point margin, while drawing a round was worth 1 match point. Teams were ranked in a table based on match points. Tie-breakers for the table were i) the Sonneborn-Berger system; ii) total game points scored; iii) the sum of the match points of the opponents, excluding the lowest one. Tournament rounds started on 24 September and ended with the final round on 5 October. All rounds started at 15:00 GET (UTC+4), except for the final round which started at 11:00 GET (UTC+4). There was one rest day at the tournament, on 29 September after the fifth round. All dates are GET (UTC+4) Teams and players The Women's event was contested a record number of 151 teams, representing 146 nations. Georgia, as host nation, have fielded three teams, whilst the International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPCA) and the International Chess Committee of the Deaf (ICCD) each provided one team. The women's section featured most of the top players according to the FIDE rating list published in September 2018 with the highest rated female player Hou Yifan and the former Women's World Champion Tan Zhongyi not playing for China. Former Women's World Champions Alexandra Kosteniuk, Anna Ushenina and Mariya Muzychuk are part of their national teams, while Antoaneta Stefanova was not playing because of the controversy with the Bulgarian Chess Federation. Sweden's Pia Cramling, who first played at the Chess Olympiads, was also not playing because of her role about captaincy. The team with highest average pre-tournament rating of 2523 was Russia, who are playing with the same line-up from the Baku Chess Olympiad, including former Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, Alexandra Goryachkina, Valentina Gunina, Natalia Pogonina and Olga Girya. Second strongest team are Ukraine with Anna and Mariya Muzychuk playing on the top two boards, Anna Ushenina, Natalia Zhukova and Iulija Osmak. The defending champions China without Hou Yifan and Tan Zhongyi are the third seeds. The first of the three Georgian teams are also among the favourites with the fourth highest pre-tournament rating. They are playing with Nana Dzagnidze on the top board, Lela Javakhishvili, Nino Batsiashvili, Bela Khotenashvili and Meri Arabidze. Rounds Round 1 As is common in the first round of an olympiad, several of the poorer federations were unable to field teams. Omitted from the pairings were Nigeria, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, Rwanda and Burundi. The favourites did not have serious problems but not all of them were