FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2015–16


The FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2015–16 was a series of five chess tournaments exclusively for women, which determined one player to play in the Women's World Chess Championship Match 2018, a 10-game match against the knockout world champion.
This was the fourth cycle of the tournament series. Top ranked player was Hou Yifan, who won the previous three editions of the Grand Prix, but had withdrawn participation after playing in the first tournament. The overall Grand Prix was won by Chinese player Ju Wenjun, who overtook Koneru Humpy at the last tournament. Koneru Humpy thereby finished overall runner-up for the fourth time.

Format

Originally the Grand Prix was scheduled as a 4-event tour. However, at the March 2016 FIDE Presidential Board meeting, a fifth event was then added, which replaced the Women's Knockout championship. Sixteen women were selected to compete in these tournaments, though with the expansion the total became twenty, along with extras to replace the withdrawn Hou Yifan. Each player agrees to a contract to participate in exactly three of these tournaments. The 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 is a 12-player, single round-robin tournament. In each round players score 1 point for a win, ½ point for a draw and 0 for a loss. Grand Prix points were then allocated according to each player's standing in the tournament: 160 grand prix points for first place, 130 for second place, 110 for third place, and then 90 down to 10 points by increments of 10. In case of a tie in points the Grand Prix points are shared evenly by the tied players.
Players only count their three best tournament results. The player with the most Grand Prix points is the winner. FIDE reserved the right to change locations and dates and increase the tournaments to six and players to eighteen, each player in four tournaments. Eventually they expanded the Grand Prix but not in the contractual manner specified, deciding to add a fifth stop at their Moscow presidential meeting, with approximately 20 players in all taking part, keeping 3 tournaments per player.

Players and qualification

Players invited base on qualifying criteria were:
  1. Mariya Muzychuk
  2. Natalia Pogonina
  3. Pia Cramling
  4. Dronavalli Harika
  1. Hou Yifan
  2. Koneru Humpy
  3. Nana Dzagnidze
  4. Ju Wenjun
  5. Anna Muzychuk
  6. Valentina Gunina
  1. Antoaneta Stefanova
  2. Alexandra Kosteniuk
  1. Almira Skripchenko
  2. Sarasadat Khademalsharieh
  3. Nino Batsiashvili
  4. Zhao Xue
  5. Olga Girya
  1. Natalia Zhukova
  2. Lela Javakhishvili
  3. Bela Khotenashvili
  1. Elina Danielian
  2. Tan Zhongyi
In May, 2016, Hou Yifan announced that she was dropping out of the Women's Grand Prix because she disagrees with the process of determining the Women's World Champion. FIDE has kept every second Women's World Championship as a 64-player knockout tournament since 2010, which Hou characterized as a "lottery." The winner of the knockout is the Women's World Champion, and then plays the overall winner of the Grand Prix. Hou believes that as the current World Champion she should defend her title against a challenger, rather than playing in qualifying tournaments and then having to play against the winner of the knockout tournament. Alternatively, under the current setup, if she wins both the knockout tournament and the Grand Prix, she would have to play the woman who took second place in the Grand Prix for the title. In the 2013-2014 cycle, Hou was unable to play in the knockout tournament because she had already committed to play in another venue when the knockout tournament was scheduled; therefore, she lost her title to Mariya Muzychuk temporarily and regained it in a match in 2016. Hou also said she will not be playing in the knockout tournament in this cycle.

Prize money and Grand Prix points

The prize money for the single tournaments and the overall series stayed the same as the previous year, that is €60,000 per single Grand Prix and €90,000 for the overall Grand Prix finish.
PlaceSingle Grand Prix eventOverall standingsGrand Prix points
1€10,000€25,000160
2€8,250€20,000130
3€6,750€15,000110
4€5,750€10,00090
5€5,000€7,50080
6€4,500€5,50070
7€4,250€4,00060
8€4,000€3,00050
9€3,250–40
10€3,000–30
11€2,750–20
12€2,500–10

Tiebreaks

With the objective of determining a clear, single winner to play in the Challenger Match and in the case of the top two or more players having equal cumulative points, the following criteria will be utilized to decide the overall winner:
  1. Number of actual game result points scored in the three tournaments.
  2. Number of first places.
  3. Number of second places.
  4. Number of wins.
  5. Drawing of lots.

    Schedule

Like the men's Grand Prix, the number of tournaments were reduced, here from six to five.
No.Host cityDateWinnerPoints
1Monte Carlo, Monaco2–16 October 20159/11
2Tehran, Iran10–24 February 20167.5/11
3Batumi, Georgia19 April – 3 May 20167.5/11
4Chengdu, China1 – 15 July 2016
7/11
7/11
5Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia18 November – 2 December 20167.5/11

Events crosstables

Monaco 2015

Tehran 2016

Sarasadat Khademalsharieh achieved a 9-game GM norm, her first one.

Batumi 2016

Chengdu 2016

Khanty-Mansiysk 2016

Grand Prix standings

At the third tournament it was mentioned top ranked Hou Yifan had withdrawn from the Grand-Prix. Koneru Humpy was leading the table after four tournaments. After winning in the tenth round of the last tournament, Ju Wenjun secured the overall Grand Prix win.
RankPlayerSep.2015
Rating		Monte
Carlo		TehranBatumiChengduKhanty-
Mansiysk		Total
1254216093⅓160413⅓
2257812070145335
325294516082287
425306513082277
525084514582272
625241207060250
7250015100130245
825493010093⅓223⅓
925281204060220
1023971012082212
112573508570205
122445858525195''
132500651593⅓173⅓
142671160160
152483403582157
162482306050140
172513853010125
182441307010110
192502106040110
202463403525100
2124742020
2124922020