2007 Asian Women's Championship

Just concluded, held in Tehran, Iran. I copied out this part of the FIDE rules from the Championship website:

Prizes
8.1. Cups and Medals will be awarded to the top 3 players in each category.

8.2. According to FIDE regulation $10000 in prize money will be awarded to the top ten players as follows:

1st Place = $1600
6th Place = $ 900
2nd Place = $1400
7th Place = $ 800
3rd Place = $1300
8th Place = $ 700
4th Place = $1200
9th Place = $ 600
5th Place = $1000
10th Place = $ 500

8.3. According to FIDE World Championship Regulation the top three players of the competition will qualify for the next stage.

8.4. The total prize fund will be deducted by 20% to FIDE.

So, FIDE, the cheap bastards, take their 20% cut from the miniscule prize money. Even USCF isn't ballsy enough to do that!

The good news is that the championship has concluded and the ladies get to leave Tehran. Now I've nothing against Tehran, I'm sure it has it's excellent points as far as middle eastern cities go. But just being in that atmosphere as a non-Muslim female - oh my - how depressing!

Here's a news report on the top three finishers - and kudos to Sachdev and to India!

Tania Sachdev wins Asian chess
Tuesday, 11 September , 2007, 21:01

Tehran: Grandmaster norm holder Tania Sachdev won the Asian Women chess championship after drawing with Chinese Ju Wenjun in the ninth and final round of the championship here.

Tania, who turned 21 just a few weeks ago, tallied 6.5 points in all and won the gold medal since she had a better tie-break score than top seed Lufei Ruan of China, who also earned the same number of points but had to be content with the silver.

It turned out to first title victory for Tania apart from those she had secured in age-group tournaments.

The Delhi-based girl did not have to do much in the final-round game with black as Wenjun also played it safe and once the game between Nguyen Thi Thanh An of Vietnam and her compatriot Le Thanh Tu ended in a draw Tania had no doubt about winning the championship. For the record, Nguyen won the Bronze medal with the best tiebreak score.

"I think this is my best result till date, I would even say this overshadows my GM norm a bit as this was a qualification event for the World championship with only three seats amongst so many strong players", Tania said after her title victory was confirmed.

(The rest of the story is from another source):

The national champion, in fact, had a forgettable outing in the just concluded Asian zonals in Bangladesh where she finished third in a field of five players.

“I guess I took my lessons well from the zonal disaster… I guess I was just trying too hard for no apparent reasons there, here was a different story. I just took one game at a time without bothering much about the result, and luckily for me, the right approach clicked”, Tania said.

Women Grandmaster Nisha Mohota finished fourth after a fine last round victory over Tan Zhongyi of China. Nisha finished with six points. In the penultimate round, Tania had defeated second seed Huang Qian of China.

Putting continuous pressure, Tania made her opponent crumble as Huang blundered a piece.

“I don’t think I was too much better but her blunder came as a welcome relief for me,” Tania had said after the game.

In round eight, Nisha had failed to break the ice against Nguyen and signed peace to earn five points. This effectively ended her fight for a berth in the next world championship.

Women GM Eesha Karavade and Aarthie Ramaswamy tasted defeat at the hands of Atousa Pourkashiyan of Iran and Tan Zhongyi of China, respectively, while Swati Ghate recovered a bit following a draw with Navabi Shirin of Iran. Amrutha Mokal also signed peace with Wang Xiaohui of China.