Women's chess takes centre stage with World and European titles up for grabs

The Guardian

04-04-2025

Women's chess takes centre stage this week. In Shanghai and Chongqing, there is an all-Chinese 12-game match for the women's world crown between Ju Wenjun, 34, the holder, and Tan Zhongyi, 33, the challenger. The pair are closely matched on ratings (2561 to 2555) and level on head-to-head. The prize money pool is $500,000. Thursday's game one, with Ju playing White in a Sicilian Defence, was a routine draw by threefold repetition in 39 moves.
There is live commentary from 7am BST each day from the all-time No 1, Judit Polgar, and England's popular Jovanka Houska on YouTube. Saturday is a rest day, game three (of 12) is on Sunday.
Ju and Tan are effectively playing a rematch, as Ju won her first world crown in 2017, qualifying to challenge reigning champion Tan and then defeating her in the title series. Next, Ju successfully defended her title in a 64-player knockout in 2018. Since then, after Fide changed the system for deciding the challenger, Ju has won championship matches against Russia's Aleksandra Goryachkina in 2020, and against her compatriot Lei Tingjie in 2023.
The women's world title was launched in 1927, and its first 17 years were dominated by Vera Menchik, who won every championship tournament and match between 1927 and 1939 by wide margins, outclassing her rivals. Menchik spent most of her life in London, and was tragically killed at age 38 by a German V1 bomb which hit her Clapham home in 1944. There have since been 10 memorial tournaments in her honour, the latest just two weeks ago.
From 1950 to 1991 Soviet players monopolised the event, led by the Georgians Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, both of whom also scored notable successes against male grandmasters. Gaprindashvili's shared victory at Lone Pine 1977 was among her best achievements.
From 1991 onwards has been the Chinese era, with 15 of the last 20 champions, led by the all-time No 2 woman, Hou Yifan. However, Hungary's Polgar, the only woman to play in an open world championship tournament, never competed for the women's title.
Ju has successfully defended her crown three times already, so will be the favourite against Tan. Her creditable results against male grandmasters, particularly at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee 2024 where she beat Alireza Firouzja and drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi, Gukesh Dommaraju and Ding Liren, show that she ranks among the all-time top six or top 10 women.
The European Women's Championship is currently under way in Rhodes, Greece, with a prize fund of €60,000, and qualifying 10 players for the Women's World Cup.
England is fielding six players, the three-time British women's champion Lan Yao and five schoolgirls. The English Chess Federation international director, Malcolm Pein, explained that as it was the last participation financed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's £500,000 grant for English elite chess, which has been terminated this week, he decided to use it to support future talents.
Lan won an impressive game in round one, showcasing the power of a queen and rooks on open attacking lines, but lost to the Netherlands star Eline Roebers in round three.
Meanwhile, BBC Two's programme Chess Masters: The Endgame reached its fourth episode (of eight) at 8pm on Monday. Viewing figures, supplied by Broadcast, have stabilised. Numbers are marginally up, from 655,000 to 660,000, representing 5.4% of the viewing audience against 5.0% the previous week. The Magnus Carlsen memory test in episode three will be repeated for the new contestants in episode six.
Carlsen takes on The World on Friday, a repeat of historic challenges by Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand in which up to 70,000 players participated. It will be Freestyle Chess at one move a day. The game starts at 11am BST.
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You need to be a member of chess.com to vote for The World's moves. The game is open to all free and premium members and a free account can be made here. The website currently has 71,000 players signed up, but anticipates hitting the system limit of 100,000 opponents before the game starts.
Matthew Wadsworth qualified as a grandmaster last weekend, when the Cambridge economics graduate, 24, shared first prize with 7/9 at Bad Wörishofen, Germany. He is England's third new GM in the last 12 months, following on from Ameet Ghasi and Shreyas Royal.
Wadsworth already had the three required GM norms, but still needed to improve his Fide international rating from 2491 to 2500. He had a setback in round seven (of nine) when he lost to the Armenian top seed, so rounds eight and nine became must-wins. After winning both, his rating jumped to 2499.9 which Fide's newly published April rating list has rounded up to 2500.
To replay Wadsworth's decisive game, go to the menu at the extreme right below the board, scroll down, and click fast or slow replay mode as preferred. Click the symbol at the right of h8 for the game with computer analysis. White's 24 b4! gave Wadsworth a clear advantage, although the later error 36 Kh1? gave Black a missed chance to get back into the game with 36…Nxe4!
3966: 1…Ng6! with the main line 2 fxg6 (other moves also lose) Bxh3+! 3 Kxh3 Qh5+! 4 Kg2 Qh2+ 5 Kf1 g2+ 6 Kf2 g1=Q mate.