Sensational Chess Results in Khanty-Mansiysk: All Top Stars Hou, Kosteniuk, Koneru, Gunina, Lahno, Muzychuk Knocked out from World Championship 2012

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hello everyone,

Polish Grandmaster Monika Socko has knocked out Women's World Chess Champion Hou Yifan of China in the second round in Khanty Mansiysk. The Polish grandmaster told journalists about her victory against the World Champion: It certainly wasn’t easy. I expected a different line of the Sicilian, but Hou Yifan decided to play 6.Bb5, after which we both were out of book. The last moves I remembered were 5…Nc6 and 6…Nd7. I think 8.b3 is already a bit passive. Maybe she started to play for a draw, which is not always a good idea. My plan was very simple, and soon I had a bishop pair in an open position as well as a strong d-pawn.

Q: Hou Yifan usually plays quite actively. Did you feel her hesitation during this game? Maybe she started to play for a draw indeed, and such attitude was the main reason of her defeat?

– I was also surprised to see her playing like this. Maybe she simply did not expect the Sicilian and prepared for the French. I wasn’t sure about my opening choice until the very end, but fortunately made the right decision. This is my first victory against the World Champion in a classical game. Before that I could only beat her in rapid chess, and in classical chess I made two draws and lost a few times.

Players proceeding to Round 3 include: Monika Socko, Antoaneta Stefanova, Marie Sebag, Valentina Gunina, Nino Khurtsidze, Lela Javakashvili, Tatiana Kosintseva, Nadezhda Kosintseva, Natalia Pogonina, Anna Ushenina, Huang Qian, Irina Krush, Ju Wenjun and  Natalia Zhukova. It's just one of the most shocking World Chess Championship result to have all the top stars eliminated from Hou Yifan, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Anna Muzychuk,  Kateryna Lahno, Humpy Koneru and Valentina Gunina. 

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Women's Chess Grand Prix: Yildiz holds Humpy to draw

WIM Yildiz Betul Cemre: Nice game against Humpy

Hello Everyone,

WIM Yildiz Betul Cemre is unlikely to forget the third round of the Women's Chess Grand Prix being held in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. She drew with top seed GM Koneru Humpy. Cemre is rated 365 points below Humpy. This allowed GM Zhao Xue to catch up with Humpy in the standings. Now, both Humpy and Xue lead with 2.5/3 points.

The other games saw Hou Yifan beat Xu Yuhua, Zhu Chen lose to Zhao Xue and Munguntuul Batkhuyag lose to Antoaneta Stefanova. You can keep track of the event at the official website.

Results of Round 3

--------------------------

1. GM Sebag Marie 2519 - WGM Shen Yang 2435 ½ - ½

2. WIM Yildiz Betul Cemre 2235 - GM Koneru Humpy 2600 ½ - ½

3. GM Hou Yifan 2577 - GM Xu Yuhua 2488 1-0

4. GM Zhu Chen 2476 - GM Zhao Xue 2462 0-1

5. GM Chiburdanidze Maia 2514 - GM Kosintseva Tatiana 2562 ½ - ½

6. IM Munguntuul Batkhuyag - GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2560 0-1

Standings after Round 3

-----------------------------

1 GM Zhao Xue 2½

2. GM Koneru Humpy 2½

3. GM Hou Yifan 2

4. GM Chiburdanidze Maia 2

5. GM Kosintseva Tatiana 2

6. GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2

7. GM Xu Yuhua 1½

8. GM Sebag Marie 1

9. IM Munguntuul Batkhuyag 1

10. WIM Yildiz Betul Cemre ½

11. GM Zhu Chen ½

12. WGM Shen Yang ½

Here is the nice game between Cemre and Humpy - all the way to 74 moves. You can run the moves in our pgnplayer or watch the game in flash below.

PGN: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 b6 4. Nc3 Bb7 5. d4 cxd4 6. Nxd4 a6 7. Be2 Qc7 8. Be3 Nf6 9. f3 Be7 10. Rc1 O-O 11. O-O d6 12. a3 Nbd7 13. b4 Rac8 14. Nb3 h5 15. Bf2 Qb8 16. Qd2 Ba8 17. Rfd1 Ne5 18. Na4 Nfd7 19. Qe3 Rc6 20. Nd4 Rc7 21. Nb3 Qc8 22. Nb2 Bf6 23. Qd2 h4 24. Na4 Nxc4 25. Bxc4 Rxc4 26. Qxd6 Rd8 27. Qf4 Qc6 28. Rxc4 Qxc4 29. Qe3 Qc6 30. e5 Be7 31. Nc3 h3 32. Rd4 hxg2 33. Kxg2 Rc8 34. Rd3 Qc7 35. Bg3 Nf8 36. Ne2 Bd5 37. Rc3 Qb7 38. Nbd4 Ng6 39. Rxc8+ Qxc8 40. Nc3 Bg5 41. Qd3 Qc4 42. Qxc4 Bxc4 43. Na4 b5 44. Nc5 Be3 45. Ndb3 Nf4+ 46. Bxf4 Bxf4 47. Na5 Bd5 48. Nd3 Be3 49. Kg3 g5 50. Kg4 Kg7 51. Nc5 Bc1 52. Nxa6 Bxa3 53. Kxg5 Bxf3 54. Nb3 Bb2 55. Kf4 Bd5 56. Nbc5 Kg6 57. Nd3 Bc3 58. Nac5 Bd2+ 59. Kg4 Bc4 60. h3 Bc3 61. Nf4+ Kh6 62. Ncd3 Bd2 63. Kh4 f5 64. exf6 e5 65. f7 Kg7 66. Nxe5 Bxb4 67. Nxc4 bxc4 68. Kg4 Kxf7 69. Kf3 Bd2 70. Ne2 Kf6 71. Ke4 Kg5 72. Kd4 c3 73. Nxc3 Bxc3+ 74. Ke4 1/2-1/2

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

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Also see her personal blog at

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Women Chess RULES around the world

Hello all!

In the last months there were quite a few women’s tournaments that I didn’t have time to write about. So now I'm ready to catch up.

From November 3 to November 11, the Russian Women Cup took place in Saint Petersburg. The tournament was held by the knock-out system and had a pretty strong participant field, with ELO-favorites Marina Romanko and Ekaterina Kovalevskaya.

The first place was won by Tatiana Stepovaia (on the photo below).

Below is a nice tactical shot from the game between Maria Manakova and Tatiana Stepovaia. It’s Black to move.

The final tournament results table can be seen here.

The ladies versus the veterans match that was held by November 28 to December 5, 2009 in the Czech Republic, which I am happy to report ended with a win by the ladies. Even though in the last rounds the veterans were able to shorten the gap, the final score of the match was 16,5 to 15,5 in favor for the ladies. The best result was shown by Indian star Humpy Koneru (see her recent star interview here) who scored 5,5 out of 8 games. The results of all the players of the match can be found here.

The National Mind Sports Games took place in November in China. The games were similar to the 1st World Mind Sports Games that took place in Beijing in October 2008, and had competitions in different intellectual sports. The Women's Blitz was won by Hou Yifan who took 7,5 points with Xu Yuhua and Ju Wenjun with 6,5 points in the second and third place. The Women's Rapid was won by Tan Zhongyi with 7 points, with Ju Wenjun also with 7 points in the second place. Hou Yifan finished third with 6,5 points. The Women's Team Rapid was won by the team of Bejing with former world champion Xie Jun playing on the first board.

In the voting for the best chess game of October that is run monthly by IM Maxim Notkin on the russian chess web-site chesspro there were two games from women's tournaments, you can enjoy these games below:

[Event "14th ECC w"]

[Site "Ohrid MKD"]

[Date "2009.10.8"]

[Round "5"]

[White "Cmilyte,V"]

[Black "Iljushina,O"]

[Result "1-0"]

[Eco "A37"]

[Annotator ""]

[Source ""]

1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 e5 4.g3 g6 5.Bg2 Bg7 6.O-O Nge7 7.a3

O-O 8.b4 d6 9.Rb1 f5 10.b5 Na5 11.Ne1 e4 12.Qc2 Be6 13.d3 exd3

14.Nxd3 Bxc4 15.Rd1 Rc8 16.Nf4 Re8 17.h4 Qd7 18.e4 fxe4 19.Nxe4

Nf5 20.Bd2 Bb3 21.Rxb3 Nd4 22.Qa2 Naxb3 23.Ng5 Re5 24.Be3 c4

25.Bxd4 Nxd4 26.Rxd4 Re1+ 27.Kh2 Bxd4 28.Qd2 Re5 29.Qxd4 c3 30.Bd5+

Kg7 31.Be6 Qxb5 32.Qxd6 1-0

[Event "8th TCh-Eur w"]

[Site "Novi Sad SRB"]

[Date "2009.10.30"]

[Round "9"]

[White "Kosintseva,N"]

[Black "Galojan,L"]

[Result "1-0"]

[Eco "C91"]

[Annotator ""]

[Source ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3

O-O 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bg4 10.d5 Na5 11.Bc2 c6 12.h3 Bc8 13.dxc6 Nxc6

14.Nbd2 d5 15.exd5 Qxd5 16.Qe2 Bb7 17.Bb3 Qd7 18.Ne4 Rad8 19.Ng3

Rfe8 20.Ng5 Nd5 21.Qh5 Bxg5 22.Bxg5 f6 23.Ne4 Qf7 24.Qxf7+ Kxf7

25.Nc5 Bc8 26.Red1 Nce7 27.Bd2 Kf8 28.a4 Nc6 29.axb5 axb5 30.Bc2

f5 31.Bd3 Nc7 32.b4 Rd5 33.f3 h6 34.Kf1 Red8 35.Ke2 Ke7 36.g4

Kf6 37.gxf5 Bxf5 38.Be4 Bxh3 39.Bxd5 Rxd5 40.Na6 Ne8 41.Bg5+

Ke6 42.Nc5+ Kd6 43.Ne4+ Ke6 44.Be3 Rxd1 45.Rxd1 Kf7 46.c4 bxc4

47.b5 Na5 48.Nc5 Ke7 49.Ra1 Nb3 50.b6 Nd6 51.Ra7+ Kd8 52.b7 Kc7

53.Na6+ 1-0

From December 1 to December 12 the 36th National India Women's Chess Championship took place. It was won by Harika Dronavalli (on the photo below)

with 8,5 points out of 11, followed by Meenakshi Subbaraman with 8 points. The full table can be seen here.

The Women's Invitational is taking place right now in London parallel to the super-GM chess tournament where Magnus Carlsen is in lead right now followed by Vladimir Kramnik. In the women's tournament Arianne Caoili is in the lead after 6 rounds with 5 points.

Even though the year is almost over, in the last days of December we will witness one more very interesting women's chess event that will take place from December 20 to December 28 in Moscow, Russia. The Russian Women's Superfinal will take place right at the very heart of Moscow in the Central Chess Club on Gogolevsky, 14.

The 2500+ participants of this event are the current Women's Russian Champion IM Nadezhda Kosintseva (Elo-rating - 2518), the elo-favorite of the tournament GM Tatiana Kosintseva (2522), a new chess mom Natalia Pogonina, on the photo below (2501)

who is very brave to participate in such a strong chess event just one month after giving birth to her son Nikolai (my heartfull congratulations to Natalia and I will keep my fingers crossed for her in this event). I will not be participating since I just came back from a very busy schedule and I will spend the holidays with my family.

Other participants of this prestigious event are IM Alisa Galliamova (2460) who is coming back to chess after 2 years of absence due to the birth of the second child, IM Marina Romanko and WFM Valentina Gunina (2446) who were members of the golden russian team at the recent European team championship, and also IM Elena Zaiatz (2390), WGM Tatiana Stepovaia (2384), WGM Anastasia Bodnaruk (2372) and WGM Manakova Marina (2344), the last 5 participants qualified through a very strong higher league.

I will keep you updated about this fascinating women's chess event. Get ready for exciting battles!

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

Star Interview - Humpy Koneru

Humpy Koneru - Mysterious Chess Grandmaster from India

Humpy Koneru from India has been rated number 2 in the world since January 2006. Now she is rated 2603. Humpy crossed the magic 2600 mark in October 2007. This October, I played with Humpy in the same team - Cercle d'échecs de Monte Carlo in the Eurocup in Ohrid. Koneru took 5 out of 6 on the first board and had a perfomance of 2714. That helped our team to take the silver medals. Just before the closing ceremony Humpy agreed to give a short interview for my chess blog. After this interview Humpy Koneru for me is like never before a mysterious girl from India that works very hard for achieving her goals and we can be sure that we will hear her name many times in the future.

AK - Congratulation on your result! Are you happy about that?

HK - Yes, I’m happy about the way I have played. Ok, in the game with Elina Danielian, in the 6th round it was a bit shaky, but I managed to make a draw. Overall, I think I played better chess here.

AK - What is your best game in this tournament?

HK - My game against Muzychuk was the best in the tournament with very complicated middle game. She had a chance to sacrifice a piece on my king, but later on I got the exchange but still it’s not clear. Finally I won the game in a tactical manner.

[Event "14th ECC w"]

[Site "Ohrid MKD"]

[Date "2009.10.6"]

[Round "3"]

[White "Koneru,H"]

[Black "Muzychuk,A"]

[Result "1-0"]

[Eco "E32"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 O-O 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 b6 7.Nf3

Bb7 8.e3 d6 9.Be2 Nbd7 10.O-O Ne4 11.Qc2 f5 12.b4 Rf6 13.d5 c5

14.Bb2 Rg6 15.Rad1 Qe7 16.g3 Rf8 17.Ne1 exd5 18.cxd5 Ne5 19.Ng2

Rh6 20.f3 Nf6 21.bxc5 bxc5 22.Nf4 Bc8 23.Bc1 Ne8 24.Ne6 Bxe6

25.dxe6 Rxe6 26.f4 Ng4 27.Bc4 Ngf6 28.Qxf5 d5 29.Rxd5 Kh8 30.Re5

Rxe5 31.Qxe5 Qd7 32.Be2 Nc7 33.Rd1 Ncd5 34.Bf3 Qa4 35.Qd6 Rc8

36.g4 Qc2 37.Bd2 h6 38.g5 hxg5 39.fxg5 Qg6 40.e4 Nb6 41.Kh1 Nc4

42.Qa6 Re8 43.Qxc4 Nxe4 44.Re1 1-0

AK - Ok, now let’s us move a little bit back, when were you born?

HK - I was born on March 31, 1987 in Gurivara, it’s the Southern Part of India, I belong to the State Andhra Pradesh.

AK - How did you start playing chess?

HK - I started playing at the age of 6, I learned chess from my dad. He is a national master level player and he has won several southern championships, he was my only coach so far and we work together 6-7 hours a day.

AK - And you are still working with you father only?

HK - Yes, only with my father.

AK - Do you have any brothers or sisters?

HK - I have one younger sister and she also played chess for some years. She reached the level of 2300 and then she thought that it would be much better for her to take studies as her career. She finished her degree recently and she is looking for a job right now :)

AK - What about yourself? Do you consider chess your profession?

HK - Yes, it’s my profession, also because being a chess player I joined the oil-company – ONGC (oil national gas corporation), they pay me a monthly salary and they also reimburse me travel expenses.

AK - How did you understand that you have a talent in chess?

HK - It was only my dad who thought I’d be having a good career in chess on international level. He sacrificed his job and he started training me. He took me in every tournament in India. When I was 14 I was already pretty serious that I want to devote myself completely to the game.

AK - What are your main achievements so far in chess?

HK - I think winning the recent Grand-Prix (in March in Istanbul), also two gold medals in the Asian Games, apart from that crossing the rating of 2600, it’s a very tough thing for me because it took almost 5 years for me after becoming a GM to reach this rating. In the past two years I maintain myself on the 2600 mark but just recently I dropped it down but again I’m going back.

AK - What are your goals in chess?

HK - Of course to win the women’s world chess championship and also I want to improve my rating to 2650.

AK - Are you trying to catch up with Judith Polgar? Do you think it’s possible?

HK - I hope so, but I know it’s really very tough, when you are playing on high-level tournaments, the competition will be much more tougher but I would like to do that.

AK - What are your hobbies beside chess?

HK- Well, most of the time I play chess. But ok I do like to spend time with my family, we go out to movies. I do go to gym everyday for one hour.

AK - Why do you think men are playing stronger than women?

HK - Well, I think because they work hard and also because they have more resources. Like for women you don’t think only about playing in a tournament . You have to think about family. You don’t even get support from the family at the right moment, but for men, they are independent, they always feel they can do whatever they think. And physically, they are stronger.

AK - Do you think it’s possible that one day a woman will become the overall chess champion?

HK - Hope is always there, but practically I think it’s not going to happen because we can see that the ratio of women chess players is less and we play fewer tournaments and apart from that the results that we get from the men’s tournaments when we are seen somewhere last in the table, so we can only expect to move somewhere in the middle in the coming years but not to be on the top.

AK - What are your next tournaments?

HK - I’ll be playing in the Asian Indoor Games (unfortunately shortly after this interview Humpy had to withdraw her participation from this Games dues to some problems with her Federation, you can read about it here) and from November 27 onwards I will be playing in the match against Veterans in Prague, in January I will be playing in the Gibraltar-open tournament for the first time.

AK - What do you think we should do in order to make chess and particulary women chess more popular?

HK - I think first of all there should be no draws. And we should pay more attention to blitz and rapid tournaments as they are more interesting for the spectators and I also think the format that we play the women’s world chess championship – the knock-out format, we should have more tournaments with this system.

AK - Thank you very much and good luck on your next tournaments!

Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

Great perfomance by Humpy Koneru

Congratulations to Humpy Koneru for her nice perfomance in the 2nd Mayors Cup International Open Chess Tournament, that was held in Mumbai from May 1 till May 9, 2009!

The field was comprised of over 10 men grandmasters, and Humpy did much better than just hold her own, she finished in the top spots 1-4, with a performance of 2640, and without losing a single game, that's great! She continues to prove that she is playing in the 2600+ range, a good sign for the future.

I wish Humpy well for her future tournaments!

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1		GM	Areshchenko Alexander	UKR	2657	9,0	86,5	72,0	68,75
2		GM	Koneru Humpy	IND	2612	9,0	85,0	69,5	68,00
3		GM	Miroshnichenko Evgenij	UKR	2680	9,0	83,5	69,0	66,25
4		GM	Panchanathan Magesh Chandran	IND	2462	9,0	78,0	66,5	62,50
5		GM	Deviatkin Andrei	RUS	2566	8,5	84,5	70,5	63,75
6		GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J	IND	2482	8,5	83,0	69,0	61,50
7		GM	Timoshenko Georgy	UKR	2550	8,5	80,5	66,5	60,25
8		IM	Shyam Sundar M	IND	2424	8,5	76,5	63,0	57,25
9		GM	Iuldachev Saidali	UZB	2497	8,5	76,5	63,0	56,75
10		GM	Safin Shukhrat	UZB	2485	8,5	76,0	61,5	57,00

Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

Photo source: Chesspics