The winner of the Grand Prix, Hou Yifan, will challenge the 2012 Women's World Chess champion.
18 top world women players were to be selected to compete in these tournaments.
[1][2] Polgár, the highest rated woman in the world, has never competed for the women's title and declined to participate in this cycle as well, so her spot was given to the next player on the average rating list, Viktorija Cmilyte.
[4] With the objective of determining a clear, single winner to play in the Challenger Match and in the case that two or more players have equal cumulative points at the top, the following criteria (in descending order) will be utilized to decide the overall winner: The six tournaments were:[5] Hou Yifan won the Grand Prix with a perfect score culminating with her third sole victory at the fifth Grand Prix in Jermuk and thus qualified her to face Anna Ushenina in the Women's World Chess Championship 2013.
[7] Nino Khurtsidze and Lilit Mkrtchian replaced Alexandra Kosteniuk and Zhu Chen in Jermuk, who had withdrawn their participation.