Women's World Ch: Kosintseva & Stefanova exit

4th seeded Tatiana Kosintseva (Russia) and 6th seeded Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria) were eliminated in the second round of the Women's World Championship in Antakya, Turkey. Defending Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, top seed Humpy Koneru and losing 2008 finalist Hou Yifan all made it through to round 3.

Tatiana Kosintseva: exit in Antakya

General info

The 2010 Women's World Championship, organized by the Turkish Chess Federation, takes place December 2-25 in Antakya, Hatay, Turkey. The format is a knock-out competition with five rounds of matches, comprising two games per round, with the winners progressing to the next round. The 6th and final round will be played over four games and the winner will be declared Women’s World Champion. More info here.

Round 2

After Pia Cramling, two more players who can be considered favourites, had to leave the Women's World Championship after the second round: former World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova and Russia's number one Tatiana Kosintseva. The latter was already out after the two regular games despite getting very promising positions in both. In her White game the 24-year-old Russian went for an ending where she let her knight trapped in the corner while her Black game could go either way, and eventually ended in a perpetual.



Stefanova won a nice positional game with the white pieces against Huang Qian - so far so good. But then the 31-year-old Bulgarian blundered on move 27 in the second game and immediately found herself in a hopeless position. Today she was outplayed twice in an ending, by the apparently quite talented Chinese WGM.



Top seed Humpy Koneru and 2008 finalist Hou Yifan smoothly reached the third round with 1.5-0.5 victories against English IM Jovanka Houska and Marina Romanko from Russia respectively. Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia needed the tiebreak to set aside Georgian IM Sopiko Khukhashvili. Local hero WIM Betul Cemre Yildiz, who had knocked out Pia Cramling, lost twice to Ukrainian IM Mariya Muzychuk. Former World Champion Maia Chiburdanidze from Georgia was eliminitated by Chinese GM Zhao Xue and Marie Sebag from France is also out after a 2-0 loss against Anna Zatonskih (USA).

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Women's World Championship 2010 | Round 2 results

Photos © Turkish Chess Federation

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC