Khanty-Mansiysk will host the final tournament of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2015/16

The fifth stage of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2015/16 will be held in the capital of Ugra from November’18 till December’02 2016.The tournament with 12 elite women players will take place in the modern building of Ugra Chess Academy, which has previously hosted many major chess events.

The ranking points gained in the tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk will be able to change the final standings of the Grand-Prix. The winner will get up to 160 points,  the second place will receive up to 130 points and up to 110 points will go to the third place.

Koneru Humpy from India is the current leader of Women’s Grand Prix 2015/16 standings having 335 points. The second and third positions of the current standings belong to Chinese players Ju Wenjun (253⅓  points) and Zhao Xue (250 points). However, only Ju Wenjun will be able to get more ranking points as at the moment she played only in two Grand Prix tournaments while other leaders played all three tournaments of the series.  Other players who have chances to win the series are Russian Valentina Gunina (205 points) and Alexandra Kosteniuk (195 points) and Dronavalli Harika from India (190 points).

It is worth noting that lineup for Women’s Grand Prix have changed a lot along the season. On the FIDE Presidential Board held in Moscow during the Candidates Tournament 2016, it was decided to change the format of the current series by increasing the number of tournaments to five. The fifth tournament will be held in Khanty-Mansiysk.

Thus, the number of Grand Prix participants has also increased. The cycle was joined by Bela Khotenashvili (Georgia), Lela Javakhishvili (Georgia), Olga Girya (Russia), Elina Danielian (Armenia) and Tan Zhongyi (China). The accumulated prize for the winner of Women’s Grand Prix series is 25 000 euros.

Despite the increased number of participants there was a big loss in the lineup as well. The current Women’s World Chess Champion Hou Yifan (China) has dropped out the cycle. According to Hou, there were several reasons to do so. The main of them was the lack of motivation.

The prize fund for each tournament is 60 000 euros. The winner of the tournament will get 10 000 euros. The first leg of the series was held in Monaco and was won by Hou Yifan. Chinese player Ju Wenjun was the winner of the second leg in Tehran, Iran. Valentina Gunina from Russia won the third tournament in Batumi, Georgia. Indian chess players Dronavalli Harika and Koneru Humpy celebrated victory in the fourth tournament held in Chengdu, China.

It is to be reminded that the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix  is a series of five tournaments held over two years – 2015 and 2016.Each player agrees to participate in three out of five tournaments. The winner of the Grand Prix series 2015/16 will play the Women World Champion in a 10-game match for the Women’s World Championship title.