The tournament was an eight-player, double round-robin tournament, meaning there were 14 rounds with each player facing the others twice: once with the black pieces and once with the white pieces. The tournament winner qualified to play Ju Wenjun for the Women's World Chess Championship 2025.
Players from the same federation were required to play each other in the first rounds of each half[7] to avoid collusion. The players affected in the 2024 Women's Candidates were Kateryna Lagno and Aleksandra Goryachkina representing FIDE,[citation needed] Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi representing China, and R Vaishali and Koneru Humpy representing India. They faced each other in rounds 1 and 8.
In March 2024, FIDE announced pairings for the tournament.[8]
Regulations
The time control was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move starting from move 1. Players received 1 point for a win, ½ point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.
Tiebreaks for the first place would have been addressed as follows:[7]
Players would have played two rapid chess games at 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. If a three- to six-way tie had occurred, a single round-robin would be played. If seven or eight players had been tied, a single round-robin would be played with a time limit of 10 minutes plus 5 seconds per move.
If any players had still been tied for first after the rapid chess games, they would play two blitz chess games at 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move. In the case of more than two players being tied, a single round-robin would be played.
If any players were still tied for first after these blitz chess games, the remaining players would play a knock-out blitz tournament at the same time control. In each mini-match of the proposed knock-out tournament, the first player to win a game would win the mini-match.
Ties for places other than first were broken by, in order: (1) Sonneborn–Berger score; (2) total number of wins; (3) head-to-head score among tied players; (4) drawing of lots.
The prize money was €24,000 for first place, €18,000 for second place, and €12,000 for third place (with players on the same number of points sharing prize money, irrespective of tie-breaks), plus €1,750 per half-point for every player, for a total prize pool of €250,000.[7]
Schedule
Date
Event
Wednesday, 3 April
Opening ceremony
Thursday, 4 April
Round 1
Friday, 5 April
Round 2
Saturday, 6 April
Round 3
Sunday, 7 April
Round 4
Monday, 8 April
Rest day
Tuesday, 9 April
Round 5
Wednesday, 10 April
Round 6
Thursday, 11 April
Round 7
Friday, 12 April
Rest day
Saturday, 13 April
Round 8
Sunday, 14 April
Round 9
Monday, 15 April
Round 10
Tuesday, 16 April
Rest day
Wednesday, 17 April
Round 11
Thursday, 18 April
Round 12
Friday, 19 April
Rest day
Saturday, 20 April
Round 13
Sunday, 21 April
Round 14
Monday, 22 April
Tie breaks (if required) Closing ceremony
Results
Tan Zhongyi led from start to finish to win the tournament. She was the only player who won in the first round (against Lei Tingjie), and when she won again in the second round, she built up a lead over her rivals. In the first half of the tournament Aleksandra Goryachkina kept pace with Tan, but Tan stayed half a point ahead. A momentous round 8 saw Lei - who had won in rounds 6 and 7 - win a third consecutive game against Tan. This led to a three-way tie for first. However, Tan won again in round 9, while Goryachkina lost in round 10 to fall behind. By round 12, only Tan and Lei were still in with a realistic chance. When Lei lost to Vaishali in round 13, Tan was effectively champion. A draw in the final round gave Tan the tournament victory, with a 1.5-point margin.
For the other competitors, Muzychuk achieved several winning positions, but she did not manage to win them, and she finished the tournament as the only player who did not win a game. Salimova, the only non-grandmaster in the field (Vaishali was a GM-elect), also had a difficult tournament, finishing joint-last with Muzychuk. Humpy started the tournament poorly with losses in rounds 4 and 6, but recovered in the second half to finish on +1. Vaishali had an even more turbulent tournament, at one point losing four games in a row to be solidly last, but then winning five consecutive games at the end to tie for 2nd-4th.
Tie-breakers for first place: (1) results in tie-break games for first place;
Tie breakers for non-first place: (1) results in tie-break games for first place, if any; (2) Sonneborn–Berger score (SB); (3) total number of wins; (4) head-to-head score among tied players; (5) drawing of lots.[7]
Note: Numbers in the crosstable in a white background indicate the result playing the respective opponent with the white pieces (black pieces if on a black background). This does not give information which of the two games was played in the first half of the tournament, and which in the second.
Points by round
This table shows each player's cumulative difference between their number of wins and losses after each round. Green backgrounds indicate the player(s) with the highest score after each round. Red backgrounds indicate player(s) who could no longer win the tournament after each round.[f]
First named player is white. 1–0 indicates a white win, 0–1 indicates a black win, and ½–½ indicates a draw. Numbers in parentheses show players' scores prior to the round. Final column indicates opening played, sourced from Lichess.[10]
1 2 Russian players' flags are displayed as the FIDE flag, as FIDE banned Russian and Belarusian flags from FIDE-rated events in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[5]
1 2 Aleksandra Goryachkina finished first in the Women's Chess World Cup 2023, but had already qualified for the Candidates through the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2022–23. She is replaced by Koneru Humpy, who was the highest-rated player on the January 2024 FIDE rating list who had played a minimum of 30 games.
↑ Anna Muzychuk finished second in the Women's Grand Swiss 2023, but she had already qualified for the Candidates through the Women's Chess World Cup 2023. According to the regulations, the second spot for the Candidates via the Women's Grand Swiss was awarded to the highest finisher of the Grand Swiss who had not already qualified (3rd-place finisher Tan Zhongyi).[6]
↑ Players are marked in red if there is no permutation of remaining results that allows them to catch up the tournament leader(s) after remaining rounds.
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Tan Zhongyi 
