WGM Alisa Maric Appointed in Serbian Government!
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
WGM/IM Alisa Maric, the famous chess player and former finalist of the World Championship Challenger Match, assumed the post of the Minister of Youth and Sport in the new Serbian Government that sworn in today, according to an update by Chessdom.
Maric is one of the two members of the new cabinet that are not affiliated with any party. She was proposed for this position by the new Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, an avid chess player and former Belgrade youth champion. Alisa Maric is a sports hero of Serbia and former Yugoslavia. In the impressive list of her achievements on the chess board, the most important was the shared 1st place in the Candidate’s tournament Borzhomi 1990, together with Xie Jun.
The final challenger match between Alisa and Xie Jun was played in Belgrade and Beijing 1991. Xie Jun won 4,5:2,5, got challenge ticket and than took World champion title by winning against the famous Maia Chiburdanidze. Alisa Maric has Ph.D in Economics and she worked as Marketing professor at Megatrend University before being appointed Minister.
She was a member of Presidential Board of Serbian Olympic Committee. Her twin sister Mirjana Maric is also a Woman Grandmaster.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com
Labels: alisa maric, maia chiburdanidze, mirjana maric, Xie Jun
Don't Smoke, Play Chess! - Ex-World Chess Champ Joins Anti-Smoking Campaign
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012Hi everyone,
This is a nice chess-related news from China. The Chinese Association on Tobacco Control has launched a new awareness programme to tell women not to smoke. The Chinese population of women smokers is now more than 12 million. Almost 71.6 percent of females are affected by second-hand smoking.
Elite women from all walks of life have joined the program and are combating smoking together, including former world record holder in the women's high jump Zheng Fengrong, Women's World Chess Champion Xie Jun and renowned actress Liang Danni. This program will hold training, conduct studies and roll out a nationwide smoking cessation program.
All we want to say is don't smoke, play chess! Take the crusade forward in your community wherever you are on the planet. Chess is a beautiful thing. If you must need an addiction, try chess - not smoking, drinking, or drugs.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
Labels: Xie Jun
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
 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
Labels: Harika, Hou Yifan, Humpy Koneru, Russian Championship, Stepovaia, Xie Jun
Women's World Chess Champions
 Hello everyone!
Since my blog is about women's chess I would like to start by introducing you to the whole list of women's world chess champions and the history of the women's world chess championships. This information is taken from Wikipedia.The Women's World Chess Championship is played to determine the women's world champion in chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE.
Unlike most sports, women are able to compete against men in chess, and so some women do not compete for the women's title.
The regulations of the women’s world chess championship can be found on the FIDE web-site.
The Women's World Championship was established by FIDE in 1927 as a single tournament held alongside the Chess Olympiad. The winner of that tournament, Vera Menchik, did not have any special rights as the men's champion did — instead she had to defend her title by playing as many games as all the challengers. She did this successfully in every other championship in her lifetime (1930, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937 and 1939). Menchik died, still champion, in 1944 in a German air raid on Kent.
The next championship was another round-robin tournament in 1949-50 and was won by Lyudmila Rudenko. Thereafter a system similar to that of the men's championship was established, with a cycle of Candidates events (and later Interzonals) to pick a challenger to face the reigning champion.
The first Candidates tournament was held in Moscow, 1952. Elisabeth Bykova won and proceeded to defeat Rudenko with seven wins, five losses, and two draws to become the third champion. The next Candidates tournament was won by Olga Rubtsova. Instead of directly playing Bykova, however, FIDE decided that the championship should be held between the three top players in the world. Rubtsova won at Moscow in 1956, one-half point ahead of Bykova, who finished five points ahead of Rudenko. Bykova regained the title in 1958 and defended it against Kira Zvorykina, winner of a Candidates tournament, in 1959.
The fourth Candidates tournament was held in 1961 in Vrnjacka Banja, and was utterly dominated by Nona Gaprindashvili of Georgia, who won with ten wins, zero losses, and six draws. She then decisively defeated Bykova with seven wins, no losses, and four draws in Moscow, 1962 to become champion. Gaprindashvili defended her title against Alla Kushnir of Russia at Riga 1965 and Tbilisi/Moscow 1969. In 1972, FIDE introduced the same system for the women's championship as with the men's: a series of Interzonal tournaments, followed by the Candidates matches. Kushnir won again, only to be defeated by Gaprindashvili at Riga 1972. Gaprindashvili defended the title one last time against Nana Alexandria of Georgia at Pitsunda/Tbilisi 1975.
In 1976-1978 Candidates cycle, 17-year-old Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia ended up the surprise star, defeating Nana Alexandria, Elena Akhmilovskaya, and Alla Kushnir to face Gaprindashvili in the 1978 finals at Tbilisi. Chiburdanidze proceeded to soundly defeat Gaprindashvili, marking the end of one Georgian's domination and the beginning of another's. Chiburdanidze defended her title against Alexandria at Borjomi/Tbilisi 1981 and Irina Levitina at Volgograd 1984. Following this, FIDE reintroduced the Candidates tournament system. Akhmilovskaya, who had earlier lost to Chiburdanidze in the Candidates matches, won the tournament was but was still defeated by Chiburdanidze at Sofia 1986. Chiburdanidze's final title defense came against Nana Ioseliani at Telavi 1988.
Chiburdanidze's domination ended at Manila 1991, where the young Chinese star Xie Jun defeated her, after finishing second to the still-active Gaprindashvili in an Interzonal, tying with Alisa Maric in the Candidates tournament, and then beating Maric in a tie-breaker match.
Susan (also known as Zsuzsa) Polgar won the 1992 Candidates tournament at Shanghai. The Candidates final - an 8 game match between the top two finishers in the tournament - was a drawn match between Polgar and Ioseliani, even after two tiebreaks. The match was decided by a lottery, which Ioseliani won. She was then promptly crushed by Xie Jun (8.5-2.5) in the championship at Monaco 1993.
The next cycle was dominated by Susan Polgar. She tied with Chiburdanidze in the Candidates tournament, defeated her easily in the match (5.5-1.5), and then decisively defeated Xie Jun (8.5-4.5) at Jaén 1996 for the championship.
In 1997, Russian Alisa Galliamova and Chinese Xie Jun finished first and second, but Galliamova refused to play the final match entirely in China. FIDE eventually awarded the match to Xie Jun by default.
However, by the time all these delays were sorted out, Polgar had given birth to her first child. She requested that the match be postponed. FIDE refused, and eventually set up the championship to be between Galliamova and Xie Jun. The championship was held in Kazan, Tatarstan and Shenyang, China, in 1999 and Xie Jun won with five wins, three losses, and seven draws.
In 2000, a knock-out event, similar to the FIDE men's title and held alongside it, was the new format of the women's world championship. It was won by Xie Jun. In 2001 a similar event determined the champion, Zhu Chen. Another knock-out, this one held separately from the men's event, in Elista, the capital of the Russian republic of Kalmykia (of which FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is president), from May 21 to June 8, 2004, produced Bulgarian Antoaneta Stefanova as champion. As with Polgar seven years prior, Zhu Chen did not participate due to pregnancy.
In 2006 the title returned to China. Interestingly, the new champion Xu Yuhua was pregnant during the championship.
In 2008, the title went to Russian grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk, who, in the final, beat Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan 2.5-1.5.
Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion http://www.chessblog.com/Labels: Bykova, Chiburdanidze, Gaprindashvili, Kosteniuk, Menchik, Polgar, Rubtsova, Rudenko, Stefanova, Women in Chess, Women's World Chess Champions, Xie Jun, Xu Yuhua, Zhu Chen
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