Players who qualified for the Women’s World Championship so far
2016 World Champion, runner-up and 2 semi-finalists of 2015 Women’s World Championship
Hou Yifan (China) – Already stated that she will not defend her title
Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine)
Dronavalli Harika (India)
Pia Cramling (Sweden)
2014 and 2015 World Girls’ Junior Champion
Aleksandra Goryachkina (Russia)
Nataliya Buksa (Ukraine)
5 highest rated players (30+ rated games) by average rating: February 2015 to January 2016
Humpy Koneru (India)
Ju Wenjun (China)
Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine)
Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia)
Zhao Xue (China)
51 players from Women’s Continental and Zonal qualifiers
Europe Top 14 in 2014 and 2015 of European Championship
(Russia) Valentina Gunina
(Russia) Tatiana Kosintseva
(Georgia) Salome Melia
(Ukraine) Natalia Zhukova
(Georgia) Nana Dzagnidze
(Georgia) Nino Batsiashvili
(Georgia) Lela Javakhishvili
(Bulgaria) Antoaneta Stefanova
(Romania) Cristina-Adela Foisor
(Poland) Monika Socko
(Georgia) Nino Khurtsidze
(Russia) Alina Kashlinskaya
(Armenia) Elina Danielian
(Russia) Anastasia Bodnaruk
(Russia) Marina Guseva
(Russia) Olga Girya
(Ukraine) Inna Gaponenko
(Russia) Ekaterina Kovalevskaya
(Georgia) Bela Khotenashvili
(Russia) Alisa Galliamova
(Germany) Elisabeth Paehtz
(Russia) Daria Charochkina
(Armenia) Lilit Mkrtchian
(Russia) Anastasia Savina
(Hungary) Hoang Thanh Trang
(Georgia) (country) Sopiko Guramishvili
(Turkey) Ekaterina Atalik
(Italy) Olga Zimina
Asia (12): 2014 and 2015 Asian Women’s Champions
Irine Kharisma Sukandar (Indonesia)
Mitra Hejazipour (Iran)
Zonal Champions
Zhu Chen (Qatar)
Akter Liza Shamima (Bangladesh)
Pham Le Thao Nguyen (Vietnam)
Dinara Saduakassova (Kazakhstan)
Tan Zhongyi (China)
Zhai Mo (China)
Ni Shiqun (China)
Huang Qian (China)
Emma Guo (Australia)
Americas (8):
Nazi Paikidze
Africa (3): (unknown)
2 FIDE nominees: (not yet announced)
Based on André Schulz
In fact, Schulz (ChessBase) copied that from the Wikipedia page, which has been subsequently updated to guess at the Americas and African data.
Paikidze qualified from finishing 3rd at the 2015 US Women’s Championships, and her place would be taken by 4th place finisher Viktorija Ni.
FIDE should really be asked for the information, but probably they aren’t going to do the legwork to compile a list until the tournament contract is finalized and invites need to be sent out.
Thanks for the info! Much appreciated!
Padmini Rout was added, from Zone 3.7, as 2015 Women’s Champion in India.
Another error was that Pogonina should appear under the first section (as a finalist in 2015 WWC), while Hou Yifan should not appear there. She should appear under rating, but as is well-known, says she won’t participate anyway.
The ratings were recalculated independently.
According to this, Nana Dzagnidze should be qualified, rather than Zhao Xue.
This in turn bumped up Lilit Mkrtchian to qualify from Euro 2014, and so an extra spot goes to Nastassia Ziaziulkina from Euro 2015, if this interpretation of precedence is correct.
Looking at the Wikipedia page, it makes a trenchant comment IMO.
*) There are no “organizer’s nominees”, as there are with other FIDE events (though there are 2 presidential nominees).
Right now, there’s a debate (as with previous iterations of the WWC) as to how to get more bids. Wouldn’t having (say 2) organizer’s nominees be an *obvious* way to try to create more incentives?!
To compare, the World Cup (twice as many players) has 4 organizer nominees and 5 presidential nominees, for a total of 9 of 128, while WWC only has 2 total out of 64, and neither is ultimately controlled by the organizer.
Borg (then the Executive Director of FIDE) explicitly discussed the necessity of organizer nominees in the Women’s FIDE Grand Prix in a ChessBase article in 2012 (responding to a complaint by Zhdanov that only “sporting criteria” should be used), and said that on firsthand knowledge, many Women’s GP events would likely not have occurred without such incentives.
If nothing else, WOM should discuss this issue among the women, consult with WCOC as to the underlying financial/sporting considerations, etc. It does seem a curious anomaly, particularly with there’s so often talk about a lack of WWC bids.