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hosted by Chess Queen™ & 12th Women's World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
Monday, March 31, 2014
April 2014 Chess Ratings: Carlsen, Judit top Lists; Kramnik, Kosteniuk top Russians!
Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2014
Hello everyone,
The April FIDE 2014 chess ratings list is out and World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen stays at the top with 2881. In second place is Levon Aronian despite losing 18 points and slumping to 2812. The big gain is by former World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand who is not world no. 3 at 2785 with a cool 15-point gain. He has edged out Vladimir Kramnik who has gone to the fourth slot with a four-point loss. Here is a list of the top-20 players with rating: Rank Name Title Country Rating Games B-Year 1 Carlsen, Magnus g NOR 2881 0 1990 2 Aronian, Levon g ARM 2812 14 1982 3 Anand, Viswanathan g IND 2785 14 1969 4 Kramnik, Vladimir g RUS 2783 14 1975 5 Caruana, Fabiano g ITA 2783 0 1992 6 Grischuk, Alexander g RUS 2777 0 1983 7 Karjakin, Sergey g RUS 2772 14 1990 8 Topalov, Veselin g BUL 2772 14 1975 9 Nakamura, Hikaru g USA 2772 0 1987 10 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar g AZE 2760 14 1985 11 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime g FRA 2758 0 1990 12 Dominguez Perez, Leinier g CUB 2757 0 1983 13 Svidler, Peter g RUS 2756 14 1976 14 Adams, Michael g ENG 2753 2 1971 15 Gelfand, Boris g ISR 2753 0 1968 16 Ivanchuk, Vassily g UKR 2753 0 1969 17 Vitiugov, Nikita g RUS 2747 0 1987 18 Giri, Anish g NED 2745 0 1994 19 So, Wesley g PHI 2738 0 1993 20 Wang, Hao g CHN 2734 0 1989
Among the women chess players, Judit Polgar keeps her No. 1 spot and is followed by Hou Yifan. Koneru Humpy is in the third spot.
GMs and former World Chess Champions Vladimir Kramnik (World No. 3 among men) and Alexandra Kosteniuk (World No. 8 among women) remain the top Russians in the world with 2783 and 2527 respectively.
Here are the top-20 women chess players in the world:
Rank Name Title Country Rating Games B-Year 1 Polgar, Judit g HUN 2685 11 1976 2 Hou, Yifan g CHN 2618 11 1994 3 Koneru, Humpy g IND 2613 0 1987 4 Muzychuk, Anna g SLO 2560 0 1990 5 Zhao, Xue g CHN 2552 0 1985 6 Dzagnidze, Nana g GEO 2550 11 1987 7 Lagno, Kateryna g UKR 2543 0 1989 8 Ju, Wenjun wg CHN 2527 11 1991 9 Kosteniuk, Alexandra g RUS 2527 0 1984 10 Muzychuk, Mariya m UKR 2524 0 1992 11 Khotenashvili, Bela g GEO 2513 11 1988 12 Kosintseva, Nadezhda g RUS 2513 0 1985 13 Cmilyte, Viktorija g LTU 2511 2 1983 14 Gunina, Valentina g RUS 2508 2 1989 15 Hoang, Thanh Trang g HUN 2508 1 1980 16 Harika, Dronavalli g IND 2507 10 1991 17 Cramling, Pia g SWE 2507 3 1963 18 Ruan, Lufei wg CHN 2503 0 1987 19 Ushenina, Anna g UKR 2501 0 1985 20 Pogonina, Natalija wg RUS 2499 0 1985
Not much rating changes have taken place for the top-20 women this month, but then we have a fantastic new women's chess event coming up this April. Do you know which chess tournament it is and did you read our Chess Blog post about it? Yes, it is in Khanty Mansiysk! Here is the FIDE page dedicated to chess ratings.
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.
The following is just one of the 10 recently published chess blitz videos from the 2010 Women's World Chess Blitz Championship, posted on Alexandra Kosteniuk's YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/chessqueen).
The recent Blitz Chess World Championship was fantastic and was so strong! The games were super interesting and exciting. Without losing too much time, I will start sharing many of my games with you. Below is the first one, against USA's Women's Chess Champion Irina Krush. There will be more coming very soon.
It's interesting to see that all 4 players of the Russia-1 women's team (Both Kosintseva sisters Tatiana and Nadezhda (2nd & 8th, Valentina Gunina 3rd, and myself 6th) at the current Khanty-Mansiysk Chess Olympiads finished within the top 8 in the World Blitz, with the second strongest country at the World Blitz being the Ukraine (Kateryna Lahno 1st, Inna Gaponenko 7th, Mariya Muzychuk 13th and Natalia Zhukova 15th). Will Russia and the Ukraine be top contenders for the Gold?
I want to share with you a shortened 9-minute YouTube version of the Russian TV program "Bolshie Gonki", in which I was part of the Russian all-star team. This is the result of the filming that took part on July 21, close to Paris, for which I created a Trivia Contest.
Lots of people have asked me why I’m called the “Chess Queen”, so I decided to write an illustrated post about it. It all started in 2001, when I was 17 years old. My rating was 2469 and I had the titles of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) and Men International Master (IM).
I want to share with you my new “Chess is Cool” comic #6, which is a joint venture between myself and the talented comic-book illustrator-cartoonist René Duret. Click on the image above to see it bigger, or see the whole series on my comic page. If you’d like to publish it (in any language), I usually give the permission to do so at no cost, just contact me about it.
It’s perfect to promote chess to kids in clubs and schools.
I just posted on my YouTube channel "ChessQueen" a new commented game video, of my third and final game of the Machu Picchu Chess Cup, played with Girls U-16 World Champion Deysi Cori last week.
I am preparing more chess videos for you, come back soon!
Click on the video above to hear me speak Spanish on TV
Hi everyone!
See me and hear me speak Spanish on Colombian TV during last month's Tarrito Rojo Chess Talent series of events in Bogotá and Medellin. You can also find my personal video about this trip here or embedded below:
That's me at the Machu Picchu after getting my trophy
Women's Chess Promotion at its finest!!
Hi everybody!
I'm writing this post from the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge in Peru. This afternoon the most amazing chess match took place, in a location one could only dream of, one of the 7 wonders of the world: The Machu Picchu!
I was playing with the World Champion Under-16 Deysi Cori in what may be one of the most publicized matches of this year. The match was shown live on Peruvian TV live and dozens of photographers and TV crews from around the world came to cover this story. It was surreal, dozens of reporters were running around the Machu Picchu with satellite internet, relaying photos and videos to their headquarters live! Our train from Cusco this morning had a whole wagon for the Press!
I will tell you about the match in more detail soon (I have full videos of all games and of the whole event, as well as hundreds of nice photos, so get ready for new videos on my YouTube channel "ChessQueen" and new photos on ChessPics), but for the moment let me tell you how it went. Since the match was live on TV, the games were played in blitz 4 + 2 (4 minutes for the game + 2 seconds per move), which is a time control I am quite fond of (together with the 3 + 2 of the world blitz championship). So in this match against Deysi I won the first game quite convincingly, and in the second one I was 2 pawns up and only needed a draw to secure the first prize. But I lost concentration and lost the game, which made all of Peru jump in happiness and forced the match into a sudden death tie-break 3rd game. I'm pleased to say I won it in a nice style and so was able to take home the top prize.
The view from where we played was incredible, I have never been in such a wonderful place, and playing chess there was doubly as nice! Just look at the photo below, can you imagine playing there?
Deysi Cori playing me, Alexandra Kosteniuk, at the Machu Picchu
That's me, Alexandra Kosteniuk and World U-16 Champion Deysi Cori
This has been a wonderful experience for me, the road to the Machu Picchu is unbelievable, I had to get up at 2:30 AM from Lima, fly to Cusco, then a bus, a train, another bus... such nice views, but the tough road was so worth it! Photos here are worth their weight in gold, believe me! I hope this event goes a long way to promote women's chess in the world, as well as promote tourism to the Machu Picchu. If you haven't seen the Machu Picchu in your lifetime, you're missing on something very, very impressive.
Thanks to the organizers who made this amazing match possible. I'm going to bed now as tomorrow morning I will get up at 5 AM and see the sunrise here at the Machu Picchu. After that I go back to Cusco to do some more chess promotion, then I will have a big simul in Lima on Tuesday.
I arrived to Peru during the night Wednesday-Thurday at around midnight, and already on Thursday had lots of events: first I met with the Rector of the University of Engineering (UNI), who gave me a medal and diploma of Famous Visitor. We also had a press conference, where it was announced that the match between me and Deysi Cori will take place in the Machu Picchu tomorrow Sunday.
Many officials of the Ministry of Sports and Tourism were present, even the cultural attaché of the Russian Embassy. It was said that our chess match at the Machu Picchu will no doubt increase the amount of Tourism to Peru, as well as promote chess in the country.
Me and Deisy Cori
The last 2 days we had an "Octogonal" tournament with 8 participants, 7 from Peru and myself. Yesterday I played quite poorly, only getting 2.5 points out of 8, but today was much better with 5/6, beating Jorge Cori 2-0 and tying with Deisi Cori 1-1 in our little matches. The winner of the "Octogonal" tournament was GM Emilio Cordova, and I tied for 4th-5th.
I have to get up tomorrow at 3 AM to fly to Cusco then the trip to the Machu Picchu will take about 4 hours, and at 2 PM I will play a 2-game match with Deisi. I will be sure to let you know how it goes. I already have plenty of photos and videos that I will post as soon as I have some time.
Kosteniuk meets Carvalho at Miami-Dade Title I Adminitstration District Chess Championship
Record 844 kids playing chess in Miami and 76 schools - so cool!
Hello everybody!
Yesterday I was at the Title I District Chess Championship for Miami-Dade Title I Chess Program. That's a chess program, run in an excellent way by Elizabeth Tejada (see photo below), in which all of Miami's kids in the whole public school system have an opportunity to learn and play chess at school. Lots of coaches take part in the program, and there are several chess championships along the way. The biggest one is the Title I District Chess Championship, to which I was invited yesterday.
I was very impressed by the very good organization, but most of all by the presence, from the very beginning to the very end, of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. I was told Alberto has not missed one of these chess events in years, and that he supports chess in schools 100%. So it was a blessing for me to meet him and to be able to talk about how to support chess more with kids.
We talked about future events and he was very open to my ideas, I hope we will have a chance to share some big news with you later on, which may go a long way to promote chess in Florida even more.
Title I Chess Coordinator Elizabeth Tejada,
Superintendent of schools Alberto Carvalho,
and me, Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alberto was infatigable and gladly accepted to pose in all photos, he seems even more used to that than I am! He also asked each kid their name, how they were doing in the tournament, and in school, and wished them the best for their tournament! That's very impressive considering this was a day off (Saturday), and Alberto is in charge of the 4th largest school district of the whole USA!
Also, I met with Dr. Marta Perez and Dr. Wilbert Holloway, School Board Members, from M-DCPS and expressed to me their support to all chess players!!
Scott Lake Elementary Chess Teams are cool!
It's not every day you get to be in a photo with the women's
world chess champion and the superintendent for schools
Yes you recognized him on the right in the blue shirt:
Miami chess star and coach IM Blas Lugo
And of course lots of autographs!
I love to be present at prize-giving ceremonies
and hand out prizes to kids!
Every chess coach who came to the tournament received a free copy
I was impressed by the high level of the organization, and of the hundreds of chess kids running around the hotel, it was like chess paradise! The tournament took place in the Hyatt, right in the center of town, in walking distance from the World of Coca-Cola Museum (which I visited), and several malls and nice restaurants. There even is a subway that goes from right next to the hotel straight to the airport, that's as convenient as it gets!
I started the event on Friday morning with a 48 board chess simul, which went very well and saw me winning 44 games, losing only to Tim Steiner (congratulations!), and drawing with Lazar Vilotijevic, Dex Webster, and Samuel Bennett, who played very solid games of chess!
Starting my game with Tim Steiner
Dex Webster making his best move
Samuel Bennett kept me fighting till the very end
After the simul ended, at the bookstore, there was a lot of activity. I signed over 1,000 autographs, there was a line for 3 hours straight to come and see me, I had to schedule two more book signings to accommodate more people. Lucky they had over 100 copies of my Diary of a Chess Queen (buy it here to get a free personal autograph), and they only ran out at the very end of the weekend. I'm so happy my book is turning into a chess bestseller. See the reviews posted on Amazon.
A very sweet little girl, photographed by her Dad
The crowd at the bookstore was amazing!
During the tournament, a FIDE Trainers Seminar for Women took place, as was announced earlier.
I gave a talk and answered questions on the last day.
The students learned a lot in 20 intensive hours of instruction, even had an examination at the end of the formal courses.
A nice group picture with all the people who attended.
Posing with the two head coaches of the seminar:
Grandmaster Alexander Chernin and Mikhail Khodarkovky
With the Executive Director of the
United States Chess Federation (USCF), Bill Hall
and the Editor of Chess Life, Dan Lucas
By the way, you should not miss the official ChessPics photo album of my stay in Atlanta. If you're on any of the photos, please send me an email with the number of the photo and I will send it to you, at no cost!
I just got the official brochure of next month's trip to Peru. As for Colombia last week, it will be very busy: I will be giving conferences & simuls, playing a tournament with the 7 strongest youth chess players of Peru, in both Rapid and Blitz time controls. But the high point for me will be a 2-game match played at the top of the Machu Picchu (that's one of the 7 wonders of the world!) against Peru's top youth hopeful, Deysi Cori. I look forward to that match very much!
So if you will be in Peru between May 21 and 25, mark your calendar! See the schedule on the brochure below.
This is a short post to share with you some photos from Dubai which I took last night. Dubai is amazing, and the conference Sport Accord allows me to meet very interesting people, who can help with the promotion of chess. Ludovic is one of them, he helped make the Chess for Peace project in Puerto Tejada a reality, I thank him for that immensely! I also gave an interview to push for chess to join the Olympic Games, see it here.
More about what I'm doing in Dubai in a later post!
I just read today on the Andina News Agency that next month I will play a match with Deysi Cori right at the top of the Machu Picchu!
I am glad that my Peruvian trip is working out, there will be many more events in Peru, and as soon as I have the full schedule, I will publish it.
For the moment, here is the text of the article (original link):
Peru's Deysi Cori to face world chess champion Alexandra Kosteniuk in Machu Picchu
Lima, Apr. 23 (ANDINA).- Peru's U-16 world champion Deysi Cori Tello announced she will play reigning women's world chess champion Alexandra Kosteniuk in the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu.
“I’ll have a match against women’s world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk in Machu Picchu within a month. It’s going to be very interesting. I’m already training,” Daysi told RPP radio.
Deysi Cori, the only female player from Peru to hold the Grandmaster title, said she just spent three months in Europe together with her brother Jorge training for the upcoming international chess competitions, such as the Chess Olympiad in Russia and the World Junior and Girls U20 Chess Championships in Poland.
In November 2009, Daysi and Jorge Cori obtained the title of chess International Grandmasters in the U-16 and U-14 categories respectively at the last World Youth Chess Championship 2009 in Turkey.
The siblings were honored by the government in December 2009 for their accomplishments, and each of them received a check for 15,000 soles and a laptop; as well as US$ 22,000 for their trips during 2010.
As many of you may be aware from my Twitter or Facebook, I am now in Dubai, at the large Sport Accord Convention, helping to promote chess.
Gulf news published today an article (I reprint below from this original link) about my thoughts of having chess become an Olympic Sport. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments about this issue!
World champion chess player pushes for Olympic status
25 year old says under-rated game has unlimited potential
By Alaric Gomes, Senior Reporter, Gulf News. Published: April 28, 2010
Dubai: She is cute, young, attractive and as the reigning world chess champion 25-year-old Alexandra Kosteniuk is pushing vigorously to have chess included as an Olympic sport in the not-too-distant future.
"My desire is to help chess and support the movement of having chess as an Olympic sport one day," Kosteniuk told Gulf News along the sidelines of the SportAccord International Convention at The Atlantis.
"My reason for coming here is to tell people about chess and to impress upon the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the need to have chess as an Olympic sport," she said.
Born in 1984 in the Russian city of Perm, Kosteniuk showed tremendous talent from an early stage. The Women's World Champion since 2008, Kosteniuk wants to get rid of the notion that chess has been under-rated.
Potential
"I have always considered chess as a sport," she said. "Unfortunately, it is not as popular as it used to be. But chess has a lot of potential worldwide as we have 171 affiliated federations. And after spending all my life in the sport, I now see the need to help chess in some way."
In fact, Kosteniuk has been doing a lot of work to promote chess including travelling, seminars, and lectures.
"This is a very interesting sport and it helps a lot of kids," she said. "I love chess very much and I want to share this passion with the world. I believe chess deserves much more attention."
The pretty Russian believed her approach was working for the good of the sport.
The sport has witnessed a renaissance of sorts with an increased following in recent times, partly due to such initiatives from FIDE, the world governing body for the sport.
"We have to move on," she said. "We need to find better ways of working and operating, with the sponsors and with the media.
"We have a huge advantage in chess as the distance really doesn't matter. The world is changing and life is faster nowadays."
I've been quite busy. Right after coming back from Colombia on April 22, the next day (on my birthday) I drove North 3 hours to get to the city of Indialantic, Florida (about one hour from Orlando), where the yearly Space Coast Chess Festival takes place.
Space Coast Event poster
I was to give a 50-board simul at 8AM on April 24. I thank the organizers of the Festival who gave me and my family the best room of the hotel, with a breathtaking view on the ocean, it was magnificent.
As for the simul, it went very well, 46 people turned up at this early hour, and I achieved the result of 42 wins, 3 draws (to Dr. Axel Stock from UCF, John Ludwig, and Eric Perlman), and one loss to Wayne Strickland. Congratulations to all for doing their best and thereby promoting the game of chess!
Eric Perlman kept me in a very tough
position during the whole game
The official photo album of the event is here. If you are a participant, feel free to email me and I can send you any of the photos in high resolution at no cost to you.
Don't be shy about contacting me
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or to propose collaboration
Best chess wishes to you! Alexandra Kosteniuk
12th Women's World Chess Champion
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The April FIDE 2014 chess ratings list is out and World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen stays at the top with 2881. In second place is Levon Aronian despite losing 18 points and slumping to 2812. The big gain is by former World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand who is not world no. 3 at 2785 with a cool 15-point gain. He has edged out Vladimir Kramnik who has gone to the fourth slot with a four-point loss. Here is a list of the top-20 players with rating:
