The world's leading Women's Chess Blog, hosted by the Grandmaster
and Chess Queen™, Reigning 12th World Chess Champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
September 2009 AK Puzzle Contest Winners
Hello everyone!
September is over. It's time to announce the winners of the September Alexandra Kosteniuk Grand-Prix Puzzle Contest.
Out of all the solutions received only 5 solutions were perfectly correct.
Here are the full answers to the puzzles:
The first position is the position of Greco of 1623. Black starts and despite the fact that he doesn't have 2 pawns, makes a draw by playing:
1. ... Ra1+ 2. Rf1 Rxf1+ 3. Kxf1 and now the bishop sacrifice 3. ... Bh3! with the idea to double the pawns on the h file or take the pawn g2 on the next move and after that the draw is unavoidable. Since the h8 square is Black and White has a white-squared bishop, that means that if the Black king will get to the h8 square White will not be able to get him out of the corner and it's a theoretical draw.
The second puzzle is the position from the game Gunsberg - Chigorin of 1890:
Chigorin continued the game with the brilliant move 35. ... Rxf3!! 36. Qxf3 ( If 36. Rh4, then Black has two possibilities to play "36. ... Rg3+ 37. Kxg3 Qxh4 38. Kf3 Qh3+ 39. Kf2 Rf7+ 40. Ke1! Qg3+ 41. Kd1 Rf2 winning the Queen - Chigorin" or to play "36. ... Qxh4 37. Kxf3 Qh3+ 38. Kf2 Qh2+ 39. Ke1 Qg3+ 40. Kd1 Rh1+ 41. Kd2 Rh2 -+ - Kasparov") 36. ... Qd2+ 37. Kg1 Bf2+ ( 37. ... Nd4 was also possible, but 37. ... Rf7 doesn't work here, I got many solutions with this move proposed in view of 38. Qxf7+ Kxf7 39. Rf1+ Kg8 40. Bc1! and Black will be able only to make a draw after Bf2+ 41. Kg2 Qe2 42. Rxf2 Qxg4+ with perpetual) 38. Kf1 Nd4! 39. Bxd4 Qxc1 40. Ke2 Rxh1 41. Bxf2 Qxb1 42. g5 Qf1+, and Gunsberg resigned.
The third puzzle is the corrected version of the study by Gijs van Breukelen. Immediately after publishing this puzzle I got a message on Facebook from Jim Plaskett who pointed out to me that there was a big discussion about this puzzle not so long ago on chessbase.com and I needed to correct this puzzle a little bit by putting the White pawn on h2, so it can work out.
White wins by playing 1. Nf6+ Kg7 (Kh8 2. d8Q+ winning; 1. ...Kg6 2. Bh5+ and 3. d8Q since there is no more fork on f7 possible after Bh5+) 2. Nh5+ Kg6 (2. ... Kf7 3. d8Q) 3. Bc2+! Kxh5 (3. ... Kf7 4. d8Q) 4. d8Q Nf7+ 5. Ke6 Nxd8 6. Kf5! (threatens mate in 2 after Bd1+ and Bxe2#) e2 7. Be4! (threatens Bf3#) e1N 8. Bd5! (threatens Bd5-b3-d1# and the text) c2 9. Bc4 (threatens Be2#) c1N 10. Bb5 (threatens Be8#) Nc7 11. Ba4 (threatens Bd1 with an unstoppable mate) Nc2 12. Bxc2 Ne2 13. Bd1 c4 14. Bxe2#.
Petar Kozarev and Leonard McLaren have also solved the puzzles correctly so they get the Grand-Prix points and still have chances to win the Grand-Prix prize at the end of the year.
Congratulations!!!!
The winners can send me an email with their postal address and the prizes will be shipped out to them!
Soon I will post 3 new October 09 puzzles, get ready!
Below you will find the official press-release with the rules and conditions for all the participants.
Tournament Regulations:
I.Place and date
The tournament will be held in Rixos Hotel, Konya, Turkey from November 30th to December 4th 2009.
II.Tournament’s system
The 1st ACP Women World Rapid Cup will be a Round Robin tournament with twelve participants including
- eight qualifiers from the ACP Women Series:
1. Kosintseva Tatiana
2. Kosteniuk Alexandra
3. Pogonina Natalya
4. Kosintseva Nadezhda
5. Cramling Pia
6. Cmilyte Viktorija
7. Zhukova Natalya
8. Javakhishvili Lela
- three Turkish Chess Federation nominees
- one ACP nominee
Games will be played with the following time control: 20 minutes each at the start of the game with an increment of 5 seconds per move from move 1.
In case of tie for the first place, a tie-break will be played to determine a winner.
III.Players conditions
All players are provided with a full board accommodation at the Rixos hotel, Konya.
All players are provided with a free transfer from/to the Konya airport
All players get a compensation of their travelling expenses up to USD 500.
IV.Prizes
The total prize fund of the event amounts to USD 20,000. Prizes will be distributed as follows:
Winner USD 5,000
2nd place USD 4,000
3rd placeUSD 3,000
4th placeUSD 2,000
5th place USD 1,500
6th place USD 1,000
7th place USD 800
8th place USD 700
9-12 places, eachUSD 500
In case of tie for any place accept the first, prize money will be shared equally.
V.Tournament’s schedule
Nov 30
Arrival
9 p.m. Opening Ceremony
Dec 1
11:30 a.m. 1st round
12:30 a.m. 2nd round
3:00 p.m 3rd round
4:00 p.m. 4th round
Dec 2
11:30 a.m. 5th round
12:30 a.m. 6th round
3:00 p.m 7th round
4:00 p.m.8th round
Dec 3
11:30 a.m. 9th round
12:30 a.m. 10th round
3:00 p.m.11th round
4:30 p.m. tie-break
6 p.m.: Closing ceremony
Dec 4
Departure
VI.Miscellaneous
Games will be played under the current FIDE Rules, with the addition of the ’Corsican rule’ (draw offer is forbidden).
Illegal moves do not lose the game. Nevertheless, each illegal move will be penalized by a 2-minute addition on the opponent’s clock.
In all tie-break games, any illegal move leads to the immediate loss of the game.
Tie-break system.
If two players tie for the first place, a blitz match of 4 games will be played to determine the winner. The time control will be 3 minutes each at the start of the game with an increment of 2 seconds per move from move 1.
If a match ends in a draw, two additional two blitz games will have to be played. The time control will be 3 minutes each at the start of the game with an increment of 2 seconds per move from move 1.
If this tie-break match again ends in a draw (1-1), a last game will have to be played. This final tie-break will consist of a single blitz game where White starts with 5 minutes and needs to win the game in order to win the match (sudden death game). Black, on his part, only needs a draw to win the match, but has only 4 minutes at the start of the game. This final tie-break game will be played without time increment.
If three or more players tie for the first place, a round robin (or double round robin) blitz tournament will be played to determine the winner. An exact format will depend on a number of players and will be announced by the chief arbiter. The time control will be 3 minutes each at the start of the game with an increment of 2 seconds per move from move 1.
I have confirmed my participation to this tournament!
Soviet Chess Legend Kira Alekseevna Zvorykina turns 90 today!
On September 29, 2009, the famous soviet chess player Kira Alekseyevna Zvorykina turns 90(!) years old!
Kira Zvorykina is a woman international grandmaster, international arbiter, 3-times USSR chess champion (1951, 1953 and 1956), 2-times winner of the Chess Olympiads in 1957 and 1963, the winner of the Candidates tournament in 1959, 2-times vice-champion of the world (played 2 final matches in 1959 and 1960 against Elizaveta Bykova).
Kira Alekseyevna was born on September 29, 1919 in Nikolaev (Ukraine). Her great-grandparents were from a very good family. They owned a house in Murom, were quite wealthy and had a very good education . Her grandfather Konstantin Alekseevich Zvorykin was a scientist and has written a work on metallurgy. He was the head of the politechinal institute in Kiev. He had threee children – Peter, Aleksey (the father of Kira) and Kozma.
In 1924 the Zvorykin’s family moved to Leningrad. Everbody in the Zvorykin’s family loved to play chess and it was their favorite past-time. But since they only had one chess-set for 9 people home chess tournaments always took a very long time to finish. Most of all Kira liked to play with her father, who was an expert chess player. One day Kira managed to beat him and he suggested that Kira to go to a chess club to learn to play chess better.
Since in 1918 Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin emigrated from Russia and left to live and work to the US, Kira Zvorykin’s family faced a very tragic destiny. Her father Aleksey, the main engineer and constructor of the ships for the USSR Sea Frontier-Guard, was arrested, named “enemy of the people” and sent to prison in 1928 and was only rehabilitaded in 1964.
After her father's arrest their family was labeled a "traitor of Motherland family members" and that meant that the mother with a good educational degree couldn't find a decent job and had to work as a washwoman in order to be able to feed her 7 children.
So the childhood of Kira Alekseyevna was very far from a bright and happy childhood that one may dream of.
Despite all the problems that her family needed to go over, as Kira herself says "all these obstacles only made our family stronger".
She didn’t like to study chess very much but once by coincidence went to the legendary Palace of Young Pioneers' Chess Club in Leningrad that was led Peter Romanovsky. She started taking chess classes from him regularly. Here is 1937 Kira’s win over the second women’s world chess champion-to be Liudmila Rudenko:
Liudmila Rudenko - Kira Zvorykina, Leningrad, 1937:
In 1937 she became the Leningrad Schoolgirl Champion and also began studying at the Institute of Cinematography. When the Second World War started her institute was evacuated to Alma-Aty where she didn’t have any time to partice chess and got back to it only when the Second World War was over.
Kira Alekseyevna came back to chess by coincidence. Once her friend Valya Belova came to visit her and brought many delicious things like ham, cacao and so on. In the after-war years it was a real rarity. Soon Kira found out that all these tasteful things her friend got by a special card that was given to her as the city’s champion. Before the war Kira always took over Belova in their direct encounters and so Zvorykina decided to start playing chess again. She started to work with Semen Furman who later became the trainer of Anatoly Karpov. And that’s how the chess career of Kira Alekseyevna Zvorykina started.
After a few years of training and tournaments in 1951 Kira Alekseyevna became the USSR women’s chess champion.
Zvorykina married chess grandmaster and trainer Alexey Suetin and in 1952 their son Aleksandr was born. That’s why she didn't play in the 1952 USSR chess championship.
In 1952 the USSR chess federation let the leading women's chess players compete in the quarterfinals of the USSR chess championships. Kira often played in men's tournaments. Here is a photo of her playing against none other than Mikhail Tal:
In 1953, Zvorykina became the USSR chess champion again.
(From left to right: Eduard Gufeld, Kira Zvorykina, Mikhail Tal and general Shevtsov)
Kira Alekseyevna had a chance to work with great chess trainers of her times such as Romanovsky, Furman, Konstantinopolsky, Boleslavsky. Maybe that's why despite her late start in chess she managed to rise to the top of the women's chess.
Her greatest success occurred in Plovdiv at the Women's Candidates Tournament of 1959, when victory over a strong field earned her a match with reigning Women's World Champion Elizaveta Bykova for the title.
She wasn't very succesful in the matches for the world title. In December 1959 she lost her match against Elizaveta Bykova. In the 1960 match Kira lost to Bykova again with the score 4½–8½.
Representing the Soviet Union at the Chess Olympiads of 1957 (Emmen) and 1963 (Split), Zvorykina produced two sparkling, medal-winning performances. On the first Olympiad, on the second board she scored 12 points out of 14, securing both individual and team gold. In 1963 she scored an impressive 5½ out of 6, helping the team to win another gold medal.
Kira Zvorykina not only played chess and was active in tournaments and matches she also ran a chess school and was a dictor of a chess TV program. She still takes part in veteran chess tournaments.
Kira Zvorykina with Nona Gaprindashvili
Here is her win over the third women's world chess champion Elizaveta Bykova, this game was played in 1955.
Kira Zvorykina - Elizaveta Bykova, XVII USSR women's chess championship, 1955
When this August I visited the Olga Rubtsova memorial in Moscow, Kira Alekseyevna was one of the participants of this tournament.
Kira Alekseyevna is second on the left, standing just behind me, Moscow, August 2009
She played and fought in every game! After the tournament I agreed to make an interview with her and when I came to visit her I was charmed by this lady. Kira Alekseyevna has a very sharp sense of humor, she was telling me so many funny stories of her life with such enthusiasm that I could only say that I'm very happy and honored to succeed her in Russian chess.
From the bottom of my heart on this day I wish Kira Alekseyevna health, happiness and many more wins over the chess board!
Today I received the following email from Sune de Toit from South Africa. I've been to the same situation many times when I was a little girl. So if you can please help this little girl to make her dream come true!
"Dear Reader / To Whom it may concern"
Chess is not one of the major sport codes in South-Africa and relies on individual businesses to financially assist our SA Champions to compete at this level. It would be unfortunate if these talented, hard-working Junior Chess Champions were to be denied this opportunity due to a lack of finances.
I am appealing to you for financial support and assistance or long-term sponsorship to be able to reach for the stars, to be the best I can in 2010- World Youth Chess Championships - Greece.
Please, have it in your heart and be so kind to read through my curriculum vitae.
Kind Regards
Suné du Toit
Parents: Engela and Gys du Toit
Cell nr : 0832906002
Engeladut@vodamail.co.za
C.V.
My name is Suné du Toit, I am 11 years old.
I am Afrikaans speaking. I am a scholar in Elarduspark primary School in Pretoria and in Gr 5.
SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
I enjoy school with all the activities very much. I enjoy drama, eisteddfod, public speaking, playing in the school’s orchestra, learning the shofar, and reading a lot because it learns me being presentable, being able to handle myself in a crowd, being marketable and having something, someone admiring me for.
MY FAVOURITE SPORT:
Netball is my favourite sport that keeps me fit and healthy.
OTHER ACTIVITIES:
Photography, swimming, being in nature, spending time with my family, friends and animals.
MY FAVOURITE MINDGAME:
CHESS is my favourite mind game. Chess is a competitive game played between two players.
Today, chess is one of the world’s most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, in tournaments and informally.
I love playing friendly with my dad; he was my coach when I start playing chess at the age of 6 years.
I have a deep passion for chess and works hard to promote my beloved sport and to be the best I can.
I am holding on to the key to be an ambassador for my country and good chess player – hard word, practice every day, discipline and focusing.
THE VULUABILITY OF CHESS
Chess stimulates the whole brain thinking; enhance emotional development, bringing children together.
Children become more confident and learn to take responsibility for their actions.
Chess empower children to success and helping them to grow one step at a time, just like the pawn in chess. Chess plays a symbolic role in art and literature.
I love reading books about chess – Alice in wonderland (Lewis Carroll), Wizard Chess (Harry Potter series), Checkmate – a Ballet (Arthur Bliss), Chess – musical (Tim Rice).
At the Women’s Open Chess Championships I have met the lead actor, lead singer, CITO from the pop group Wonder boom who played the part of Bobby Fisher in “Chess the musical”
MY DREAM:
My dream is to be the best I can, to be happy in what I am doing and to enjoy Chess as for the game it is. I want to be one of the best female chess players in the world.
Every young child loves the opportunity to play for their country and I AM ONE OF THEM.
U13 girls, Selected for the Gauteng Individual Chess team
Participitation December 2009
2009 - Top U/12 girl Gauteng North Junior Chess
2009 –Selected to be part of the Gauteng North team
(Provincial colours)
- U/12A Team, will participate December 2009 in Cape
Town, University of Cape Town
2009 - Board one player for Elarduspark Primary School in Pretoria
- Top School winners (2008)
2009 - Represent SA at an International tournament in SA against
Namibia and other schools.
2009 – Women’s open- Woodlands Shopping centre
Playing against Melissa Greeff – South Africa ’s
Women’s International Chessmaster
2008 - Board one player for Elarduspark Primary School
Girls team- Gauteng Top School winners selected to participate and represent SA at an International Tournament 2009
2008 - Represent S.A. in Vietnam at the World Youth Chess
Championships.
2008 - My selection to be part of the team going to St Lo, France 2009, (due to financial difficulties I couldn’t go)
2008 –selected to be part of the Gauteng North -
Team (provincial colours)
2007 – Selected to be part of the WP team (provincial colours)
2007 - My selection to be part of the team of junior champions to represent SA at the World Youth Championships to be held in Vietnam (19-31 October 2008)
2007 - I have met Jennifer Shahade at the Women’s Open,
Womens’s Grandmaster, from America The Crest Centre, Midrand
2007 - I participate in a simultaneous with Hungarian Grandmaster,
Demitri Reimitri Reinderman and South Africa ’s
International Master, Watu Kobese
MY FAVOURITE CHESSPLAYERS:
Jennifer Shahade
- a Two-time American Women Chess Champion, promoting women chess worldwide. Jennifer Shahade is a Women’s Grand-master, coach, writer and two-time American Women’s Chess Champion (2002, 2004). She has given inspirational talks and lessons all over the world, including an all girls’ school in Soweto, South Africain 2007.
Susan Polgar - a Hungarian- American chess player, one of the strongest female players ever. She made history in 1986 by being the first ever female player to qualify to compete in the Men’s World Chess Championship.
Alexandra Kosteniuk - an International Woman Grandmaster (WGM) (1998) and an International Master among men (IM) (2000). During the FIDE Congress in Calvia (2004). She was awarded the title of Grandmaster (Men), thus she became the 10th woman in the whole history of chess who got this title. Her dad, Konstantin Vladimirovich – taught her to play chess when she was 5 years old.
Anzel Solomon’s from South Africa.
Best WP Women Player in 2008 (Women international Master). Drew with the Women’s world Champion GM Xu Yuhua when she represented SA at the Women’s World Championship in Russia in September 2008. Board one for SA at the Dresden Olympiad in November 2008.
MY COACH:
Watu Kobese, from Waterkloof Academy in Pretoria.
International Master (IM) Watu Kobese coaches about 50 students at the Waterkloof Academy chess centre/ School for young stars
MY MOTO:
I am a girl in the Chess world, dominated by boys with lots of intimidation.
It is not always easy to play with a boy as opponent but I am emotionally strong enough to play a strong and good game – win or loose.
I believe in myself and know that God will protect me in the World of Chess.
Loose or Win …I will be back the next round.
SPECIAL THOUGHT:
“Chess is about the mind, how you think, it’s not about what you looks like or how you dress.
The minds makes chess a level playing field, you’re all equals here…” - Richard Mason in Knights of the South Bronx .
“Chess is always a battle, a battle of beautiful ideas.
That is what I loved about chess, you don’t get a black eye, and you legs don’t get busted.
You learn how to trust your mind. In life you get much further with your mind, than your fist…..” - David Mac Enult
As the organizers say during this event one will be able to find everything that he/she can be interested in, from exciting games to Jazz concert.
On October 3 the defending women's chess champion Anna Zatonskih will give a blindfolded simultaneous exhibition on 5 boards! About more exciting events during the championship, visit this page - http://main.uschess.org/content/view/9703/554/
The championship games start Oct. 4, and will be played at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, 4657 Maryland Ave., St. Louis. The round-robin format means that all players face each other once over nine playing days. The final playing day, Oct. 13, will include a tiebreaker game, if necessary, to determine a winner. All games are open to the public. For more information, call the Chess Club at 314-361-2437. The tournament is sanctioned by the U.S. Chess Federation.
The tournament chair of the US women's chess championship Jennifer Shahade just came out with the 8th episode of the US chess scoop that features women's chess. You can watch it below.
St. Christopher's by-the-Sea School in Key Biscayne
Hello my friends!
My family and I recently moved to the wonderful island of Key Biscayne. It's a very quiet and peaceful island with a beautiful lighthouse. This island is sometimes called the island paradise. The Sony Ericsson Open takes place every Spring here, and people are trying to be in shape, so everywhere you can see everybody doing exercise.
There are many schools on our island. I was invited today to make a chess presentation to the St. Christopher’s by-the-Sea Montessori School, where starting at the beginning of this year a chess club was created. So I came to visit this school and gave 5 presentation lessons from Pre-Kindergarten to Upper Elementary.
Everybody had a very good time, even the smallest kids were very interested about hearing about the game of chess.
I was not the only one to visit the kids, a very special visitor from the Chess Kingdom came to meet the children as well, my little assistant the Queen puppet. And the kids liked her very much.
My puppet's name is Her Majesty the Queen, and she told the kids many interesting things about Chess and the Chess Kingdom. What surprised me a lot that in every class I asked where the White Queen is supposed to start the game. And in every class I got the answer "White" and when I asked "Why?", the answer was "Because she is White, she likes her color"! And these kids didn't even know all the rules of the game!
The older students enjoyed a "more serious" approach to the topic. But they also took a very active part in the lesson.
So I was very happy that everything went so well. And I hope to hear more news about these kids since with such interest and enthusiasm there is a great potential for the chess club to have many talented young chess players.
After these lessons I went to pick-up my my daughter from Pre-School (isn't it amazing how time flies?) and we went together to the grocery store.
Don't you think that we look alike? ;)
To end this post here is a small combination from one of my blitz-games for you to solve:
Black just played 24. ... h5, what is the strongest move for White right now?
Wayne Mendryk let me know that the following ladies have applied to get titles at the 80th FIDE Congress 2009 (October 11-18,2009, in Halkidiki, Greece):
Male GM Title:
Tatiana Kosintseva (on the photo) has applied to get the Male Grandmaster Title. Her rating is 2536, which is over the required 2500.
Woman Grand Master Title (WGM):
Ju,Wenjun Country: China Current Rating: 2454, Birthday: 1991 FIDE ID# 8603006
October 2009 is approaching and so my very intense chess schedule will soon start. On the first of October I will fly to Europe where I will play and participate in the following competitions and events:
Immediately after the end of the Eurocup I will go to Halkidiki (Greece) for the 80th FIDE Congress which will take place from October 12 till October 18.
In between very important meetings in Halkdiki, on October 14 I will fly for one day to Athens where a big chess festival will take place and I will give a simul there.
I will come back from Athens to Halkidki on October 15th and will take part in the Presidential Board meeting of FIDE on October 16 and 17.
On October 18 I will fly to Moscow, from where together with my team of Russia I will fly to Novi Sad (Serbia) to the European Team Chess Championship on October 21.
After this championship I will come back to Miami in order to spend some time with my daughter and to prepare for even more exciting November where I will take part in the World Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow and in the World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiisk.
Of course I won't forget to tell you the answers to my September puzzle contest and will announce the winners of this month just before flying to Europe on October 1. And of course I will post 3 new puzzles for the October puzzle contest.
That's quite a busy schedule, don't you think so?
And to finish this post here is a small combination from one of my today's blitz-games:
Black just played 22. ... Qe5?? what is the best continuation for White right now?
Today FIDE announced the final schedule of the Women's FIDE Grand-Prix Series for 2009/10. There is one such Grand-Prix tournament left in 2009 and there will be 4 more Grand-Prix in 2010. Together with these tournaments I started a special table for open, closed, FIDE and all types of tournaments in 2010. The same table for the year 2009 you can found here.
There are quite a few great tournaments to keep us women chess players busy, practically all year long. Women also have the advantage to be allowed to also play in men's tournaments, which can be of a very high level and can be useful to get grandmaster practice.
Below are just the main starts for 2010 women-only tournaments, the dates of which I found on-line. If you know the dates of other chess events of if you are organizing a women's chess tournament, please feel free to let me know by entering a comment in this post and I will include your event in this calendar.
PLEASE HELP ME IMPROVE WOMEN'S CHESS IN THE WORLD!
Hello all!
The FIDE 80th Annual Congress will be held in the period from October 11th to 18th in Kallithea, Halkidiki, Greece. I am a member of the FIDE Presidential Board and so I have been invited to participate.
During this Congress many important meetings will take place. The chairmen and the members of each commission will meet and discuss the ways to work and to cooperate in the future (to see the schedule of these meetings click on the image below).
One of these commission is the Commission for Women's Chess (WOM). As I am the co-chairman of this commission I'd like to make sure that we discuss and go over the main issues in women's chess in order to make it more popular and better for women's chess players. For that I will need help from all of you. If you have any questions, ideas, projects on women's chess and you want these ideas to be discussed in the following Congress please let me know either my writing an email, or leaving a comment in this post, you can also leave me a message in Facebook or Twitter.
I believe that if we work together, we can do a lot of good things for chess in general and for women's chess in particular.
Yesterday I got an email from Janet Newton (Jan), here is what she wrote:
"Dear Alexandra,
Here is an update on the 89th Montreal Open Chess Championship held in Montreal, Quebec September 11 - 13, 2009.
Early in June I read about this tournament. As you know, one of our goals is to promote more chess femmes to play in local tournaments and this one seemed ideal for our purposes. Not too big and not too small, and in Don McLean's hometown. Don is an original founder of Goddesschess and its long-standing webmaster.
We made our offer to fund some prizes for the female players in the B, C and D classes, and our communication had an unexpected result. We received a "yes, thank you", which we hoped we would, but our offer, coming out of the blue, so it seemed to the organizers, had the effect of energizing everyone involved in putting the 89th Championnat together!
New ideas were cooking! The organizers decided upon an intense effort to attract as many female players as possible and also scholastic level players. New initiatives were started -- Early on, Goddesschess was approached for and agreed to provide funds to assist in this endeavor. You and your website became involved when a request was made for your assistance in getting the word out to WGMs who might be interested in appearing at the Championnat. The organizers were determined!
Goddesschess was not involved directly in the process of finding a WGM who would come to Montreal to play in the Championnat, but the organizers kept us informed on developments. Ultimately, WGM Salome Melia (GEO 2441), who read about the Championnat's quest for a WGM at your chessblog.com, was decided upon and the organizers kicked into high gear! Would she be able to get the paperwork processed to get a visa in time? Everyone was on pins and needles!
It was a happy ending after much suspense. WGM Melia arrived on time. The organizers had made all arrangements to provide for the WGM's comfort, including providing a place to stay, meals, and showing her many of the wonderful sights and attractions that Montreal offers when she stayed some days after the conclusion of the Championnat. They also arranged for WGM Melia to play a simul at a popular local chess cafe, Pi.
So, you see, Alexandra, that you and your chessblog.com played an important role in bringing the Championnat and WGM Melia together.
Don McLean was onsite all three days of the Championnat and took over 100 photographs and several videos. They can be found here.
The organizers' efforts to attract more chess femmes met with great success! In all, 19 females registered and 17 actually played in the 89th Championnat. This was about 10% female participation rate, out of 191 players. In the 88th Championnat, approximately 5% of the players were chess femmes. The 191 players was also the highest participation in the Championnat since many years ago!
WGM Melia was the second highest rated player at the Tournament, and she performed excellently, finishing in 2nd place overall in the Open with 4.0/5. She won the title, an old Championnat tradition that was revived this year, as Female Champion of Montreal.
Here is a summary of the final standings of the winners in the Open and Class sections, and all of the chess femmes who played:
Class A:
1 Hebert, Jean MI 2418 +32 +14 +5 +11 =2 4½ 1300,00
I understand that the organizers asked the participants in the Championnat to fill out and turn in a survey, and many complied. I do not know the particulars of the survey, but I was told that there was overwhelming support from all of the players, young and old, female and male, for another Championnat next year just like this year's. Don McLean quoted one of the fathers of a young chess femme who was playing in the Class C section, "by adding flowers (women and children) to the trees, (chess kings and princes) something quite precious and magical was discovered."
I have also been told that for the 90th Championnat, the organizers will not settle for anything less than 20% female participation!
I did many posts about the action at the 89th Championnat at the goddesschess blog and Don McLean also posted information and links at the goddesschess."
:-)))))
I'm very glad to hear that my blog helped Montreal to find a strong WGM and I hope that one day this blog will be the leading portal for women's chess player and tournament organizers. I believe that if we work together and cooperate, our efforts will allow many more people to learn about our wonderful game and there will be more women's chess events, and ultimately more women will play chess.
Here is the latest news about the women's tournaments that are taking place right now or will start still in September.
From September 18, 2009 to September 26, 2009 the Inventi Chess tournament is taking place in Antwerp, Belgium. Among the participants are two ladies: Antoaneta Stefanova (2535) and Anna Muzychuk (2542).
The other players of this tournament are: Etienne Bacrot (2709), Gabriel Sargissian (2678), Emil Sutovsky(2676), Krishnan Sasikiran (2661), Bartosz Socko (2637), David Howell (2624), Jan Timman (2588) and Bart Michiels (2451). Today the first round was played and both Stefanova and Muzychuk won their games.
Below is the position from the game Jan Timman - Antoaneta Stefanova. White just played 24. Bxf4 what is the strongest move for Black now?
There are two wonderful photo reports by GM Ye Rongguang of the recent women's world team chess championship that took place from September 1 to September 12 in Ningbo, China,
have been published on www.chessbase.com, you can watch them here and here. Above you can see a very nice portrait of Nadezhda Kosintseva.
The Serbian Women's Chess League is taking place in Pozarevac, from September 14 to September 22nd, 2009. After 8 rounds the chess club BAS is leading with Bojkovic Natasa (2429), Gaponenko Inna (2438) Vasilevich Tatjana (2423) Stojanovic Andjelija (2323) and Drljevic Ljilja (2207). The full results and team-compositions can be found here.
The First Teller Ede Memorial Chess Tournament will be held from September 24th to October 5, 2009 in Paks, Hungary. The following women are playing in this event: WGM Majdan Joanna 2382 POL, IM Vajda Szidónia 2375 HUN, WGM Gara Tícia 2354 HUN, WGM Doluhanova Evgeniya 2327 UKR, WGM Kochetkova Julia 2310 RUS, WIM Toth Lili 2172 HUN. Average rating: 2320 Category: 3. The official tournament website is http://www.ase.hu/marxgy/2009/
The 2nd Fide Women Grand Prix event is going to take place in Nanjing, China from September 27-October 9,2009. Here is the list of the participants of this event: Zhao, Xue (2544), Ju, Wenjun (2443), Dzagnidze, Nana (2536), Sebag Marie (2531) Xu, Yuhua (2485) Zhu, Chen (2473), Mrktchian, Lilit (2467), Shen, Yang (2453), Batkhuyag, Munguntuul (2412), Kovanova, Baira (2406), Fierro, Martha (2394), Yildiz, Betul (2217).
So there are many interesting events and there will be even more this autumn. As usual autumn is the golden time for chess players and fans.
Special thanks to my friend from Canada Wayne Mendryk for letting me know about some events and sending me links and all the info. :)
On this day September 17, exactly one year ago, in Nalchik, Russia, after incredibly tense non-stop 3 weeks of competition, I drew the last game of the final match in the Women's World Chess Championship against the Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan. The final score of the match was 2,5 to 1,5 in my favor, and I thus became the 12th Women's World Chess Champion in the history of the game.
It was a most special day for me. There are no words that can describe the way I felt after the final match was over. It was a moment of utmost happiness and it's such a pleasure today to look back and to recall that day.
One year has passed and during this year I wrote a book "Diary of a Chess Queen" that just came out in Russian and will come out in English on December 1 (it can be preordered with free autograph, Christmas delivery guaranteed). I also created a special DVD about "How I became the 12th women's world chess champion" where I analyze all my games of the Nalchik championship in great detail and in video. You can watch comments to one of my games from the very tense third round against my compatriot Tatiana Kosintseva in the video below. My DVD contains both all my games played and a long version of the documentary, over 4 hours of video in total. Entertaining and at the same time extremely useful chess training.
I dedicated the victory in this championship to my daughter Francesca but I must also thank my husband, Diego and my family - my dad, my mom and my sister Oxana. Thank to all these people I became today who I am and I'm very grateful to them for their love, support and patience.
Kosteniuk to play in World Blitz Chess Championship 2009 in Moscow
The blitz chess world championship will take place on November 16 - 18, 2009 right in the heart of Moscow in the GUM department store (Kremlin Square, 3).
I'm very happy that I will play in such strong tournament and I'm really looking forward to it! It will be by far the strongest chess tournament in which I will have played, and I am preparing for it already now.
If you want to see some of my commented blitz chess videos (I comment the games as they go on), go to my YouTube channel called "Chessqueen" www.youtube.com/chessqueen . The videos are entertaining and very instructive.
Chess Queen Program at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart
Hello to all!
After 3 weeks of traveling in Russia, I'm back to Miami again.
Yesterday, September 15, I had the tremendous pleasure to start my chess program at the Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami. I had two presentation lessons for the Montessory-Primary girls and their parents and Intermediate and Junior High students and their parents. Everybody, including myself, was very excited. There is a special and wonderful atmosphere in the school, there are so many girls who are motivated in getting the best education, I immediately felt at home among them.
Here are a few words about Carrollton: "Sacred Heart education is a formation for life. Knowing that life is filled with joy and with sorrow, with challenges and with blessings, what education will most effectively prepare students for the future? We think it's a life rooted in prayer and values. We are convinced that the quality of the future depends on the choices to be made by well-educated, thinking, confident people. We want our students to become such leaders. Nothing short of excellence in their education will prepare them to assume such leadership."
My dream is one day to lead a scholastic team of young girls to victory in a national chess competition, and to have my team be called the "Chess Queens"!
I hope that learning chess will help these wonderful girls in becoming better, disciplined and motivated young ladies.
As a continuation to my recent post about blindfold chess today I found an interesting video where Mikhail Tal is giving a simultaneous exhibition on 10 boards. It's in Russian, but even if you don't understand Russian you can read the article with translation on chessbase.com:
Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com
The women's world chess championship 2009 came to its end. After a very exciting last round, where China could only achieve a draw against the outsider of the tournament, the team of Vietnam. Russia, after winning 3-1 against China-2, caught up China by match points. Ukraine after a very dramatic match by some miracle also managed to win their match against Armenia 2,5 to 1,5 and also caught up China by match points.
So 3 teams shared first place by match points - China, Russia and Ukraine, both with 12 match points. But individual team points are decisive. So China took gold with 21,5 points. Russia won silver medals with 21 points and Ukraine took bronze medals with 20,5 points. The full table of results can be found here.
The best player of the championship according to points and to the percentage was Russia's Valentina Gunina (on the photo below) with 6,5 points out of 8 (81,3%).
The best player of the championship according to perfomance was Russia's Nadezhda Kosintseva (on the photo below) with a perfomance of 2608!
Congratulations to the teams and all the players for a very interesting and hard-fought championship!
Chessblog.com News: HHCF West Coast King & Queens Tournament
Hello to all cool people!
Today in my Twitter feed, I noticed that @hiphoppress made a post about a coming chess tournament with the nice name "Kings & Queens". That's great and I am pleased to relay the info to you, too. A great combination Chess & Hip-Hop, that makes both elements way cooler!
Rappers & Martial Artists Gather to Empower the Youth
Sept. 1oth 2009, San Francisco, CA- The Hip-Hop Chess Federation is proud to announce the West Coast Kings & Queens Tournament. The Hip-Hop Chess Federation is the world's first organization to fuse music, chess and martial arts to promote unity, strategy and non-violence. There will be a traditional rated chess tournament, people can learn chess basics, watch graffiti art battles, b-boy ciphers, celebrity chess matches, martial arts exhibitions, prize giveaways and more! It all takes place Oct. 10th 2009 at John O'Connell High School from 9AM to 6PM at 2355 Folsom St. @ 19th in San Francisco, Ca. ADMISSION IS FREE FOR ALL AGES.
Celebrity guests inculde Rakaa Iriscience from Dilated Peoples, rap legend Ray Luv, Traxamillion, Casual from Hieroglyphics, Balance and Big Rich, Conscious Daughters, T-KASH, DLabrie and others to be announced. The event will be DJ'ed by KMEL Street Soldiers DJ Malcolm Marshall. There will also be a special All Queens Life Strategies Panel where Concious Daughters, Jean Hoffman of 9 Queens and other prominent business women will discuss how young girls can step forward with positivity and confidence into the future.
"It was time for the HHCF to do something specifically to celebrate the power and impact of the artists from the west coast," said HHCF founder and CEO Adisa Banjoko. "We always provide safe, family friendly environments for people to discover their true potential in life and have fun. All of the artists in attendance have a proven track record not only of being raw, but in giving back to the communities they come from. We're honored and humbled to have them all in attendance."
"We are enthusiastic and grateful to all the celebrities, kids and educators coming together for the Kings & Queens Tournament," said Banjoko. "This organization has been hurt badly by the failing economy. Yet by forging strong strategic alliances we're still pushing ahead. These are tough times for many of America's youth. Nevertheless the HHCF remains unflinching in our goal to share the countless educational and artistic life options for them in this world. We are grateful for all the rappers, chess masters and martial artists who have donated their time to teaching kids healthy alternatives to violence on the streets. Since our explosive beginning there have been many imitations, but there is only one Hip-Hop Chess Federation! See you all there."
Partners for the West Coast Kings & Queens Tournament are Bay Area Chess and WuChess.com. Other sponsors include JW Foundation, 9 Queens, www.thechesspiece.com, www.thechessdrum.net, 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu SF, www.mikerelm.com, Heroes Martial Arts and Upper Playground. For more information on how to participate visit www.hiphopchess.blogspot.com
We had a great August Chess Puzzle Contest, with over 100 answers, and 3 winners, which will soon be receiving their prizes (I will mail them the day after I come back from my travels).
Now it's time for the September Puzzle Contest and 3 more interesting puzzles of the Alexandra Kosteniuk GRAND-PRIX CHESS PUZZLE CONTEST. As usual till the end of this month you can send me your solutions by email. On the 1st of October I will announce 3 winners who sent me the most complete and correct solutions.
For those of you who missed the August Contest I remind that from August 2009 on, once a month here on www.chessblog.com I will give you 3 chess puzzles to solve, ranging in difficulty from easy to difficult. They will be challenging and interesting for everyone. I hope you will try to solve them on your own without help from the computer. At the end of each month I will announce 3 winners who will get 3 chess prizes (1 for each).
At the end of this year, on December 31, 2009 I will announce the Grand-Prize winner who will get the top chess prize. The Grand-Prize winner will be determined by the number of times participated, and of course the maximum number of correct answers.
The more you participate in my puzzle contests, the more chances you will have to win, and of course solving my puzzles will be useful to you and will help you improve at chess.
Please answer only by email and not putting the solution in the comments to this post, give a chance to everyone to enjoy solving the problem on their own. And in the email, please mention whole variations to the end, do not only give the first move, special credit will go for completeness of the solution. When several variations are present, write them all. And please write as the subject of the email September Puzzle Contest. Good luck!
•Chessdom.com, for giving us front-page publicity on its website the day before our match began, and their private kind words of support and encouragement.
•Current Women's World Chess Champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk for her kind words and the publicity she provided to us at her chessblog.com.
•Chessville - who began it all with an article published on June 23, 2009 from sometimes columnist JanXena :)
•Kelly Atkins a/k/a Chessdaddy (whom I met eons ago at the message board now affiliated with Chessville), who volunteered to be my coach, despite knowing what a difficult femme I am - kiss my foot, Chessdaddy! He tried hard to whip me into shape, and I resisted every step of the way :) Despite his own fully-booked family and work schedule, he found time somehow to teach me some good stuff, and I found his analysis of Game 2 invaluable - not in preparing for Game 3, but in providing a template for patterns in my own play. I'm going to study that game a lot more.
•Laura and Dan Sherman of Your Chess Coach, who spent a lot of hours with me via email and on the telephone giving me pointers on how to play and analysis of two of my prior "practice" games from redhotpawn.com. I cannot tell you how much I learned from that time on the telephone with Dan, wow! Dan, I was even able to use "c3" in my game today - and it worked just as you said it would :) Unfortunately, I blew the game, but not because of that move. Laura, thanks for that sweet supporting shoulder to cry on!
•Don McLean, my long-suffering fiance. He's not keen on playing chess - and neither had I been until I cooked up this Chess Challenge for Charity with Shira a few months ago. Mr. Don indulged me and while he was here a few weeks ago for my 58th birthday (we were going to Las Vegas to celebrate with our friends) he willingly played four games to help me with my training. Two here at the house, and one each to and from Las Vegas. I love you with all my heart, mon homme, and I'm soooo glad I won that game at 35,000 feet flying back from Las Vegas :)
•Phil Innes and Rob Mitchell. Your enthusiasm at the beginning of this "project" was invigorating and inspirational. Rob, thanks for the practice games :)
Shira, I hate you! LOL! I hate you so much I donated $100 to your Cause at Facebook. I hope this will spur some donations.
Interest in the Chess Challenge for Charity was high. Traffic at this blog where I did daily updates on the Challenge games increased substantially over average. Thank you all for your support!
Donations to Shira's Foundation are 100% tax deductible to qualifying taxpayers and the Foundation accepts donations in cash and in kind - that is, if you have a working in good order laptop you'd like to donate, you can contact Shira at the Foundation for further information. If your laptop is accepted by the Foundation, you get to write off its value as a charitable deduction.
Shira and I are very sorry that our plan for playing "live" games did not work out. Neither of us realized that the live play interface at chess.com is a "beta" model still a work in progress, prone to malfunctions. Oy! We are sorry that anyone who wanted to follow along with our play was not able to do so while we were playing them. You missed all of our sparkling repartee :)
A summary of the action over the past several days:
In tribute to Chessdaddy's hard work on my behalf, I post his analysis of my Game 2:
Event "Online Chess"] [Site "Chess. com"] [Date "2009. 09. 06"] [Round "1"] [White "JanXena"] [Black "shirae"] [Result "0–1"] [WhiteElo "979"] [BlackElo "1421"] No time control we played in real time but without clocks game lasted about hours] [Termination "shirae won by resignation"] 1.d4 d6 2.e4 e5 3.Be3 Not a blunder by any means, but it is fundamentally wrong as it is way too passive & defensive instead of using White's advantage of having the first move to maintain the initiative and create threats. Be3 just gives Black equality and hands the initiative to her. Nf3 or dxe5 were better. 3...Be7 4.Nf3 Bg4 5.d5 [5.dxe5 Bxf3 (5...dxe5 6.Qxd8+ Bxd8 7.Nxe5 and you've won a pawn, have a big lead in development and a much better position.) 6.Qxf3 dxe5 with a nice lead in development.] 5...f5 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 f4 8.Bd2 you're still in good shape here, but your dark-squared bishop has been pushed back to an ineffective square and will have a hard time getting active - on reason putting it on e3 wasn't so hot. OTOH, Black has gained some space and pushed the bishop away, but has really opened up her kingside 8...Nf6 9.Bd3 Again, not a blunder, but putting a piece on a square where it's ineffective and unlikely to have any scope. Remember, the opening is not just about developing pieces, but developing them to effective squares, anticipating what they'll be able to do from those squares, developing them to work with the rest of your pieces, etc. It's also about creating threats and causing your opponent problems she must address that compromise her position. If you really want to castle short and needed to get that bishop out of the way in order to do so, putting it on e2 to back up the queen, have access to the more open d1–h5 diagonal, and not be staring into the back of one of your blocked center pawns would've been better.Here, you needed to do some planning and assess the future of the game. With Black being very open on the kingside, she likely won't (or at least shouldn't) castle to that side. Also, with Black having penetrated to f4 with a supported pawn, you are gonna need to bust that up or suffer a very cramped position and be vulnerable to attack if you castle there. A rule of thumb is to attack in the direction your center pawns are pointing, meaning Black is probably going to have better attacking chances on the kingside and you on the queenside. Since Black is gonna need to castle long and you are gonna be vulnerable on the kingside, you should too, and all this means that if you both castle long, you should have the better attacking chances against your opponent's king. This also means you can afford to play g3 in the near future and start busting up Black's advanced pawns on the kingside. Moves like Nc3, Rg1, or g3 were better than Bd3. This is a good position to learn how to evaluate and assess and plan correctly. 9...Nbd7 10.Nc3 0–0 11.0–0–0 Very good! You obviously realized you would be vulnerable after 0–0. With opposite side castling, a pawn storm is almost always in order. It gets very nasty and the first one who push their pawns into the opponent's king's position and open it up usually wins. Time is VERY important here and you must make every move count. 11...c6 This is a great position to stop and assess the strengths & weaknesses of both sides, then make a plan for how to make the most of your strengths and take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses. Doing this well isn't as easy to learn as tactics, but it's not all that hard either. ALL plans MUST be based on objective analysis of the position, not on what you just WANT to do.Here, you have a very solid, secure castled king, the bishop pair, more space on the queenside, and an opportunity to launch a pawn storm on the kingside. Your weakness is that your bishops have very little range or scope, and your knight doesn't have a good advanced square to go to. A very helpful rule of thumb is that when you have bishops, open the position... usually by forcing pawn swaps in and around the center. If you have knights, or your opponent has the bishop pair, keep the position blocked and closed. You can almost put an automatic 1 in the win column in this position by simply pushing pawns in the center and on the kingside to open the position up.Shira's king is castled, but the position around him is a little loose. Her only bishop is bad (on the same color squares as her center pawns, meaning it doesn't have much scope), her knights don't have many good squares to go to, and she's behind in development.The plan for you here should be to immediately play g3, bust up Black's advanced K-side pawns, open lines for your rooks to attack down the g and/or h files, and push any remaining pawns on the K-side to attack Black's castled king. This will also open up the c1–h6 diagonal for your bishop; after you remove Black's f4 pawn you can play f4 to remove her e5 pawn then advance your own e-pawn to open the diagonal for your light squared bishop, or maybe have to reposition it to e2. Also you may need to play Ne2 to bring the knight over to the kingside to put extra pressure on f4 and g3 and perhaps on to directly assisting in the kingside attack. In a nutshell, open up lines on the kingside, throw your kingside pawns at Black's king, and throw all your pieces at him also. 12.Bc4 Unnecessary and not helpful. You're responding to Shira's threats instead of taking the initiative. You don't want to recapture here with your bishop anyway, as that gives up the bishop pair unnecessarily. Let her capture then retake with your knight or e-pawn. Best was to ignore the threat since it didn't really hurt you at all, and play g3, forcing Shira to respond to you, then follow the plan of opening up the center & K-side and flooding it with your pieces in a direct attack. 12...b5 13.dxc6+ Not a huge blunder, but a mistake nonetheless. It doesn't lose material, but it gives up your bishop (and the bishop pair, and opens up attacking lines for Black against your king. Much better was preserving your bishop and keeping the Q-side closed with Bb3. It's these little subtle things that make the difference in a good position that's easy to win from, and a hard-to-defend bad position where you become overwhelmed with problems. This move took you from having a very solid position with a decent advantage, to a position that was just about dead even, but with some potential problems. 13...bxc4 14.cxd7 Qxd7 15.g3 fxg3 16.Qxg3 Nh5 17.Qg2 Qg4 here forces a Q trade, removing most of Black's attacking chances, making you much safer and pretty much assuring you of a draw. Not necessarily better than Qg2, but would have given you an almost certain draw. 17...Rab8 18.Rdg1 Not a losing move, but I think you failed to anticipate Black's direct attack on your king and take steps to defend. Moving your king to b1 to bring your bishop to c1 in order to defend b2 was good. b3 will work, but it will also weaken the area around your king, though you should still be able to fight off and attack. 18...Bh4 19.Bh6 Looks good at first glance, but doesn't work due to Black's threats at f2 and his solid defense of g7. Easy to see why you'd play this though and it's not easy to calculate this accurately and see if it works or not. [19.Qg4 Black either has to give up the attack by trading queens, or play Qb7 and take a pawn or two and run your king around while letting you get a free piece, leaving you with a nice advantage.] 19...Rxf2 20.Qxg7+ [20.Qg4 was your only decent move here. Everything else loses the queen. Even with Qg4, you're still in some trouble, though not really lost... just down a pawn and under some pressure.] 20...Nxg7 21.Be3 [21.Rxg7+ MUCH better. You get a Q & N for a R & B. Still leaves you a pawn & rook down, but...] 21...Rf7 22.Rg2 Rbf8 23.Rhh2 Kh8 24.Kb1 Rf1+ 25.Bc1 Re1 All in all, you played MUCH better than expected. Shira by NO means ran over you. In fact, you had the advantage throughout most of the game and played well with no big mistakes until a small miscalculation near the end. Until then, all your mistakes were very small, minor things that are easily corrected. Although you lost this game, you have a LOT to be proud of and you played quite well. 0–1
Today, September 9, 2009 the leading Moscow news organization "Argumenty I Fakty" (see wiki page) invited me to a Press Conference to talk about the newly published Russian version of my book "Дневники шахматной королевы" ("Diary of a Chess Queen" in Russian). If you read Russian and would like to buy it, it's available now and on sale on www.chessqueen.com .
During the Press Release and presentation I answered many questions about my book, and many others, such as what is the difference between men's and women's chess, what are my expectations for the Karpov-Kasparov chess match that will take place in Valencia in September, what do I think about doping in chess, will it be possible to see chess in the Olympic Games one day and many more questions. I also gave a 10-board simul and won all games. It was all recorded by TV and I hope to get a copy to share with you later on.
Here are some photos of today's presentation in Moscow:
I remind you that the English version of my book "DIARY OF A CHESS QUEEN" is available for pre-order now and will be coming out in the USA on December 1, just in time for Christmas! If you order it before it's published you are guaranteed pre-Christmas delivery and also I will sign a free personal autograph for you or for your loved one in the book. When ordering mention the desired text, for example "Merry Christmas to ..." and I will add a note to that too.
On the image above you can see the summary with all the winners of the previous Women's Eurocups. You can see that Monte Carlo has won the last two Cups, so I will try to help them win for the third time in a row! Apart from me (title GM, rating 2516) we will have in our Monaco team GM Humpy Koneru (2595), GM Pia Cramling (2535), GM Monika Socko (2476) and IM Almira Skripchenko (2448).
This year there will be 14 teams in the women's section and 57 teams in the men's section.
Almost all the leading chess players will take part in this event. All the registered teams and their compositions can be found here.
Below is the list of the titled players of the women's Eurocup. It will be a very strong event!
GM Koneru Humpy IM Kosintseva Tatiana GM Cramling Pia IM Muzychuk Anna GM Stefanova Antoaneta GM Kosteniuk Alexandra GM Chiburdanidze Maia GM Hoang Thanh Trang GM Arakhamia-Grant Ketevan IM Kosintseva Nadezhda IM Danielian Elina GM Lahno Kateryna IM Dembo Yelena IM Paehtz Elisabeth IM Cmilyte Viktorija GM Socko Monika IM Harika Dronavalli IM Javakhishvili Lela IM Rajlich Iweta IM Romanko Marina IM Khukhashvili Sopiko IM Skripchenko Almira IM Ushenina Anna IM Ovod Evgenija IM Muzychuk Mariya IM Gaponenko Inna IM Kovalevskaya Ekaterina IM Foisor Cristina-Adela IM Melia Salome IM Bojkovic Natasa IM Vasilevich Tatjana IM Khurtsidze Nino WGM Zawadzka Jolanta WGM Zdebskaja Natalia WGM Kovanova Baira IM Maric Alisa IM Peptan Corina-Isabela WGM Shadrina Tatiana IM Lomineishvili Maia WGM Pokorna Regina WGM Iljushina Olga WGM Vojinovic Jovana WGM Paulet Iozefina WGM Chelushkina Irina WGM Galojan Lilit WGM Stojanovic Andjelija WIM Szczepkowska-Horowska Karina WGM Motoc Alina WGM Kursova Maria WGM Rudolf Anna WGM Benderac Ana IM Petrenko Svetlana WIM Boric Elena WGM Krupa Monika WIM Drljevic Ljilja WFM Gregorova Zuzana WIM Padurariu Ioana-Smaranda WFM Steil-Antoni Fiona WIM Zivkovic Vesna
It will be a very interesting event and I will let you know how it all goes.
Vladmir and Marie-Laure Kramnik on their wedding day
Alexandra Kosteniuk presents the exclusive interview:
The Perfect Chess Couple: Vladimir and Marie-Laure Kramnik
When we speak about great chess champions the truth is that in order to become a strong chess player, one absolutely needs to have not only a great chess talent but also "the right" person to be close by.
That key person will not only give him/her confidence and support he or she needs in a very difficult chess career, but will also create the special atmosphere that is so much needed for our creative profession.
That's why I decided to call my good friends Vladimir and Marie-Laure, and asked Marie-Laure for an interview about how it is to live and love one of the strongest chess players in the world, the Chess King Vladimir Kramnik.
Vladimir and Marie-Laure are very nice and warm people. It's always a pleasure for me to talk to them. They have a lovely daugther, who is now 9 months old - Daria (Dasha for short). I wish all the best to this lovely chess couple and thank Marie-Laure for answering my questions!
AK: Dear Marie-Laure please tell us how did you and Vladimir meet?
Marie-Laure: We met during an interview which I made when Vladimir became world champion in the year 2000 and came to Paris a few weeks afterwards. I was a very big chess fan at that time, and really fought to get some room to speak about this event in the newspaper. To sum it up, I went for an interview and came back with a husband!
AK: What is it like to be the wife of a great chess champion?
Marie-Laure: I feel it is a privilege to share the life of such a great man, but this so-called privilege has also a few drawbacks: you have to accept that when the husband is not on the way to play (which happens pretty often), he has to leave to train or to prepare (which is almost all the time). You just have to understand that you live with a kind of monument (with opening and closing hours).
AK: Do you find that Vladimir is different when he plays chess and when he is not playing chess?
Marie-Laure: It is an interesting question, but I suspect him not to spend so much time without thinking/dreaming about some chessy stuff, which is, I agree with you, is quite a scandal. I mainly consider that chess is a part of himself like his dark hair or his Russian origin.
AK: Is it challenging for you to go to chess tournaments with Vladimir?
Marie-Laure: I really enjoy when we go together to tournaments with Vladimir. Unfortunately, I am also rather busy with my job, and now also with our child, so I cannot go as often as I would like. I also understand that a man needs some holidays, sometimes ...
AK: Do you worry a lot when Vladimir plays or is his attitude towards you different when he is in the middle of some very important matches?
Marie-Laure: I cannot tell that I worry because I wouldn't like to add some more tension to his own, because it would be a little too much. I know Vladimir gives everything when he plays and the result doesn't depend totally on him. But of course, I care very much about his games and feel especially close to him when he plays, for some mysterious reason.
AK: Vladimir and you have a little baby girl, would you like to see her playing chess in the future?
Marie-Laure: Of course, it goes without saying ! But I am not sure that I would be delighted if she would like to make it her career ...
AK: Tell us a little bit about yourself: where did you grow up, what is your profession, what are your hobbies?
Marie-Laure: So, I am a 33 years old very French girl, born in Limoges, a middletown in the center of France, famous for its china. I came to Paris when I was 17 to study languages, history, litterature and philosophy. I started working for the daily newspaper Le Figaro 12 years ago by accident and worked already for differents departments: society, culture, politics. Now, I am responsable for the opinion pages in Le Figaro (pages Débats et opinions), which is fun.
I am fond of classical music and ... reading books (in large numbers) especially books from Akounine and Wodehouse. I also practiced piano and danced myself quite a lot before becoming a mother. Last, but not least, I enjoy very much ballet and cooking, which are absolutely incompatible. I used to like chess quite a lot, but all over sudden, I met that big chess guy and stopped immediatly dating with chess (for it was also incompatible, I hate losing).
AK: Do you know how to play chess yourself?
Marie-Laure: When I was a kid, I used to play chess with my father every evening. It was far from great -we were mainly exchanging pieces very emotionally- but I enjoyed it very much. Later, I discovered the infinite potential of the game and found it absolutely marvelous. I fell into the game, fully and enthusiastically for almost two years. Thanks God, journalism saved me from chess! God knows where I would stand now otherwise ...
AK: What is the main difference that you can see between the profession of chess player and some other professions?
Marie-Laure: The most obvious difference is around your time schedule. To sum it up, it is rather impossible to have a decent conversation with a chessplayer during day time: either they sleep, or they prepare, or they play. So the main difference between a chessplayer and a normal guy is that you have to catch him when he is at his best (between midnight and 4 am) to have a conversation - which will be probably around his last tournament. So to answer you, the main difference between a chessplayer and another guy is that the another one has available time.
AK: As a journalist, in your opinion, what is the main reason that chess is not so popular nowadays? Is there any way to attract more media to chess and what would you suggest to do?
Marie-Laure: You should know this better, but it seems that if you want to become a great chess player, it requires some elements which are not precisely in fashion: you have to work like crazy, hidden in the shadow, about some esoteric calculations for 20 years, miles away from any nightclubs, trendy places and easy life.
You need 15 years to make a chess champion, a great cellist, a ballerina or a great surgeon. 3 months is enough to create a pop-star. Chess is not made for the television screen, it is to slow and you need a real initiation to enjoy the beauty of the game. Therefore, I am afraid it will never be a mass media sport. In my opinion, chess should come back to its origin: in the elegant loneliness of a club made by and for the elite. Chess is the ultimate sport for gentlemen and ladies. Well educated ones.
AK: If it was up to you, what would you change in the world of chess?
Marie-Laure: Better manners, better humor. Chess is so deep that you can afford a little touch of French "legèreté"!
The U.S. Women's Chess Championship dates back to 1937. The tournament is a 9-round event using the Round Robin pairing system, in which every player plays every other player and the highest score wins. Time controls will be the classical 40 moves in two hours, with the remaining moves in one hour. There will also be a 5-second increment per move.
The championship will have a purse of $64,000, with $15,000 awarded to the winner, the highest first prize in its history. In case of even scores, prize funds will be evenly divided between winners.
"We are delighted to have the opportunity to host this major event in the world of competitive chess," said Rex Sinquefield, a retired investment fund manager who founded the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. "We are honored and most fortunate to serve as the official site in 2009 of two of the premier chess championships."
Steve Goldberg of the United States Chess Federation (USCF) Online calls the new St. Louis club "certainly one of the most impressive chess centers" in the country. While serving as host club for the U.S. Women's Chess Championship and the U.S. Chess Championship, Sinquefield notes that "it is the goal of the Chess Club to encourage all of St. Louis' young people to learn chess. We believe that bringing the best chess players in the country to our city will help achieve that goal."
The players of this tournament are:
Anna Zatonskih Irina Krush Rusadan Goletiani Camilla Baginskaite Sabina-Francesca Foisor Tatev Abrahamyan Alisa Melekhina Iryna Zenyuk Battsetseg Tsaagan Yun Fan
It will be a very exciting event and I will keep you posted about the news and the results.
Today I found the following video, it's amazing! It turns out there's a woman, named Jenny Nixon, who can play a blitz simul blindfolded! I've been in chess all my life and I've never heard of her. I looked her up in the FIDE rating list, but could not find her. How could that be? Who is she? Have a look at the video for yourself.
I guess you figured it out, it's an advertising for the brand Eleviv. I'm not too sure what kind of brand that is, but their advertising is quite imaginative, and it's nice they chose chess to illustrate what seems to be some positive influence of a product. Quite funny. Have a look at the other teaser videos on their site.
Now let's go back to being serious and let's discuss how far people have really gone to in blindfold chess.
How many games of chess can you play blinfolded? Strong chess players such as Grandmasters have very good visualization skills, so they are able without difficulty to play at least one game blindfolded, but it is not clear up to how many simultaneous games they can manage. I'd say I would manage 3 or 4 games at the same time, I haven't really tried to play more than 3 games blindfolded simultaneously.
Many strong champions of the past like André Danican Philidor, Wilhelm Steinitz, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Richard Réti, Alexander Alekhine gave very successful blindfolded simuls.
The record of blindfold games played simultaneously was set in 1960 by George Koltanowski in San Francisco, when he played 56 consecutive blindfold games at a rate of 10 seconds a move. The exhibition lasted 9 hours with the result of 50 wins and six losses.
While blindfold chess has been recommended in many sources as a method of increasing one's playing strength, simultaneous blindfold exhibitions were officially banned in 1930 in the USSR as they were deemed to be a health hazard. Mikhail Botvinnik also warned against it. chess players have reported that it is more tiring than regular play, even if faster time controls are used.
Of the recent simuls I remember that in 2004 Vlad Tkachiev played 12 games simultaneously blindfolded, you can read the full article about this simul here.
On December 7-9, 2006 there was a blindfolded match between Veselin Topalov and Judith Polgar played. Which Topalov won with the score of 3,5 to 2,5.
A very interesting article about blindfold chess can be read here.
While searching the internet on the topic of blindfold chess I even founded an article by Edward Winter with unsolved chess mysteries one of each includes the following paper clip of the Daily Sketch of 1936:
which says: "Miss Angeligi Leoni, of Cyprus, won twenty-seven and drew three of thirty simultaneous games of blindfold chess."
I hope I managed to entertain you with the teaser video at the start of this post and to inform you on blindfolded chess in the latter part of this post.
Now what's your experience with blindfolded chess? Can you do it?
6 rounds have been played in the Women's World Team Chess Championship that is taking place from September 2 to September 12 in Ningbo, China. Tomorrow, September 8 will be a free day and then we will witness the 3 last and most important rounds. Right now the team of Poland is leading the event with 9 points and it's being followed by 4 teams - Ukraine, China-1, Georgia and Russia, all with 7 points. All of these teams have high chances of winning the gold medal of the World Women's Team Championship.
All results of the tournament can be found here. The live transmission of the games can be seen here.
Very interesting Pawn Endgame
On the diagram above is the position from the match of the second round between the teams of Ukraine and China-1. White is Muzychuk Maria playing for Ukraine, Black is Ju Wenjun playing for China-1. Black just played 51. ... g5, it's White to move. What would you play here as White?
Today on Twitter I got a message from Adisa Banjoko, aka Hip-Hop Chess "Our girls need you!" and the link to the above movie (direct link) and I immediately liked it.
We then exchanged tweets with several hip-hop stars like DC Rap about the video above, his last comment: "hip hop & chess are a lovely combination. speed chess & freestyling make me use my brain in similar fashions".
I've seen dcrap play chess with GodsIlla, it seems so many hip-hop stars play chess, that's a very good example for the young generation. It would be great if more girls could join their movement.
There is a Hip-Hop Chess Federation, they support the Bay Area Chess scene, these guys are great, they teach chess, support chess, and truly make chess cool!
Now would it not be cool if the hip-hop chess community invited me to be part of their next music video? How cool would that be? I'd love to help bring girls (and boys too!) to chess via hip-hop!
(The Trivia Contest question is at the bottom of this post)
Hello everybody!
From September 2 to September 6 I visited my grandparents. They live in the Ural town ofKamensk-Uralsky.
As almost in any town in Russia there is a chess club where kids can learn and play chess. I met the 12 strongest youngsters of Kamensk-Ural'sky in a simul. They fought very hard and could make one draw.
On September 5, 2009 I had a chance to visit the Ural Chess Academy in Ekaterinburg. On the photo below you can see me together with the director of this Academy GM Naum Rashkovsky on the left and Andrey Salov assistant of minister in PC and Sport in the Sverdlovsk Region on the right. Note the picture which is behind us and try to name all the persons on it.
In Ekaterinburg I gave a press-conference which you can read here, in Russian where I spoke about my future plans as well as about my recently published book in Russian "Дневники шахматной королевы" ("Diaries of a chess queen"). And of course I gave a simultaneous exhibition on 10 boards which I won with the score +9=0-1. A few more photos of this event can be found here (7 last photos).
And at the end a little trivia. What is the name of the kind of berries my daughter and I are picking on the photo below?
- support chess competitions and encourage girls and women to participate
- recommend organizers put decent prizes for first women in mixed events
- commend organizers for holding women chess events
- help coordinate women's chess tournament calendar to avoid conflicts
- promote women chess stars so they can be role model for youth
- promote blitz chess which is great for spectators
If you have a good chess story about women's chess, please feel free to share it with me by email, and we I will try to help you tell the world about it.
I would like to ask all of you who have blogs and web sites to help me promote this women's chess blog by showing one of my banners. In exchange, I can offer you a free autographed chess gift, mailed personally by me to you!
If you'd like to claim your gift, just send me an email, give me the link to your site, as well as your mailing address, and the gift will soon be in the mail to you!
TUTORIAL on how to add a banner to your web site.
I have 3 banners, of 3 sizes:
1) horizontal 199px x 60px
2) vertical 100px x 199 px
3) Horizontal 468px x 60 px
Select the one you would like and simply copy this code to your page:
If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email and I will answer you!
Best chess wishes to you, and thanks for promoting women's chess,
This morning I received an email from Jan of Goddesschess asking me to announce her Chess Challenge for Charity. Since I know that Goddesschess is very active in promoting women's chess and even often donates special money prizes to women, I'm ready to help!
It’s Jan Newton of Goddesschess versus Shira Evans of Computer Labs for Kids in a 3-game match at chess.com. It’s a match of David versus Goliath, of Janeway versus the Borg Queen, Mothra versus Godzilla (well, forget that one), the Less-Than-Patzer (UNR) versus the Chess Champion (1727 peak USCF rating).
Jan, playing as JanXena, and Shira playing as shirae, will go en garde with their Queens September 5 – 7, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. CST (Wisconsin time) each day (time controls 1 hour each, no increment), to raise awareness of the great work Computer Labs for Kids is doing around the world for disadvantaged children and hopefully raise some money through donations to the Foundation too!
JanXena has been training hard with assistance from her coach, Kelly Atkins, with analysis donated by and a two-hour intensive over-the-telephone and internet training session courtesy of Dan and Laura Sherman of Your Chess Coach.
Some people have asked how it was possible to checkmate an International Master, with the black pieces, in 20 moves (see my YouTube video with my win against Sophie Milliet in Corsica). Milliet is rated 2407 ELO FIDE.
Well last week, I managed to beat seasoned Grandmaster Alexey Korotylev, rated 2596 ELO FIDE, in a mere 19 moves, playing black. Click on the 4-minute video to see this game. It's quite a nice game with a beautiful ending combination. Enjoy!
@djdallas40 from Twitter posted an article by Dennis McCarthy in the Los Angeles Daily News about Simone Liao, 10, who just came back from Argentina with one more medal, congratulations!
You can read the article below "Chess Phenom to meet her match" (original link here) and also make sure to visit Simone's blog to encourage her to continue to do so well. As we know chess is very useful for kids, it helps them do well at school and succeed at whatever they do in life.
If Simone reads this post, please email me, and I will send you a free chess gift!
All my best wishes to Simone,
Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
Original Article:
Simone is a 10 year-old growing up in Agoura Hills. She is more into reading, writing and art than maths and logic. Simone had never seen a chess set until second grade when she enrolled in an after-school beginner chess program provided by Willow Elementary School in Agoura, after she exhausted all the "interesting" after-school classes like clay making, wood shop, crafting, etc.
Don't let her young age and friendly demeanor fool you, her coaches say. The kid has the heart of a champion and the brains to match.
She'll steal your queen, knock over your king, and be relaxing on the couch watching cartoons on TV before your seat's even warm.
Simone Liao is that good. At 10.
The Agoura Hills girl just returned from Argentina with a gold medal in her age bracket at the Pan-American Youth Chess Championships attended by players from 17 countries.
She had something to prove. Last year, she won the silver. Not this year.
"Going for the gold creates a lot of stress and requires extreme focus," says Beatriz Marinello, U.S. Youth Team coach and former president of the U.S. Chess Federation.
"Simone demonstrated that excelling at competitive chess involves more than talent and hard work, but also a winning mentality, which she definitely possesses."
She's an out-and-out champion, says Aviv Friedman, head of the U.S. Chess Delegation and coach of the U.S. team.
"She has fantastic talent and work ethic, which propels her to one success after another," he says. "What a bright future she has in chess."
Who knew? No one in Simone's family ever played chess, and if she hadn't signed up for the after-school program at Willow Elementary School a few years ago, she wouldn't have either.
"They had clay making, wood shop and craft classes, but I got kind of bored with them," Simone says.
"Then one day a man showed up with a chess set and wanted to know if anyone would like to learn to play. I found it interesting."
The next day, her dad, Sheldon, went out and bought his daughter a chess set. Then she signed up for Saturday chess classes in the Thousand Oaks Park and Rec Center, and began devouring chess strategy books one after another.
"She never shied away from competing against and learning from players with 20-plus years of experience," Sheldon says.
By the time she hit 10, it was the experienced players shying away from playing her.
"She's a sweetheart, free-spirited and fun to be around," says Sandi Pope, Simone's fifth-grade teacher at Willow.
"But it would be a big mistake to underestimate her. She's a stealthy player, far more astute and mature than you'd give her credit for.
"I reaped the benefits as a teacher. As she developed chess strategies, she began to think at a higher level of critical thinking in all her subjects."
What the future holds is still unclear, Simone says. She's only 10.
In November, she travels to Turkey with the U.S. Youth Chess Team for another international event - matching chess strategies with kids her age from all over the world - and winning.
"I think I'd like to be a doctor when I grow up," Simone said Wednesday, getting ready for sixth-grade at Lindero Canyon Middle School.
WINNERS of AUGUST 2009 AK GRAND-PRIX CHESS PUZZLE CONTEST
Hello everybody!
August is over and I'm ready to announce the winners of my August 2009 Grand-Prix Chess Puzzle Competition.
I received hundreds of emails with answers, but only 3 of the emails were close to the correct answers.
Here are the full correct answers:
The first position above is from the book of Del Rio of 1750. The correct answer is 1. Qa6! Rb8 (1. ... bxa6 2. Bc6#) 2. Bc6 Qc8 (the most stubborn defense for Black) 3. Qxa7+! Kxa7 4. Ra1#
The second puzzle above is a study of Leonid Kubbel of 1924. The answer is: 1. g6+ Kg8 2. Rb6 Kf8! 3. Nd5!! exd5 (the best move for Black here) 4. Kc5! d1Q 5. Kd6 Qe1 6. Rb8+ Qe8 7. Rxe8 Kxe8 8. Kc6+- Beautiful!
The third puzzle above is a position from the game Lasker - Pillsbury of 1895. Black won by playing 17. ... Nexd4! 18. Qd1 Rxe1 19. Qxe1 Nxf3!! 20. Kxf3 (20. Qd1 Nce5) 20. ... f4! (Nobody proposed this move, instead the winners suggested 20. ... Ne5+!? which is also interesting 21. Ke2 Qe8 and Black has a dangerous attack) 21. Qd1 (If 21. Ke2 Re8+ 22. Ne3 fxe3 23. fxe3 Black has a beautiful move 23. ... Nxd4! (23. ... Qg4+ is also possible 24. Kd2 Nd4!) 24. Kd1 (24. cd Qg4+ 25. Kd2 Bb4; 25. Kf2 Rf8+) 24. ... Qa4+ 25. b3 Nxb3 -+) 21. ... Ne5 and Black won after 22.Ke2 Qg4+ 23.Kd2 Qxd1+ 24.Kxd1 Nxd3 25.Ke2 Ne5 26.f3 Re8 27.b3 Ng4+ 28.Kd2 Ne3 29.Bb2 Ng2 30.h3 Bc5 31.Nh2 Bf2 32.c4 dxc4 33.bxc4 h5 0-1
So the winners for August 2009 AK Grand-Prix Chess Puzzle Contest are:
Don't be shy about contacting me
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Best chess wishes to you! Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
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