World Women's Team Championship in Ningbo

The 2nd Women's World Team Chess Championship took place in Yinzhou, China, from September 2nd to 11th 2009. The time controls were FIDE: 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest with a 30 second increment per move.

World Women's Team Championship in Ningbo

Photographic impressions by GM Ye Rongguang

A little entertainment at the free day dinner: the participants competed at throwing
ping-pong balls into paper cups (in the foreground Valentina Gunina NS Nadezhda Kosintseva)

A newspaper game: two girls put their head in the holes in the paper and start pulling.
The unbroken side is the winner. In the picture Zhang Xiaowen beats Ju Wenjun.

The trophy's general structure is a chess piece – a pawn. On the top is a golden butterfly, the butterfly being the symbol of Yinzhou, gold means riches and plenty. The body of the trophy is colored glaze lazurite, its value is around 10,000 Euros.

The winners, China One, with GM Ye Jiangchuan, IM Li Wenliang, Hou Yifan,
Zhao Xue, Shen Yang, Ju Wenjun, Huang Qian, GM Yu Shaoteng, and GM Yu Shaoteng

IM Inna Gaponenko, Ukraine, vs Wang Yu, China Two in a key round six game (Gabonenko won)

WIM Zhang Xiaowen, 2391, China Two 3.5/9, 2364 performance. Xiaowen is the
Asian Women Champion and played on Board two for her team.

India's Harika kibitzes in the game Danielian vs Tan Zhongyi in round eight (Tan won)

The Indian team with Eesha Karavade, Kruttika Nadig, Harika Dronavalli, Mary Ann Gomes

IM Harika Dronavalli, 2474, India, 4.5/9 with a 2465 performance. Harika and Eesha Karavade helped us to identify many of the players or associated persons in this pictorial report. Many thanks to these charming young ladies.

Our friend IM Guil Russek of Mexico City informs us that it is wrong to call the team (as done on the official site and in the bulletins) the "American Team". America is not a country name and it is inconsiderate or arrogant to use it for the United States. Other South Americans have drawn our attention to this common semantic inaccuracy. However, in this article we will use the official nomenclature taken from the organisers – with apologies to our Canadian, Middle and South American friends – and especially to Maria José of Chile, who has given us bruises for this transgression in the past.

Valentina lost her second round game due to the new zero tolerance rule, having arrived a few seconds late at her board. That was her only loss of the tournament – she scored a brilliant 6.5 points in the next seven rounds and received the gold medal for fifth board.

Ranking crosstable

Previous article on Ningbo

Links Official tournament site (rudimentary) All games in PGN To read, replay and analyse the PGN games we adivse you to download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light. This program also gives you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.