Women's World Chess Championship 2006

The Women's World Chess Championship 2006 took place from March 10–27, 2006 in Ekaterinburg, Russia. For the fourth time, the championship took the form of a 64-player knock-out tournament.

The tournament was won by Xu Yuhua, who beat Alisa Galliamova in the final by 2½ to ½. Notably, Xu Yuhua was three months pregnant at the time.

Participants
The players were seeded by their FIDE Elo ratings of January 2006, except that defending champion Antoaneta Stefanova was the no. 1 seed.

• # 🇧🇬 Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL), 2499, GM (WC)

• # 🇮🇳 Humpy Koneru (IND), 2537, GM (WC)

• # 🇸🇪 Pia Cramling (SWE), 2515, GM (E04)

• # 🇷🇺 Alexandra Kosteniuk (RUS), 2514, GM (R)

• # Maia Chiburdanidze, 2511, GM (WC)

• # 🇨🇳 Xu Yuhua (CHN), 2502, WGM (R)

• # 🇺🇦 Kateryna Lahno (UKR), 2500, IM (E05)

• # 🇨🇳 Zhu Chen (CHN), 2482, GM (R)

• # 🇷🇺 Nadezhda Kosintseva (RUS), 2480, IM (E05)

• # 🇮🇳 Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi (IND), 2479, IM (Z3.2)

• # 🇷🇺 Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS), 2479, IM (E04)

• # 🇵🇱 Monika Soćko (POL), 2475, IM (E04)

• # 🇱🇹 Viktorija Čmilytė (LTU), 2475, IM (E05)

• # 🇨🇳 Zhao Xue (CHN), 2473, WGM (R)

• # 🇨🇳 Qin Kanying (CHN), 2469, WGM (Z3.5)

• # 🇷🇺 Alisa Galliamova (RUS), 2467, IM (R)

• # Yelena Dembo, 2461, IM (E05)

• # 🇫🇷 Almira Skripchenko (FRA), 2461, IM (E05)

• # 🇷🇺 Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (RUS), 2458, IM (WC)

• # 🇦🇲 Lilit Mkrtchian (ARM), 2453, IM (E05)

• # Nana Dzagnidze, 2452, IM (E04)

• # 🇺🇸 Irina Krush (USA), 2447, IM (Z2.1)

• # Lela Javakhishvili, 2444, IM (E05)

• # 🇺🇦 Natalia Zhukova (UKR), 2432, WGM (E04)

• # Nino Khurtsidze, 2430, IM (E05)

• # 🇷🇺 Svetlana Matveeva (RUS), 2428, IM (E05)

• # 🇷🇺 Ekaterina Korbut (RUS), 2427, WGM (J04)

• # Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, 2426, IM (E04)

• # 🇦🇲 Elina Danielian (ARM), 2423, IM (E05)

• # 🇩🇪 Elisabeth Pähtz (GER), 2422, IM (J05)

• # 🇷🇺 Elena Zaiatz (RUS), 2422, IM (E05)

• # 🇵🇱 Iweta Radziewicz (POL), 2421, IM (E05)

• # 🇺🇦 Tatiana Kononenko (UKR), 2417, WGM (E05)

• # 🇫🇷 Marie Sebag (FRA), 2415, IM (E05)

• # Peng Zhaoqin, 2407, GM (E04)

• # Cristina Adela Foișor, 2402, IM (E04)

• # 🇵🇱 Marta Zielińska (POL), 2398, WGM (E05)

• # 🇺🇦 Anna Ushenina (UKR), 2398, WGM (E05)

• # 🇷🇺 Irina Vasilevich (RUS), 2386, IM (E05)

• # 🇨🇳 Wang Yu (CHN), 2385, WGM (AS)

• # 🇨🇳 Shen Yang (CHN), 2380 (Z3.5)

• # 🇷🇺 Irina Slavina-Turova (RUS), 2379, IM (E04)

• # 🇦🇷 Claudia Amura (ARG), 2366, WGM (AM)

• # 🇷🇺 Evgenija Ovod (RUS), 2366, IM (E05)

• # 🇨🇳 Ruan Lufei (CHN), 2361 (Z3.5)

• # 🇨🇺 Sulennis Piña (CUB), 2358, WGM (AM)

• # 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Jovanka Houska (ENG), 2355, IM (E04)

• # 🇦🇷 Carolina Luján (ARG), 2346, WGM (Z2.5)

• # Maka Purtseladze, 2341, IM (E05)

• # 🇰🇿 Dana Aketayeva (KAZ), 2330, WIM (Z3.4)

• # 🇷🇺 Maria Kursova (RUS), 2319, WIM (PN)

• # Atousa Pourkashiyan, 2319, WIM (Z3.1)

• # 🇨🇳 Ju Wenjun (CHN), 2290 (AS)

• # 🇮🇳 Subbaraman Meenakshi (IND), 2289, WGM (AS)

• # 🇦🇺 Irina Berezina-Feldman (AUS), 2285, IM (Z3.6)

• # 🇨🇳 Hou Yifan (CHN), 2269, WFM (Z3.5)

• # 🇨🇺 Maritza Arribas (CUB), 2269, WGM (Z2.3)

• # 🇵🇪 Karen Zapata (PER), 2218, WIM (Z2.4)

• # Hoàng Xuân Thanh Khiết, 2196, WIM (Z3.3)

• # 🇨🇴 Ingris Rivera (COL), 2128 (AM)

• # 🇨🇦 Natalia Khoudgarian (CAN), 2106, WIM (Z2.2)

• # 🇪🇬 Faridah Basta Sohair (EGY), 2083, WIM (AF)

• # Tuduetso Sabure, 2072, WGM (AF)

• # Amina Mezioud, 1978 (Z4.1)

Only two players from the top 20 were absent: Judit Polgár (ranked the no. 1 woman in the world – and 14th overall) who instead took part in the open championship events of 2005 and 2007, as well as Hoang Thanh Trang (ranked 11th).

Qualification paths

 * WC: Women's World Champion, runner-up and semifinalists of Women's World Chess Championship 2004 (4)
 * J04 and J05: World Junior Champions 2004 and 2005
 * R: Rating (average of all published ratings from July 2004 to January 2005 was used) (5)
 * E04 and E05: European Individual Championships 2004 and 2005 (29)


 * AM: American Continental Chess Championship 2005 (3)
 * AS: Asian Chess Championship 2004 (3)
 * AF: African Chess Championship 2005 (2)
 * Z2.1, Z2.2, Z2.3, Z2.4, Z2.5, Z3.1, Z3.2, Z3.3, Z3.4, Z3.5 (4), Z3.6, Z4.1: Zonal tournaments
 * PN: FIDE President nominee

Final match
A fourth game was not played because Xu Yuhua led by two points after game three.
 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! Total
 * +Women's World Chess Championship Final 2006
 * align=left | 🇷🇺 Alisa Galliamova (RUS)
 * 0 ||style="background:black; color:white"| ½ || 0 ||rowspan=2|— || ½
 * align=left | 🇨🇳 Xu Yuhua (CHN)
 * style="background:black; color:white"| 1 || ½ ||style="background:black; color:white"| 1 || 2½
 * }
 * style="background:black; color:white"| 1 || ½ ||style="background:black; color:white"| 1 || 2½
 * }