The commentators are a couple of Russian masters - one male and one female, as you might expect. The guy has the less impressive English language skills, but he's intelligible most of the time.
This championship is played in a knockout tournament among 64 players. Sort of like March Madness, except the tournament's in Russia in November. Each round is two games, with rapid-play tiebreaks if necessary, up until the final match, which is four games.
The favorite is the incumbent world champ, a Chinese teenager named Hou Yifan. She has a permanent, rather android-like smile which creeps me out for some reason. She also hasn't played particularly well lately, so I've got a hunch she may get bounced out of the tournament somewhere along the way.
A sexist note: a lot of the players are easy on the eyes. So for me it beats watching the male grandmasters for hours at a time.
UPDATE: Well, darned if I wasn't right about Hou Yifan. She got bounced in her second-round match against Monika Socko of Poland, 3-1.
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