Women's World Chess Championship 2017

Hosting

The tournament was originally placed on the FIDE calendar for October 2016. However, the March 2016 meeting of the FIDE Presidential Board ultimately postponed the event to 2017 due to a lack of organizer.

The original agenda for the General Assembly made no explicit mention of Iran, only indicating that the event had been postponed until 2017 due to the lack of an organizer, similar to the situations in 2014 and 2015. When the agenda item (5.20.7) for Women's World Championship came up for discussion in Baku, Iran offered to host the event, and after a brief discussion of the applicable dress code, none of the 159 attending delegates objected. Only when FIDE published the General Assembly decisions two weeks later the existence of the Iran offer become widely known, and the issue rapidly became explosive, in part due to the social media activity of Nigel Short, who alternatively claimed that awarding the event to Iran was against FIDE Statutes or the Code of Ethics (or founding Principles) of the International Olympic Committee.

Nazi Paikidze, who qualified by finishing tied for 2nd in the 2015 US Women's Championship, was the first female player to protest FIDE's decision to allow Iran to host the event. Through the media she has announced that she will not participate most particularly because of Iran's dress code requiring women to wear a hijab, though initially she also secondarily mentioned the risks to Americans and other foreigners of being detained in Iran because of their nationality. In a later petition on Change.org she included a third item, namely that there could be speech restrictions on women.

Chess, like other sports, has had a degree of controversy regarding women's attire. A statement from FIDE Press Officer Anastasiya Karlovich was published at Susan Polgar's site Chess Daily News on October 1, 2016, indicating that FIDE has not received any official complaints to date (including from prior women's events held in Iran), but that they would be reviewing all possible solutions for the players’ comfort and would discuss all the issues with the organizers in Iran during meetings in the next few weeks. Polgar requested that concerned participants contact the FIDE Women's Commission, of which she is co-chair.

Emil Sutovsky, the president of the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP), hosted discussions at his Facebook page on the matter, and wrote an official letter to FIDE. He also noted that while he has talked to at least half the participants and the vast majority do not want to boycott, the ACP would respect the rights of others too. Natalia Zhukova, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Anna Muzychuk, and Elisabeth Paehtz have all made public comments to Sutovsky, but none to the degree of Nazi Paikidze. Sutovsky was willing to entertain Nigel Short's claims regarding the illegality of FIDE's actions, but simultaneously would not pursue them (either personally or as ACP president) until a proper legal argument was made on the matter.

ChessBase India interviewed two of the three qualifiers from that country (Harika Dronavalli and Humpy Koneru), each of whom has played in Iran previously. They indicated a degree of awkwardness and discomfort with the physical aspects of the headscarf while playing (as had Zhukova), but declared the World Championship itself to be more important. Later articles quoted Kosteniuk and Koneru expanding on their views, with the former noting that even exercising for fitness in Iran can be difficult for a woman.

The Guardian featured 2015 Asian Women's Continental Champion Mitra Hejazipour (of Iran) in an article, describing how a boycott could harm Iranian women's sport. Other Iranian players have also stated that a boycott would not be beneficial to Iranian women.

Participants

The players are selected by five different means: reaching the semi-finals of the most recent knock-out Women's World Championship, junior championships, rating, zonal or continental chess championships, and FIDE wildcards.

Before the start of the tournament, 48th seed Cristina Adela Foișor died. Because pairing were already announced, there had been no replacement.

The participants are, in order of seeding (February 2017 FIDE rating list):

Prize money

The prize money is 3,750 US dollars for first round losers, 5,500 for second, 8,000 for third, 12,000 for fourth, 20,000 for losing semifinalists, 30,000 for runner-up, and 60,000 for champion ($450,000 overall), with 20% of such sums being taken by FIDE. All players pay their own costs (travel, accommodation and meals) for the duration.

Final match

The final is the only match of the tournament which consists of four classical games. Those are played on consecutive days with a rest-day between the semi-final tie-breaks and match 1. Eventual tie-breaks are played on 3 March, in the same manner as the whole tournament. Two rapid games (25+10, i.e. 25 minutes for the whole game plus 10 seconds increment, the two rapid games of 10+10, two blitz games of 5+3 and an armageddon decider.

Muzychuk had advanced to the final without playing a tie-break. Tan Zhonghi on the other hand played several, including two armageddon matches. One of those in the semi-final against Harika Dronavalli, who had been knocked-out at semi final stage for the third straight time. Before the finals, Tan Zhonghi and Anna Muzychuk had met each other just two times at classical time-control, with both games ending in a draw. Muzychuk is also the reigning Women's Blitz and Rapid World champion and could add a third world championship title. If Tan Zhonghi wins the title, she will also be awarded the Grand Master title.

After a draw in the first game, Tan outplayed her opponent to win game 2, however Muzychuk came back with a crushing early victory in game 3. Game 4 was a quiet draw, setting the stage for a rapid playoff. In the first pair of rapid matches Tan Zhongyi won the title.

Bracket

Player positions are determined by the January FIDE rating list. No. 1 plays no. 64, 2 plays 63, and so on.