FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2009–2011

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The FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2009–2011 was a six-tournament series for top women players. It formed part of the qualification for the 2011 Women's World Chess Championship. The overall Grand Prix winner would earn the right to challenge the world champion in late 2011. Hou Yifan, who was the 2010 world champion, won the Grand Prix, but because she already held the title, the runner-up Koneru Humpy earned the challenger spot.

The final event was moved from Santiago, Chile to Doha, Qatar for funding reasons. Eighteen players were chosen to compete, and each player agreed to take part in four of the six events. They ranked their preferred four tournaments once host cities and dates were set.

Each tournament was a 12-player round-robin. Scoring followed standard rules: 1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw, 0 for a loss. Grand Prix points were awarded as 160 for first, 130 for second, 110 for third, and then 90 down to 10 for places four to twelve (decreasing by 10). If players tied on tournament points, they shared the corresponding Grand Prix points. A player counted only her best three results toward the overall standings, and the player with the most points from those three events won the Grand Prix. The events carried €40,000 each, with €60,000 in total for the overall Grand Prix.

There were several changes during the series: some players declined and were replaced by reserves (Antoaneta Stefanova, Tatiana Kosintseva, Maia Chiburdanidze, and Xu Yuhua). Doha replaced Santiago as host city, but a nominee from Santiago stayed in the lineup. Mamedyarova was dropped after the first event and replaced by Baira Kovanova due to the host-city change to Nalchik. Kosintseva could not play in Nanjing, so Ju Wenjun joined as a substitute.

In the end, Hou Yifan won the Grand Prix, but since she was already qualified as world champion, Koneru Humpy, as the runner-up, became the challenger. Humpy’s strong, tied-for-first finish in Doha helped her overtake Nana Dzagnidze for second place in the overall standings.