Divya Deshmukh defeats Zhu Jiner, qualifies for FIDE Women’s World Cup quarterfinals

Meanwhile, GM Koneru Humpy also knocked out GM Alexandra Kosteniuk and went through to the Quarterfinals. Both their classical games ended in a draw. Humpy defeated Kosteniuk in Game 1 of the 15+10 Rapid tiebreaks, and held a draw in Game 2 to win the match.

The tournament format for the FIDE Women’s World Cup is such that all games are played in a head-to-head elimination format over two classical games with players playing once each with white and black pieces. If after two classical games there is no clear winner, the battle enters tiebreaks, where the time control keeps reducing until there is a winner. While the two classical games are played over two days, the tiebreaks happen on the third day.

At first, both players will play best-of-two games in the 15 minutes (+10 seconds increment per move, popularly called 15+10) format. If that also cannot separate the two players, the time gets reduced to 10 minutes (+10 seconds increment per move, called 10+10). Once again there will be two games. If even this cannot provide a winner, the time trickles down to five minutes + three seconds (5+3). After this point, if players are still deadlocked, the game enters chess’ equivalent of a sudden death: a winner-takes-all single game of three minutes + 2 seconds. This 3+2 game will be played until there’s a winner.

The FIDE Women’s World Cup offers the top three finishers a spot at next year’s Women’s Candidates tournament, which is the final step towards challenging the reigning women’s world champion.

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