2024 FIDE Women's Candidates Toronto April 3-23

[Mick Norris]

Pairings

FIDE News

In accordance with the General Rules and Technical Recommendations for Tournaments / 06. Restricted Drawing of Lots, the players of the federation with the most number of representatives were drawn first. Where two or more federations had the same number of representatives, precedence was determined by the alphabetical order of the FIDE country code. Among players of the same federation, precedence was determined by the alphabetical order of their names.

Women’s Candidates 2024: first, draw 2 China players, then draw 2 FIDE players, then draw 2 Indian players, then draw 2 remaining players.

Round 1
Aleksandra Goryachkina - Kateryna Lagno
Anna Muzychuk - Nurgyul Salimova
Lei Tingjie - Tan Zhongyi
Vaishali Rameshbabu - Humpy Koneru

Round 14
Nurgyul Salimova - Kateryna Lagno
Tan Zhongyi - Aleksandra Goryachkina
Humpy Koneru - Anna Muzychuk
Vaishali Rameshbabu - Lei Tingjie

[Mick Norris]

Any predictions on who is going to win this?

[Jonathan Rogers]

Probably like many others here, I cannot claim to be very much au fait with all the candidates. Salimova has impressed me but it is probably too early to expect her to do great things. As for the six more experienced candidates, Anand helpfully commented that any of them could do it ... but if pushed I would probably predict Goryachkina, with Lagno as second choice. (I haven't kept up with whether they are actually still compatriots, notwithstanding their first round pairing). If there is anything in that, then it may be that in both events the crucial head to head encounters will be in rounds 1 and 8, though that needn't stop the events from being closely fought to the end.

[LawrenceCooper]

Probably like many others here, I cannot claim to be very much au fait with all the candidates. Salimova has impressed me but it is probably too early to expect her to do great things. As for the six more experienced candidates, Anand helpfully commented that any of them could do it ... but if pushed I would probably predict Goryachkina, with Lagno as second choice. (I haven't kept up with whether they are actually still compatriots, notwithstanding their first round pairing). If there is anything in that, then it may be that in both events the crucial head to head encounters will be in rounds 1 and 8, though that needn't stop the events from being closely fought to the end.

I would love Anna Muzychuk to win but think it's more likely to be one of the two Chinese (or as Jonathan mentioned, one of the two Russians).

[Mick Norris]

Lichess preview and predictions

ontheQueenside

The winners of the last two Women’s Candidates were Lei Tingjie and before that Aleksandra Goryachkina. They each lost their World Championship match to Ju Wenjun, albeit only by narrow margins. They are both participating in this Candidates again. And there is no doubt they are the two favourites to win once again. But only one of them at most will get to play in the next Women’s World Championship match.

The games are played in the standard FIDE time control, 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment, plus an additional 30 minutes at move 40. This is a different time control than the open section is using, which starts with 120 minutes instead of having increment. It remains to be seen whether the different time controls will cause confusion in the broadcast, but at least the women got the better time control.

[Mick Norris]

TWIC round 1 report

[Matt Mackenzie]

Tan starts with 2 out of 2!

[LawrenceCooper]

Tan starts with 2 out of 2!

Goryachkina also wins to move to 1.5. The other two games were drawn.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Only a draw for Tan today, meanwhile it looks like Vaishali will win.

[LawrenceCooper]

Lahno & Muzychuk will be very frustrated not to have to won in round 4.

Scores heading into the rest day:

Tan 3,
Goryachkina 2.5,
Lahno, Salimova, Vaishali 2,
Koneru, Lei Tingjie, Muzychuk 1.5.

[Mick Norris]

That was my feeling watching the games towards the end, TWIC concurs, although easy to make mistakes when you are tired and under pressure

Round 5 9th April at 19:30BST: Lei-Lagno, Vaishali-Muzychuk, Koneru-Goryachkina, Tan-Salimova.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Tan wins again - in fact absolutely crushing Muzychuk - and really does seem to be in the driving seat now.

[LawrenceCooper]

Tan wins again - in fact absolutely crushing Muzychuk - and really does seem to be in the driving seat now.

It looks like a clean sweep for the Chinese & Russian players who seem the only ones in any sort of contention.

[Mick Norris]

Goryachkina - Tan today, with the reverse in round 13, seem the key games now

[LawrenceCooper]

Lei Tingjie the only winner so scores at the half way point and second rest day:

GM Tan, Zhongyi 2521 5
GM Goryachkina, Aleksandra 2553 4.5
GM Lei, Tingjie 2550 4
GM Lagno, Kateryna 2542 4
IM Salimova, Nurgyul 2432 3
GM Koneru, Humpy 2546 2.5
GM Muzychuk, Anna 2520 2.5
IM Vaishali, Rameshbabu 2475 2.5