Saturday
Mar142015
Coming Soon: The Women's World Championship
Saturday, March 14, 2015 at 11:53PM
The action begins this coming Tuesday in Sochi, Russia, and is a 64-player knockout tournament which will determine a new women's world champion. (The current champion, Hou Yifan, won't be playing, but she will have a title match in October against the winner on account of her victory in the last Women's Grand Prix series.) The official website is here, and a helpful grid and summary of relevant information is available on the event's Wikipedia page.
Predictions? I'll be patriotic and say the next champion will be Irina Krush.
Reader Comments (2)
The format is laughable so it will be completely random. But just for fun's sake: Valentina Gunina. She's been playing consistently well in the past couple of years and is a fantastic speed chess player so she should do well in any rapid/blitz tie-breakers.
I'll pick Zhao Xue, since she's shown in the past that she can have hot streaks and beat nearly anyone.