Indian Girls Begin Campaign at Women's World Team Chess in Astana Today

The Indian team (from left) Soumya Swaminathan, Padmini Rout, Nisha Mohota, Eesha Karavade, Mary Ann Gomes. 

The opening ceremony of the Women's World Team Chess Championship took place at the Duman Hotel in Astana, Kazakhstan on Saturday after a press conference. FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov welcomed all participants and guests and awarded diplomas to players from the team of Kazakhstan - Guliskhan Nakhbayeva and Dinara Saduakassova. Both had recently complete their WGM norms.

The Chief Arbiter of the tournament Takis Nikolopoulos conducted the ceremony of drawing of lots. Each team was invited to the stage and the top player was proposed to choose a flower with the number. The top seed of Ukrainian team Katerina Lahno luckily chose the number one, although Ukrainian team doesn’t leave the first rank. Each of the players got flowers from the organizers. Opening Ceremony Photo Gallery

Indian chess fans can watch the games live from 2.30 pm at the official wesbite with comments by GM Sergey Shipov and WGM Anna Sharevich: http://worldchess.kz/en/online.

The pairings of the first round:Ukraine - India
Romania - Russia
Kazakhstan - USA
Turkey - Georgia
China - France

The board pairings of Round 1 for India are as follows:

Lahno, Kateryna - Karavade, Eesha
Ushenina, Anna - Mohota, Nisha
Muzychuk, Mariya - Padmini, Rout
Gaponenko, Inna - Gomes, Mary Ann

During the press-conference it was announced that Kazakhstan has another ambitious plan - to host the World Chess Olympiad in 2018. Anna Ushenina, reigning women's world champion, spoke about the expectations of the Ukrainian team: “Every team wants to win first place in Astana. Our team - is not an exception. I will try to show the best result. In such tournaments there are no weak opponents.” 

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Women's World Chess Team Championship March 2-12 in Astana

Astana will host the Women's World Chess Team Championship from 2-12 March. The best teams of the world will participate in the coming championship, among which three teams which were ranked the best at the World Chess Olympiad, five continental champions, the country-organizer and one team elected by the FIDE President according to the rules.

Astana will gather around 50 best chess players out of ten countries: China, Russia, Ukraine, USA, India, France, Turkey, Georgia, Rumania and Kazakhstan. Every team consists of five players and the team-winner will be determined in a round-robin event after 9 games. Time control is 90 minutes per 40 moves and thirty minutes until the end of the game plus 30 seconds increment per move.

Participating teams
The WWTC has been organized since 2007 and Chinese team won all the championships in the past. Hou Yifan and Zhao Xue will not come to Astana and it’s going to be not easy for the team to prove their dominance without the strongest Chinese players.

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