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hosted by Chess Queen™ & 12th Women's World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Congratulations to Zhao Xue for winning the third Women's Chess Grand Prix in Nalchik
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011
Hi everyone,
Congratulations to Grandmaster Zhao Xue for winning the third edition of the women's chess grand prix with a convincing 2.5 points despite a last round loss. It has been a brilliant tournament for the talented chinese player who played in top form - notching up one of the best performances in her career. Nothing taking away from the others, but it was just Xue's tournament. Congratulations to all the girls who participated and made yet another women's chess grand prix a delight to watch. You can access the official website at this link. Finishing second was Ju Wenjun. In joint third place were Ekaterina Kovalevskaya and Viktorija Cmilyte. Here is an interview with the winner. Enjoy.
Third women's chess grand prix begins today in Nalchik
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011
Hello everyone,
Another 'beautiful' chess news. The third Fide Women's Chess Grand Prix begins in Nalchik today. Of course the games would start tomorrow but we're all excited. No interest taken away from the ongoing Grand Slam Masters in Bilbao with top men grandmasters of the chess planet.
This Women's Grand Prix would take us through to all the way till October 23. Nalchik is the capital of Kabardiono Balkaria. Apart from the three former Women World Champions - GM Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia, GM Antoaneta Stefanova from Bulgaria and GM Zhu Chen from Qatar - we would also see top Russian sisters in action, Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosinteva. They will all be challenged by another two top world class players GM Katerina Lahno from Ukraine and WGM Ju Wenjun from China. The other talented chess players in the event include Viktorija Cmilyte, Alisa Galliamova, Zhao Xue, Munguntuul Batkhuyag and Ekaterina Kovalevskaya. That makes a total of eight GMs, one WGM and two IMs.
Stay tuned for all the info. You can access the official website at this link.
And, just a trip down memory lane. Enjoy the video.
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.
On this day September 17, exactly one year ago, in Nalchik, Russia, after incredibly tense non-stop 3 weeks of competition, I drew the last game of the final match in the Women's World Chess Championship against the Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan. The final score of the match was 2,5 to 1,5 in my favor, and I thus became the 12th Women's World Chess Champion in the history of the game.
It was a most special day for me. There are no words that can describe the way I felt after the final match was over. It was a moment of utmost happiness and it's such a pleasure today to look back and to recall that day.
One year has passed and during this year I wrote a book "Diary of a Chess Queen" that just came out in Russian and will come out in English on December 1 (it can be preordered with free autograph, Christmas delivery guaranteed). I also created a special DVD about "How I became the 12th women's world chess champion" where I analyze all my games of the Nalchik championship in great detail and in video. You can watch comments to one of my games from the very tense third round against my compatriot Tatiana Kosintseva in the video below. My DVD contains both all my games played and a long version of the documentary, over 4 hours of video in total. Entertaining and at the same time extremely useful chess training.
I dedicated the victory in this championship to my daughter Francesca but I must also thank my husband, Diego and my family - my dad, my mom and my sister Oxana. Thank to all these people I became today who I am and I'm very grateful to them for their love, support and patience.
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Best chess wishes to you! Alexandra Kosteniuk
12th Women's World Chess Champion
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