FIDE Women's Grand Prix preview

It’s here! The 2024-25 Women’s Grand Prix series starts this week with the first leg (out of six) in the capital of Georgia: Tbilisi. Georgia is a historic country for women’s chess, and Tbilisi has cultivated some of Georgia’s top stars beginning with Nona Gaprindashvili.

Nona Gaprindashvili, who wasn’t born in Tbilisi but moved there to train in her youth, was the first female chess player to defeat both men AND Netflix. Credit: Hans Peters / Anefo.

The FIDE Women’s Grand Prix has been the most successful series of women’s tournaments in chess history, both in terms of the number of tournaments and the level of prize money. Before the series originated in 2009, there were no regular women-only super-tournaments with the top players and high prize money. Since 2009, there have been six series and 31 legs. Each leg originally averaged €50K in prize money, a number that has doubled to €100K today (including the prizes for the overall standings across all six legs).

Besides prize money, the overarching goal of participants in the series is to qualify for the next Candidates. The top two at the end of the series earn Candidates spots directly! But that’s not the only thing that’s important. Historically, the WGP has been a great opportunity for the non-GM participants to earn GM norms. And for many participants, including the lower-rated players especially, it’s a great place to gain rating.

FIDE will be looking for this upcoming edition to be a success after the previous 2022-23 edition was marred with all sorts of controversies and issues.

Series Format

The 2024-25 edition of the Women’s Grand Prix had a big overhaul compared to the previous two editions. This time, there are six events instead of four. However, each player still only participates in three legs in total (one this year, and two next year, or vice versa). Also, each leg now only has 10 participants instead of 12. Since each leg is a round-robin, this means each event is also shorter, down to nine rounds instead of eleven. With more legs though, the total number of participants is up from 16 to 20.

FIDE stated these changes were mainly to allow more players to participate in the Grand Prix series. More likely though, the real reason to have more legs was to separate the Ukrainian players from the Russian players. (The Russian invasion of Ukraine is still ongoing.) Ukrainian stars Anna and Mariya Muzychuk both withdrew from the previous edition of the WGP after just one leg likely because FIDE wouldn’t separate them from the Russians in the other legs.

Showdown in Tbilisi

This week’s leg in Tbilisi is the Ukrainian / non-Russian leg. Vaishali and Bibisara Assaubayeva are the lone representatives for Asia. Everyone else represents Europe.

The WGP Tbilisi leg participants! Credit: FIDE.

That means the biggest favourites for the two Candidates spots (Lei Tingjie and Aleksandra Goryachkina, and Tan Zhongyi if she were to need it) are not here. The biggest favourite who is here is probably Vaishali, and this is her chance to capitalize with her biggest rivals not here. Vaishali has never won a WGP leg and didn’t medal either in her two WGP appearances as a replacement player. But that was before she became a GM. Right now, Vaishali has never looked stronger.

Vaishali’s WGP player card. Credit: OnTheQueenside (Image credit: Biel International Chess Festival)

The only participants who have won a leg before are Alexandra Kosteniuk and Nana Dzagnidze, who each have won two. Neither has been particularly active in classical this year Each of them has only played one tournament: the Cairns Cup in June. That could bode well for the prospects of a first-time champion. Could it be one of the Muzychuk sisters? Surprisingly, neither of them has a won a leg before (in 22 combined appearances).

When it comes to GM norms, five of the players are IMs. The one worth highlighting the most is Georgia’s wild card player: Lela Javakhishvili. Lela already has 2 GM norms and has been 2500. If she makes her final GM norm, she would be just the second woman ever to earn the GM title at age 40. Among the others, Bibisara has been painfully close to her final GM norm a few times this year already.

Lela Javakhishvili’s WGP player card. Credit: OnTheQueenside (Image credit: Maria Emelianova)

The biggest mysteries entering this leg are Sara Khadem and Alina Kashlinskaya. Sara hasn’t played a classical tournament all year, while Alina has only played one (her first tournament as a mom!). Who knows what form they will be in? (It’s worth noting though that they did do well in their most recent classical events, and Alina’s was quite recent.)

Overall series expectations

Historically, the Women’s Grand Prix has been notoriously predictable. Hou Yifan won every series she played, and Humpy finished 2nd in the first five series, both of which are basically what you would have expected. When Ju Wenjun and Aleksandra Goryachkina won, they weren’t the highest-rated players at the beginning, but they were by the end. Following those expectations, whoever wins this series will probably be the highest-rated among the participants whenever it ends late next year.

Right now, the highest-rated players in order are Tan Zhongyi, Lei Tingjie, and Aleksandra Goryachkina. Is that who you would expect to win? Tan probably won’t need the Candidates spot. Lei Tingjie has never played the Grand Prix before. Goryachkina has been one of the best Grand Prix participants, medalling in five of six events, but even she limped to the finish line last time and only ended up second. With the form Vaishali has shown in the past 12 months, it’s not crazy to think she could jump up 50 Elo and steal the series.

General thoughts

Is FIDE trying to solve the problems from the last edition of the Grand Prix? They seem to have tackled the Russia-Ukraine issues (which included both players withdrawing, and one location pulling out of hosting duties) with the extra legs, so that’s a start.

The four extra spots in the series seem nice at first, but it would have been nicer if they went to young up-and-coming players. Just four of the twenty players in the series are young players: Vaishali, Bibisara, and Stavroula Tsolakidou all in this leg, and the only one not featuring here is Nurgyul Salimova. That means 16 of the 20 players are either already established in the world elite or well past age 30.

Some obvious names are missing too. 21-year-old GM Zhu Jiner finished 3rd in the overall WGP standings last year and is still the No. 3 ranked player 25-and-under, but she’s not here. 25-year-old Dinara Wagner won a leg in the last Grand Prix series, but that wasn’t enough to bring her back either. And that doesn’t even include younger players like 18-year-old Divya Deshmukh and 14-year-old Lu Miaoyi who are already good enough to participate, but now need to wait another two years (or more!) to be given a chance.

The top women U25 (born 1999 or later) by FIDE rating. Only four are in this edition of the WGP, and Nos. 2 through 4 highlight the notable absences. Credit: 2700chess.

If the Grand Prix is to really be a success in the future, I would rather it be more geared towards younger players on the rise instead of mainly catering to much older players who for the most part aren’t looking to move up in the rankings anymore.

One last thought

While some young players are just hoping to get someone to sponsor them to play in the Grand Prix (through the wild card spots), one player whose own country would probably never sponsor them had those prayers answered!

Stavroula Tsolakidou, who I never thought would get the chance this time but definitely deserves it, is in the Grand Prix (and in this leg!) after not Greece, but Cyprus bid to host a leg and nominated her as their wild card selection. Stavroula was my No. 1 rising star to watch this year. Last year, she said it was her goal to make it into the Grand Prix series and I couldn’t be happier to see her get that opportunity!

Stavroula Tsolakidou’s WGP player card. Credit: OnTheQueenside (Image credit: Petros Tzimas)

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Round 1 of the Tbilisi leg of the Grand Prix starts Thursday, 15 August at 3pm Georgia time. Stavroula vs. Vaishali is Round 1’s biggest match-up! You don’t want to miss it!

The WGP Tbilisi Round 1 match-ups! Credit: FIDE.