Astana Chess Women's World Team Event R4: Top Match China-Russia Draw on Wins by Gunina, Kosteniuk

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hi everyone,

The fourth round ended "unpredictably" peacefully despite the fact that the fight lasted till the end on all the boards. Four out of five matches finished in a draw and the outcome of the last match Ukraine versus Turkey seemed equal as well. Anna Ushenina won against Betul Yildiz. Two other games finished in a draw, but Inna Gaponenko was still fighting for a draw against Selen Sop. It seems that after more than 100 moves and 6 hours of playing, talented Turkish player simply did not have the physical strength to win the position with a huge advantage. As a result, Gaponenko made a draw, Ukraine won the match +1.

A very tense struggle in the key match between the leaders China and Russia - all four games were decided. Velentina Gunina won against Ju Wenjun and 12th Women's World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk defeated Huang Qian. In an equal position Natalia Pogonina went for a forced line and ended up in a lost position. Alisa Galliamova missed nice tactical blow 16. Bd5 and after that her opponent Qi Gou played precisely and won. The match was China-Russia draw.

Indian girls showed today that, despite the absence of Humpy, Harika and Sachdev, the team can fight with favorites. Eesha Karavade defeated Nana Dzagnidze, who normally plays very stable, but lost the second game in this event. Georgians immediately equalized the score due to victory of Bela Khotenashvili on the second board. On the fourth board Nino Khurtsidze had absolutely winning position but failed to find the direct win a few times. The victory of Georgia was so close in the match but it finished in a draw.


One more match Romania versus Kazakhstan finished peacefully. Irina Bulmaga got quite comfortable position in the middle game and managed to outplay Gulmira Dauletova. Two other games finished in a draw but Guliskhan Nakhbaeva showed self-possession and steel nerves once again – this time in the game against very experienced Romanian player Cristina Adela Foisor. She outplayed her opponent after long-lasted fight and saved the match for her team.

French team managed to make a draw in the match against the USA and finally gained so long-awaited first team point. After the fourth round Ukraine caught Russia and China and shares with them the first place. Georgia is 2 points behind.

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Moscow Blitz Chess: Morozevich, Gunina win men's and women's section

GM Alexander Morozevich: Another conquest

Perfect smile/score: WGM Valentina Gunina

Hi Everyone,

Did you follow the exciting Moscow Blitz Chess Championship on the Internet? It was a lot of fun.

The 64th edition of the tournament took place on Sunday at the Russian State Social University. In two weeks the Women's World Blitz Championship will be held here.

The creative grandmaster Alexander Morozevich won the main tournament with a score of 14 out of a possible points 19! Mikhail Kobalia finished second with 13.5 and Vasily Papin was third with 13 points.

And, in the women's section, WGM Valentina Gunina, was the best performere by winning all her 17 games. Second was IM Irina Vasilevich.

We found a nice photo report at www.chessbase.com.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

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Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com

CHINA is 2 times women's world team champion!

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!

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

Alexander Grischuk and Valentina Gunina are 2009 Moscow Blitz Chess Champions!

Hello everybody!

It was a big chess feast in Moscow on August 30th. It seemed everybody was playing blitz. Unfortunately the tournament showed that I have to work a lot more in order to get back into top form.

I talked with Anatoly Karpov who attended the closing ceremony and he said that blitz is the first indicator of good or bad chess form.

The main men's tournament was won by Alexander Grischuk who scored 17 points out of 21 games and took the first place ahead of Alexander Morozevich and Sergey Karjakin who finished the tournament with 16,5 points each.

On the photo above I am with Sergey Karjakin and his wife Kateryna Dolzhikova.

I played in the men's tournament and achieved only 5 points which is by far not the best blitz result in my career. Despite the fact that the tournament was very strong, the only explanation lies in the lack of practice. However, I played a few interesting games and I will try to post some videos shortly. Even though I was not playing so well, I managed to beat Grandmasters Alexey Korotylev (ELO 2597) and Evgeni Vasiukov (ELO 2485), and I drew Grandmasters Maxim Dlugy (ELO 2518) and Vadim Zviagintsev (ELO 2635).

Here is my biggest disappointment of the tournament:

In this position I was playing Black against Alexander Grischuk. It's Black to move, try to find the best continuation for Black. I didn't find it and at the end lost the game.

The separate women's tournament was won by Valentina Gunina (on the photo below)

who scored 13,5 out of 17 followed by Daria Charochkina with 12 points and Alina Kashlinskaya with 11,5 points.

Despite the result I enjoyed a wonderful day with my darling daughter Francesca.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

Gunina wins Russian Championship U-20!

Valentina Gunina today became the new Russian champion among girls under 20. The championship took place in Dagomys, Russia from April 29 to May 9, 2009. Valentina took clear first place with 7,5 out of 10, thanks to her win in the last round against Elena Tairova, who was leading before that with 7 points.

I played with Valentina for the Russian National team in the First World Mind Sports Games in Bejing in October 2008.

I congratulate Valentina on this success and wish her all the best in the coming World Championship Girls U-20 which should take place in Argentina at the end of this year. I was also very happy to see the come-back of Elena Tairova who didn't play competive chess for a few months due to health problems. Despite her loss to Valentina in the last round Elena took second place.


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

Photo source: Chesspics