THE WOMEN’S Chess World Championship 2025 was held on April 3 to 20 in China between two Chinese women, Ju Wenjun the title holder and Tan Zhongyi the challenger.
Name: FIDE Women’s World Championship
Event Date: April 3 – 20, 2025
Site: Shanghai & Chongquing CHN
Format: 12 Rds Classical (tie-breaks, if necessary). TC: 90m:30m+30spm(1)
(A classical game is one in which the time limit is at least 90 minutes in 30 moves, plus 30 seconds per move (after 30 moves). All quicker time controls are regarded as quick games, including rapid, blitz and Armaggedon.)
The match actually ended on 16 April 2025 rather on 20 April 2025. Ju won the match after posting an insurmountable lead of 6½ to 2½, with 5 wins, 1 loss, and 3 draws.
The men’s World Championship (WC) match at present essentially follows the same format.
Format: 14 Rds Classical (tie-breaks, if necessary). TC: 120m:30m+30spm (41) as in the 2024 Ding – Gukesh World Championship match.
It must be said that the strongest chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, did not and does not like this format, and so for this and a myriad of other reasons abdicated the WC title. He was succeeded by Ding and now Gukesh. See previous article.
This is the second World Championship match Ju and Tan have played.
Previously in May 2018 the World Champion title holder was Tan, and the challenger was Ju. Tan grabbed the Women’s World Chess Championship of 2017 by winning a 64-player knock-out tournament. Tan Zhongyi beat Anna Muzychuk in the rapid tie-breaks to win the title.
Ju qualified by winning the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2015–16, a series of five chess tournaments, which determined the challenger for the Women’s World Chess Championship match of May 2018, a 10-game match.
Ju won that first match against Tan thus grabbing the Women’s Chess World Championship title. She has been the world champion since then. Also since then, Ju has defended the title 4 times, in November 2018, 2020, 2023, and 2025.
The November 2018 Women’s World Chess Championship event was a knock-out tournament to crown a new women’s world champion in chess. It was a 64-player knockout type on 2 to 23 November in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Ju won it by beating 5 players in two game KO matches and then Russian Kateryna Lagno in the final. Ju had advanced to the final without playing a tie-break, winning all her two-game mini-matches in classical games.
To put it in perspective, say Ju Wenjun had the (high for argument’s sake) probability of winning a KO game match of 80%. Ju won 6 KO matches. That would mean that the probability of wining the tournament would be:
0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 times 0.8 = 0.3276. Only about 33%.
Lucky Ju Wenjun. And my congratulations and eternal gratitude to her for persevering under such conditions. (To be continued)/PN
