The Women's World Chess Championship of 2012

where is the monster?

I guess FIDE never learns. There was a World Championship for men with a similar format, and the results were equally random.

If the goal is to create a different champion every cycle, this is a good way to achieve that goal.

I always thought the goal of a world championship is to crown the best player. This system doesn't do that.

Why does it work with tennis but not chess? Is it simply the number of games per round?

In tennis, there is no single world champion. There are Grand Slam events, and a highest rated player, but not a world championship the way there is in chess.

I'm comparing this tournament with a single major.

There is nothing fundamental about an elimination tournament that makes it random.

This is what Jeff Sonas, the statistician, wrote:

Well, what's wrong with the knockout format? Easy: with so many participants, and so little time, there is just not enough room to identify the single strongest player in the field. It is very easy for the strongest player to falter in one game and suddenly become eliminated. We expect that an effective championship cycle will allow the strongest player (whoever that might be) a real chance to demonstrate their superiority by winning the cycle, and this clearly isn't the case when a minus-one score over a stretch of two games can eliminate you from the whole cycle, however much success you had in the previous games during the tournament.

Thus a knockout tournament should not be the final championship event, merely a preliminary qualifying event. ...

http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/sonas010704.html

The difference with tennis is that the best players have a much higher winning percentage.

there aren't many draws in tennis

you shouldn't really take seriously what is written by a monster that hasn't got a name, checkmating skills, logic, plus way too many other things to list.

True. :)

Hello, everyone I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread thus far! It's much more fun reading y'all than reading myself

The Kosintseva sisters did not play all the way to the "armageddon game". In fact there were three victories between them once the tie-breaks began. Below is the game which won it for Nadezhda:

Here is Huang Qian eliminating Irina Krush from the tournament:

Quite a pawn formation Qian achieved.

Our final winner of the day to move on to the quarterfinals is Ju Wenjun, eliminating Natalia Zhukova:

Here are my picks for the final:

Antoaneta Stefanova vs Nadezhda Kosintseva

Of course, I may have just jinxed them

Not impressed by Zhukova's endgame play there at all. May as well resign as trade rooks, surely she knows the pawn endgame is hopeless.

Yes, it was odd the way she traded rooks? It seemed by move 30 that white had a big advantage at this level with the queen pawns disappearing for black.

The men have had two 2700 players, whereas Yifan Hou's best rating was 2639.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_in_China

Sorry, but I don't joke about those things, THETUBESTER.