Kosteniuk-Skripchenko in Tandem

Dear friends,

I have been charmed by the Principality of Monaco, tiny but amazingly beautiful! And I could sense a great love of chess, everybody so nice to me and Almira.

On Thursday Almira Skripchenko and I played a tandem simul in Monaco in the salon du Sporting Hiver. We played against 46 opponents, with the highest rated around 2300 ELO, and all players pretty strong! It was very much fun, with the exciting part trying to guess the ideas and plans of my partner Almira since we were alternating moves. The simul lasted for 4,5 hours. We had a very respectable result of +33 =9 -4 (against Van Hoolandt, Ruiz, Tersarkissok, Lomadong) and everyone was happy about how everything went.

Many important people of Monaco visited the simul, such as the vice-president of the Conseil National M. Bernard Marquet, the councilor of the Government for international affairs - M. Paul Masseron, the Minister of the education and sport - M. Claude Peri, the private councilor of the Prince M. René Novella, we also played a game against the former Minister of finance and now an Ambassador M. Henri Fissore.

We of course would like to thank very much Jean-Michel Rapaire the president of the Monaco Chess Federation and the President of the Monaco Chess Club for making this event real and organizing everything, who is doing so many wonderful things for promoting chess in the region!

You can see below a collage of photos of the event. You may recognize our friend Leo Battesti playing. He's the head of the Chess Federation of Corsica.

Tomorrow Almira and I are off to Brussels (Belgium) and will give another simul, photos and blog post to come very soon!

Happy chessing!

Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

Monaco Chess and Sunshine

Hello everybody!

After a long voyage I safely arrived to Monaco. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world; only Vatican City is smaller. It's so nice here. When you walk in the old city on a rock extending into the Mediterranean, known as the Rock of Monaco, or simply Le Rocher (the Rock), where the palace is located, it feels like you are in a movie, everything is so "minuscule" and beautiful.

Today, at 6pm local time my best friend Almira Skripchenko and I will give a tandem simul to 42 players right in the center of Monaco, next to its famous Monte Carlo Casino (you can see this Casino on the photos of this post). You can read a little bit more about simul on the official page of the French Chess Federation, here, and of course I will tell you more about it tonight.

Now I will go and prepare a little bit for the simul, since this is a tandem simul, it means that Almira and I will take turns in making moves so for that we need to discuss and prepare a special opening repertoire, which will suit Almira and I.

By the way, Almira, yesterday was awarded the trophy of "la joueuse de l’année" in Poker in France. You can read more about it here.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com

My team Monaco got SILVER!

The 25th European Club Chess Cup just finished a few minutes ago. The team of Spartak Vidnoe took the women's european club chess cup. Tatiana Kosintseva, Antoaneta Stefanova, Nadezhda Kosintseva, Kateryna Lahno and Evgenija Ovod played for this team. Above you can see the photo of the happy winner team from the closing ceremony.

My team of Cercle d'Echecs Monte Carlo took silver medals.

I took 4 out of 6 with a very nice win in the Dragon variation in the last round against Inna Gaponenko which I will certainly comment for you as well as will write a full report with many photos and commented games. But I will do it in the next 2-3 days since already in 2 hours I will need to leave the hotel and go to Skopje where I will take the train to Thessaloniki from where I will go to Halkidiki to take part in the 80th FIDE Congress as I am both a member of the FIDE Presidential Board and the Co-Chairman of the Commission for Women's Chess.

Since I haven't updated my blog for a while because I was playing and when I play I focus only on the tournament and the games many interesting women's chess events and tournaments have taken place.

The 2nd FIDE Women's Grand-Prix tournament that was held from September 27 to October 10 in Najing, China was won by the former women's world champion Xu Yuhua from China, who scored 8 points out of 11. Second place was taken by Nana Dzagnidze from Georgia, and the third place went to Zhao Xue from China. The full results and standings can be seen here.

In the women's US Chess Championship the defending champion Anna Zatonskih is leading the event with 4,5 out of 5, a full point ahead of the field. The championship has a very nice video and photo coverage that can be seen on the official site of the championship.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com