with any other major event. 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 10-game match for the Women's World Championship title.