The FIDE Women's World Cup chess tournament, which started in Batumi (Georgia), has gathered the 107 strongest female chess players on the planet, including for the first time in history a representative from Turkmenistan – 19-year-old national team leader and Woman FIDE Master Lala Shohradova (FIDE rating – 2135).
Shohradova earned the right to participate in this prestigious competition and thus open a new chapter in Turkmen chess history thanks to the successful performance of the Turkmen women's team at the 45th World Chess Olympiad 2024 in Budapest (Hungary), where our chess players took first place in team category C.
Unlike many chess tournaments, the World Cup is held under the Olympic system (elimination) and lasts 7 rounds. Each round consists of two classical games (90 minutes + 30 minutes after move 40 with an additional 30 seconds per move). If the score is tied, a tiebreak is held: rapid games (15 minutes + 10 seconds per move), then blitz games (5+3 and 3+2) until a winner is determined.
In the first round, our compatriot, seeded 90th, was paired by draw against Indian International Master Vantika Agrawal (23 years old, rating – 2388, seeded 39th in the tournament).
The Women's World Cup is a relatively new tournament organized by FIDE for the third time, modeled after the Men's World Cup. The first Women's World Cup took place in 2021 in Sochi, won by Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia). At the previous 2023 World Cup in Baku, the winner was also Russian – Alexandra Goryachkina.
The World Cup winner will receive a prize of $50,000 from the International Chess Federation (FIDE), the finalist $35,000, and the bronze medalist $25,000.
Besides the prestigious trophy, three spots for the Candidates Tournament will be contested at the World Cup, the winner of which will play a match for the World Champion title. It is worth noting that A. Goryachkina and Chinese player Zhu Jiner already have such spots from the 2024/25 Grand Prix series.
The FIDE Men's World Cup will take place from October 31 to November 27, 2025 (venue to be confirmed). Turkmenistan will be represented by the men's national team leader, International Grandmaster Saparmyrat Atabayev. His participation became possible thanks to the successful performance of the men's team at the 2024 World Chess Olympiad in Budapest, where the team won the "small gold" in category B and took 24th place overall.
Recall that in 2015, Turkmenistan was already represented by International Grandmaster Yusup Atabayev at the Men's World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan. In the first round, he showed an impressive fight, losing in a tense tiebreak (overall score 3:5) to three-time World Rapid Chess Champion, Russian Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk.
turkmenistan.gov.tm
