Round 1 Pairings: (Red = withdrew)
1 1-64 Xu, Yuhua CHN – Solomons, Anzel RSA
2 2-63 Koneru, Humpy IND – Alaa El Din, Yorsa EGY
3 3-62 Hou, Yifan CHN – Khaled, Mona EGY
4 4-61 Stefanova, Antoaneta BUL – Zapata, Karen PER
5 5-60 Cramling, Pia SWE – Sanchez Castillo, Sarai VEN
6 6-59 Sebag, Marie FRA – Gasik, Anna POL
7 7-58 Zhao, Xue CHN – Zuriel, Marisa ARG
8 8-57 Kosintseva, Tatjana RUS – Muminova, Nafisa UZB
9 9-56 Kosteniuk, Alexandra RUS – Pourkashiyan, Atousa IRI
10 10-55 Cmilyte, Viktorija LTU – Golubenko, Valentina CRO
11 11-54 Muzychuk, Anna SLO – Velcheva, Maria BUL
12 12-53 Ruan, Lufei CHN – Zakurdjaeva, Irina RUS
13 13-52 Zhukova, Natalia UKR – Rohonyan, Katherine USA
14 14-51 Chiburdanidze, Maya GEO – Nguyen, Thi Thanh An VIE
15 15-50 Hoang Thanh Trang HUN – Arribas Robaina, Maritza CUB
16 16-49 Paehtz, Elisabeth GER – Kadimova, Ilaha AZE
17 17-48 Ushenina, Anna UKR – Le Thanh Tu VIE
18 18-47 Socko, Monika POL – Foisor, Sabina-Francesca ROM
19 19-46 Krush, Irina USA – Sedina, Elena ITA
20 20-45 Gaponenko, Inna UKR – Zhang Jilin CHN
21 21-44 Javakhishvili, Lela GEO – Amura, Claudia ARG
22 22-43 Harika, Dronavalli IND – Nebolsina, Vera RUS
23 23-42 Kosintseva, Nadezhda RUS – Mohota, Nisha IND
24 24-41 Korbut, Ekaterina RUS – Gvetadze, Sopio GEO
25 25-40 Zatonskih, Anna USA – Bosboom Lanchava, Tea NED
26 26-39 Shen, Yang CHN – Kachiani-Gersinska, Ketino GER
27 27-38 Mkrtchian, Lilit – ARM Moser, Eva AUT
28 28-37 Tania, Sachdev – IND Tan Zongyi CHN
29 29-36 Bojkovic, Natasa SRB – Ju, Wenjun CHN
30 30-35 Rajlich, Iweta POL – Mongontuul, Bathuyang MGL
31 31-34 Lomineishvili, Maia GEO – Khukhashvili, Sopiko GEO
32 32-33 Khurtsidze, Nino GEO – Matveeva, Svetlana RUS
Official website: http://nalchik2008.fide.co
How can FIDE justify losing 11 players from this tournament? Very bad.
Obviously, FIDE cannot! That’s almost 20% of the players not showing up. Ha! This contest will not be a true test of the top female players in the world, since so many of them are missing. In my opinion, the title earned this year must have an asterisk placed after it in the record books. Shame, shame on FIDE.
Jan Newton
Goddesschess
asterisk placed next to the results?
I don’t think so! Only one player (Sebag) that is on FIDE top 15 list has dropped out
Why do womans have their owne league? I thought testosterone had a bad effect on the brain.
j. smith
A few remarks:
Ms. Newton says FIDE cannot justify losing 11 players in this event; Anon at 10:15 am points out that only one of those who have withdrawn is in the top 15 players in this tournament.
Call me a purist, but I really don’t think that a knock out tournament is the proper way to award the title of world champion. In the case of the overall title, Kasparov was able to say with more credibility that he was champion, while FIDE was telling us that the world champion was Ponomariov or Khalifman. The rest of the world laughed at FIDE. The current women’s world champion, Xu Yuhua, isn’t one of the top women pklayers, either; without her title, she would be the 15th seed in Nalchik. I think all the women’s world champions since 1996 should get an asterisk. The 2008 champion is no different just because 11 players withdrew for reasons other than the questionable merits of a world championship knock out.
Of course, the reasons have to do with politics and not chess. There may be some offense at holding the event in Russia while many regard the Russians as the perpetrators of recent events in the Caucasus, there are some who dispute Russia’s culpability. For what it’s worth, I don’t think I would have been too ready to play in this event were I a Georgian woman, either. After all, Nalchik is located between Ossetia and Chechnya.
Laying aside who was right and who was wrong, the more important question has to do with whether Nalchik, which is located between Ossetia and Chechnya, is a safe playing venue for Georgians or others holding citizenship in independent states that were once part of the Tsar’s empire or the Soviet Union. Was the president of FIDE, who also happens to be president of the Autonomous Russian Republic of Kalmykia, a post to which he was appointed by Vladimir Putin, the right person to make such a decision? If Kirsan wanted sport and international politics to be separated, then he should have recused himself from ruling on this matter.
You are entitled to your opinion, but it doesn’t really matter what you think. The one who wins the game/match/tournament/whatever that is called World championship is the world champion, period.
The favourites don’t always win. It’s like that in any sport. But unlike in chess you don’t see people pointing at those athlets and wanting to hang some asterisks to their titles, do you?
P.S.: Do you really think that French girl is a better tennis player than Ana Ivanovic? Perhaps you should hang her an asterisk too. Or even better, lets put an asterisk to all grand slam winners because they were just lucky to win the KO tournament. They should just play a round robin like in the final masters.