Humpy Koneru won the sixth and last FIDE Women's Grand Prix on Friday in Ankara, Turkey. The Indian grandmaster scored 8/11, half a point more than Anna Muzychuk. Humpy finished second in the overall Grand Prix series behind Hou Yifan. The Chinese had already clinched the first place at the previous GP in Jermuk. 

Humpy Koneru | Photo © Anastasiya Karlovich courtesy of FIDE

The sixth and last Women's Grand Prix tournament took place September 15th-29th in Ankara, the capital of Turkey and its second largest city after Istanbul. The venue was the office building of the Turkish Chess Federation. 

Hou Yifan had already won the overall Grand Prix most convincingly by finishing sole first at three events. With the rule that for each player only the best three events would count, that was quite enough! This meant that, besides trying to play a good event, four of the participants had a clear goal. Anna Muzychuk, Humpy Koneru, Zhao Xue and Ju Wenjun still had a chance to finish second in the overall standings, which would mean qualification for the 2013 world title match.

Humpy Koneru of India emerged as the sole winner with a score of 8 out of 11. Anna Muzychuk scored 7.5/11 and Zhao Xue 7/11. However, this didn't mean (yet) that we'll see a rematch Hou Yifan-Humpy Koneru next year. The regulations state:

The winner of the Grand Prix series at the end of 2012 will play the Women World Champion in the third quarter of 2013 in a ten game match for the Women’s World Championship title. Should the overall winner of the Grand Prix also be the World Champion at the end of the Grand Prix series in 2012, then the Challenger rights will go to the second placed overall in the Grand Prix.

However, there is in fact a Women's World Championship scheduled for November 2012 in Khanty-Mansiysk. If Hou Yifan retains her title in this tough knock-out tournament, we'll see a rematch Hou Yifan-Humpy Koneru indeed. To summarize, it seems that for the first time in chess history the challenger has qualified for a world title match whilst the World Champion in that match isn't known yet!? 

Update: We were confused (but can you blame us?). In fact if Hou Yifan doesn't win in November she would thus be the challenger and so the only thing we know is that whatever happens, Hou Yifan is one of the players in the 2013 world title match. 

According to our calculations (see below) Anna Muzychuk finished just ten points behind Humpy Koneru in the overall standings. That must have been a bitter pill to swallow, especially since she beat the Indian in their mutual game:

PGN string

Two participants in Ankara, Monika Socko of Poland and Kubra Ozturk of Turkey, played their first and last Grand Prix. We asked FIDE Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Borg about the qualification process, and he explained that the players enter as one off replacements for other players who have withdrawn from the series or cannot play one leg only. In this case, the first replacement was for Zhu Chen who retired after playing two legs and in the Ankara leg was replaced by Monica Socko, who was then at the same rating level. The second replacement came after Alexandra Kosteniuk could not play one leg for personal reasons and Hou Yifan requested a change of event from Ankara. After shuffling to accommodate Hou Yifan, FIDE replaced the free slot with Kubra Ozturk (as chosen by the Turkish Chess Federation).

Below you'll find the final standings of the 6th leg in Ankara as well as the overall final standings – calculated by us so unofficial. 

FIDE Women's Grand Prix | Ankara 2012 | Final standings

FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011-2012 | Overall final standings