The Women's World Chess Championship 2004 took place from May 21 to June 4, 2004 in Elista, Russia. It was won by Antoaneta Stefanova, who beat Ekaterina Kovalevskaya in the final by 2½ to ½.
For the third time, the championship took the form of a 64-player knock-out tournament.
Participants QualifiedList of Qualifiers for Women Chess Championship 2004 FIDE players were seeded by their Elo ratings (on the April 2004 list).
Notable top players not taking part was Judit Polgár (ranked the no. 1 woman in the world - and 9th overall), Xie Jun (ranked 2nd), Zhu Chen (8th), Qin Kanying (14th), Inna Gaponenko (18th) and Sofia Polgar (19th).
Notably, this was the second Women's World Championship in a row in which the reigning champion (in this case Zhu Chen) did not attempt to defend their title.
Qualification paths
WC: Runner-up and semifinalists of Women's World Chess Championship 2001 (3) J: World Junior Champion 2002 R: Rating (average rating of July 2002 and January 2003 rating list was used) (6) E: European Individual Championships 2002 and 2003 (29) AM: American Continental Chess Championship 2003
AS: Asian Chess Championship 2003 (3) AF: African Chess Championship 2003 (3) Z2.1 (3), Z2.2, Z2.3, Z2.4, Z2.5, Z3.1, Z3.2, Z3.3 (2), Z3.5 (4), Z3.6: Zonal tournaments PN: FIDE President nominee (2)
Results Final Match No fourth game was played, as Stefanova led with two points. {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+Women's World Chess Championship Final 2004 |- ! !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! Total |- | align=left | | 0 ||style="background:black; color:white"| 0 || ½ || rowspan=2|—|| ½ |- | align=left | | style="background:black; color:white"| 1 || 1 ||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ || 2½
Bracket
References
External links
Regulations for the 2003-2004 Women's World Chess Championship FIDE Reports by ChessBase