Tatiana Kosintseva wins Nalchik Chess Grand Prix 2010

Hello everybody!

On May 8 the 3rd tournament of the women's FIDE Grand-Prix came to its end in Nalchik.

The winner of this tournament - Tatiana Kosintseva scored 9 out of 11 in this strong field and with this wonderful result took clear first place followed by Hou Yifan with 7,5 points and Nana Dzagnidze and Pia Cramling with 7 points. That was the first tournament for Tatiana in this Grand-Prix Series and I wish her all the best in the next tournaments which are scheduled to be in July, August and November 2010.

After first three tournaments of this Grand-Prix series (in Istanbul in March 2009, in Nanjing in September 2009 and Nalchik in April 2010) Hou Yifan is leading with 250 overall Grand-Prix points, here is the full table of contenders. I remind you that the winner of this Grand-Prix (the players who will get more points for her best three results out of 4 tournaments of the Grand-Prix) will get a chance to play a match with the women's world chess champion in 2011.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

Nalchik hosts Women Chess Grand Prix

I found out today from the FIDE site that Nalchik will host the Women's Grand Prix in Nalchik, from April 25 to May 8, 2010.

The final dates for the event in Nalchik are 25 April (arrival) to 8 May (departure) 2010. For further information concerning visas and air tickets, the participants should contact the local organising committee.

The preliminary list of participants for Nalchik is as follows:

Koneru, Humpy

Yifan, Hou

Cramling, Pia

Dzagnidze, Nana

Xue, Zhao

Kosintseva, Tatiana

Chen, Zhu

Danielian, Elina

Batkhuyag, Munguntuul

Yildiz, Betul

Mrktchian, Lilit

Kovanova, Baira

The following women's Grand Prix are planned as follows:

The 4th Grand Prix will take place in Jermuk, Armenia, on 23rd June – 6th July 2010

The 5th Grand Prix will take place in Ulanbaatar, Mongolia, on 29 July - 12 August 2010

The 6th Grand Prix will take place in Santiago, Chile, on 27th October – 9th November 2010

I am marking my calendar and will follow the next Grand Prix with great interest. Expect some "tweets" from me on a regular basis on my Twitter page.

Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

2nd FIDE Women's Grand-Prix tournament

The 2nd FIDE Women's Grand-Prix tournament will take place in Nanjing (China) from September 27th to October 9th, 2009.

The participants of the event are:

Zhao Xue (CHN) - rating FIDE 2544
Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS) - 2539
Nana Dzagnidze (GEO) - 2536
Marie Sebag (FRA) - 2531
Xu Yuhua (CHN) - 2485
Zhu Chen (QAT) - 2473
Lilit Mkrtchian (ARM) - 2467
Shen Yang (CHN) - 2453
Munguntuul Batkhuyag (MNG) - 2412
Baira Kovanova (RUS) - 2406
Martha Fierro (ECU) - 2394
Betul Yildiz (TUR) - 2217

Prize fund: 50,000 US dollars

The 1st FIDE Women's Grand-Prix tournament took place from March 5 to March 20, 2009 in Istanbul, Turkey and was won by Humpy Koneru.

In 2009-2010 FIDE is planning to hold 6 Women's Grand-Prix tournaments with 12 players participating in each of them. There will be 17 players who will participate in the Grand-Prix series. Each player who qualified for the Grand-Prix will need to choose 4 tournaments out of 6 to play. The winner of this Grand-Prix series will play a match against the women's world chess champion in 2011. The rules of the Grand-Prix series can be found on the FIDE website, here.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
www.chessblog.com