FIDE Women’s GP 2009-2010 / original list of players

1. Kosteniuk Alexandra (RUS) WWC 2008
2. Hou Yifan (CHN) – finalist WWCC 2008
3. Koneru Humpy (IND) – semifinalist WWCC 2008
4. Pia Cramling (SWE) – semifinalist WWCC 2008
5. Polgar Judit (HUN) 2709,50 – Oct 07 & 08
6. Polgar Zsuzsa (USA) 2577,00 – Oct 07 & 08
7. Xie Jun (CHN) 2574,00 – Oct 07 & 08
8. Zhao Xue (CHN) 2524,00 – Oct 07 & 08
9. Sebag Marie (FRA) 2521,00 – Oct 07 & 08
10. Zhu Chen (QAT) 2513,50 – Oct 07 & 08

11. President’s nominee
12. President’s nominee
13. Host city nominee
14. Host city nominee
15. Host city nominee
16. Host city nominee
17. Host city nominee
18. Host city nominee

1st reserve by rating: Stefanova Antoaneta (BUL) 2505,50 – Oct 07 & 08
2nd reserve by rating: Kosintseva Tatiana (RUS) 2502,50 – Oct 07 & 08
3rd reserve by rating: Chiburdanidze Maia (GEO) 2494,50 – Oct 07 & 08

Format of the Women’s Grand Prix 2009-2010

The Grand Prix will be a series of six tournaments held over two years (2009-2010) in leading world cities. The bidding process for the final selection of cities will commence in June 2008 and be finalized by Dresden Congress, November 2008.

The timing of evaluating and contracting host city offers will be very important particularly at the start of the series. Offers to host and contract three tournaments over the next six years (i.e. three cycles – for 2009/10, 2011/2 and 2013/4) will be given preference.

18 top world players will be selected to compete in these tournaments. Each player agrees and will contract to participate in exactly 4 of these tournaments. 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.

FIDE reserves the right to assign players to tournaments according to the organizational needs and the players for each tournament will be announced before the cycle begins.

Each tournament will have 12 players playing over a schedule of seventeen days. The months allocated for the organisation of the Grand Prix tournaments are March, June and September of each respective year. These months have been selected to ensure there is no conflict with any other major event.

In view of an objective of harmonisation of the FIDE chess calendar, the months for the Grand Prix for 2009/2010 are fixed as above, and the World Cup will be scheduled to meet the timing of the Grand Prix series.

Source: FIDE – Global Chess

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