Women's World Chess Championship 2011


The Women's World Chess Championship 2011 was the 35th of its kind. It was organised by FIDE and was played in a match format between the defending champion and a challenger, determined via the FIDE Grand Prix series.
On 8 August 2011 the match was awarded to Tirana, Albania. The prize fund was $200,000. The match took place from 13 to 30 November 2011. Champion Hou Yifan retained her title, defeating challenger Koneru Humpy by 5½ - 2½.

Match format

The match was scheduled to be played over 10 games with classical time controls: 90 minutes for first 40 moves with added 30 minutes for the rest of the game and a 30-second increment per move starting from the first move.
Koneru Humpy played White in the first game. Colours then alternated, except after game 4. The two players were ranked second and third in the world at the time, behind only Judit Polgár.
Should the match have been tied after ten games, tie-breaks would have kicked in. Those were:
After eight out of ten games the match was decided, by Hou Yifan drawing with Black and reaching 5½ points.

Head-to-head record

Prior to the match, Hou Yifan and Koneru Humpy had played 16 games against each other at classical time control with the following statistics:
Hou YifanDrawsKoneru HumpyTotal
Hou Yifan – Koneru Humpy 5207
Koneru Humpy – Hou Yifan 3429
Total86216