GM Timoshenko wins chess tournament in Nepal
Alexandra Kosteniuk's Chess News & Trivia (c) 2010
 GM Georgy Timoshenko
Hello Everyone,
It's great to know when chess makes a beginning in a country. Nepal is one such country. Of course they've had chess before but big tournaments have just begun in the country known as the Himalyan Kingdom once. It is now a democracy.
Top seed Ukrainian Grandmaster Georgy Timoshenko won the First Himalayan Grand Masters International Chess Tournament recently.
Timoshenko, who had just a 0.5 lead over the rest of the field before the final round decided to draw with Indian International Master (IM) Atanu Lahiri to finish on seven points, and win the tournament.
The 44-year old GM remained unbeaten during the tournament. “I felt really great when I landed here for the first time almost two weeks back and winning the title was a great moment for me. I wish to come back here again,” said the winner.
Slovenian GM Georg Mohr earned 6.5 points after tying with Indian IM MR Venkatesh in the final round to finish second. Mohr bettered GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan on Buchholz system after they were tied on points. Dzhumaev defeated Saidali Iuldachev in the final round — a real upset for the second seed of the tournament who ended up ninth in the standings.
You can find more details here though we couldn't locate any of the games.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's Also see her personal blog at
Labels: chess tournaments, grandmasters, Nepal
2010 Women's Chess Tournaments Calendar
Hello dear lady-tournament players!
Today FIDE announced the final schedule of the Women's FIDE Grand-Prix Series for 2009/10. There is one such Grand-Prix tournament left in 2009 and there will be 4 more Grand-Prix in 2010. Together with these tournaments I started a special table for open, closed, FIDE and all types of tournaments in 2010. The same table for the year 2009 you can found here.
There are quite a few great tournaments to keep us women chess players busy, practically all year long. Women also have the advantage to be allowed to also play in men's tournaments, which can be of a very high level and can be useful to get grandmaster practice.
Below are just the main starts for 2010 women-only tournaments, the dates of which I found on-line. If you know the dates of other chess events of if you are organizing a women's chess tournament, please feel free to let me know by entering a comment in this post and I will include your event in this calendar.
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
Russian Club Cup, Dagomys, Russia, April 1 - 12, 2010
MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
World Junior and Girls U-20 World Chess Championship, Chotowa Czarna, Poland, August 2 – August 17, 2010
SEPTEMBER
11th World University Chess Championship, Zurich, Switzerland, September 5 – September 12, 2010
Chess Olympiad, Khanty-Mansiisk, Russia, September 20 – October 4, 2010
OCTOBER
European Club Cup for Women, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, October 16 – October 24, 2010
NOVEMBER
16th Asian Games, Guangzhou, China, November 12 –November 27, 2010
DECEMBER Women’s World Chess Championship, Turkey, December 2 – December 25, 2010.
Now to all of you I wish a year 2010 full of chess successes, on the chess board and in your lives!
Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion
Labels: 2010, calendar, chess tournaments
Nice start for ladies in Antwerp
Hello dear chess friends!
Here is the latest news about the women's tournaments that are taking place right now or will start still in September.
From September 18, 2009 to September 26, 2009 the Inventi Chess tournament is taking place in Antwerp, Belgium. Among the participants are two ladies: Antoaneta Stefanova (2535) and Anna Muzychuk (2542).
The other players of this tournament are: Etienne Bacrot (2709), Gabriel Sargissian (2678), Emil Sutovsky (2676), Krishnan Sasikiran (2661), Bartosz Socko (2637), David Howell (2624), Jan Timman (2588) and Bart Michiels (2451). Today the first round was played and both Stefanova and Muzychuk won their games.
Below is the position from the game Jan Timman - Antoaneta Stefanova. White just played 24. Bxf4 what is the strongest move for Black now?
There are two wonderful photo reports by GM Ye Rongguang of the recent women's world team chess championship that took place from September 1 to September 12 in Ningbo, China,
have been published on www.chessbase.com, you can watch them here and here. Above you can see a very nice portrait of Nadezhda Kosintseva.
The Serbian Women's Chess League is taking place in Pozarevac, from September 14 to September 22nd, 2009. After 8 rounds the chess club BAS is leading with Bojkovic Natasa (2429), Gaponenko Inna (2438) Vasilevich Tatjana (2423) Stojanovic Andjelija (2323) and Drljevic Ljilja (2207). The full results and team-compositions can be found here.
Chess Queen Championship participants:
1 Hou Yifan g CHN 2585 1994 2 Zhao Xue g CHN 2542 1985 3 Ruan Lufei wg 2486 1987 4 Xu Yuhua g 2485 1976 5 Shen Yang wg 2453 1989 6 Ju Wenjun 2443 1991 7 Tan Zhongyi 2435 1991 8 Huang Qian wg 2424 1986
The First Teller Ede Memorial Chess Tournament will be held from September 24th to October 5, 2009 in Paks, Hungary. The following women are playing in this event: WGM Majdan Joanna 2382 POL, IM Vajda Szidónia 2375 HUN, WGM Gara Tícia 2354 HUN, WGM Doluhanova Evgeniya 2327 UKR, WGM Kochetkova Julia 2310 RUS, WIM Toth Lili 2172 HUN. Average rating: 2320 Category: 3. The official tournament website is http://www.ase.hu/marxgy/2009/
The 2nd Fide Women Grand Prix event is going to take place in Nanjing, China from September 27-October 9,2009. Here is the list of the participants of this event: Zhao, Xue (2544), Ju, Wenjun (2443), Dzagnidze, Nana (2536), Sebag Marie (2531) Xu, Yuhua (2485) Zhu, Chen (2473), Mrktchian, Lilit (2467), Shen, Yang (2453), Batkhuyag, Munguntuul (2412), Kovanova, Baira (2406), Fierro, Martha (2394), Yildiz, Betul (2217).
So there are many interesting events and there will be even more this autumn. As usual autumn is the golden time for chess players and fans.
Special thanks to my friend from Canada Wayne Mendryk for letting me know about some events and sending me links and all the info. :)
Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion Labels: chess tournaments, Stefanova, women's world team championship
Kaleidoscope: Switzerland, Greece, Slovenia, Poland, USA and many more
Today is August 1 - the Swiss National Day.  I congratulate all the Swiss and wish them all the best for their country. A famous chess festival in the Swiss town of Biel came to its end yesterday. The tournament was won by Boris Grachev, Russia with 8,5 points out of 11. The best women's result in the open section of the tournament was shown by Nadezhda Kosintseva. Who finished 11th with 7,5 points out of 11. The full table of the results can be seen here. There are many interesting and strong tournaments being held in Spain. A strong rapid tournament was held on July 25 and 26 in Villarrobledo, Spain. The tournament was won by Arkadi Naiditsch. The top result among women was shown by Hou Yifan who finished 13th with 6 out of 9. The official web-site of the ogranizers can be found here. The article about this tournament can be found on chessbase.com, here. 2nd International Chess Tournament was held from July 21 till July 28 in Paleohora, Greece. Evgeny Najer took the first place. The top result among women was shown by Katerina Lahno who scored 7 out of 9 and took the 12th place. The results are here.  Zonal 3.3 was held from July 22 to July 30 and was won by mongolian WGM Munguntuul Batkhuyag who lives in Moscow, Russia but plays for Monglia. Munguntuul scored 7,5 points out of 9 and took the first place. The full standing is here.  Iweta Rajlich is the new women's champion of Poland, she took the first place with with 9 points out of 11. The result can be found here. The European Veterans Championship was held from July 18 to July 31 in Rogaska Slatina, Slovenjia. In the women's section all 8 participants were Russian. The tournament was won by Ludmila Saunina. The results are here. European veterans Politiken Cup 2009 was held from July 18 till July 26th in Denmark and was won by Parmerian Negi with 8,5 points out of 10. The top women's result was shown by Viktorija Cmilyte with 7,5 points. The final table is here. From July 26 till July 31t the 6th annual SP National Invitational for Girls has been held at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, USA. 60 young chess players under the age of 19 from 44 states competed for the most prestigious all-girls national championship in the U.S. Yang Dai of Virginia won the main event with a 6-0 score. My student Rachel Gologorsky of Florida shared 2nd place with Epiphany Peters from Michigan with 4 points out of 5, congratulations! Rachel was second on tie-break with Epiphany taking the third place. More information about the tournament can be found here. Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.comLabels: biel, chess tournaments, cmilyte, Hou Yifan, lahno, rajlich
Puerto Rico Women Championship - Final
 The treasurer of the Puerto Rico Chess Federation, George Perez-Borrero let me know today that: "The Final of the Puerto Rico Woman Championship, Puerto Rico National Women Championship -2009 is being held at the Casa de Ajedrez  in Caguas Puerto Rico from July 11, 2009 to July 27 2009. The institution of 9,753 square feet is the only installation dedicated exclusively to chess in Puerto Rico. The house was built at a cost of $1,6 million. Casa del Ajedrez "the House of Chess" opened its doors in October of 2006 under the direction of IA Rafael Ortiz Bonilla with the purpose of promoting the education and practice of the sport science." After eight rounds the Chess Champion of Puerto Rico en titre - Seqarra Choe Tammy is leading with 7.5 points, the 9 years old Danitza Vazquez is in second place with 5 points. On the photo below you can see the direct encounter between the leaders.  The latest results can be seen here. For those of you who know Spanish, the official web-page of the Puerto Rico Chess Federation is here. Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.comLabels: chess tournaments, Danitza Vasquez Macarrini, Puerto Rico Chess Federation, Segarra Choe Tammy
Women's Chess Kaleidoscope: Spain, Greece, Canada and Poland
A little review of the recent chess results by the leading women chess players.
The tournament in San-Sebastian was won by Sophie Milliet (on the photo).  She finished the tournament with 7 points out of 9, one point ahead of Yana Melnikova and Sadchev Tania who shared the second place.
Irina Krush shared the third place in a very strong Canadian Open. She took 7 points out of 9, drawing in the last round against Michael Adams.
Antoaneta Stefanova shared the first place with 7 out of 9 in the open-tournament, in Rethymno, Greece.
The Polish women's chess championship started on July 18, after 2 rounds rating-favorite of the tournament Iweta Raijlich is in lead with 2 out of 2
Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
www.chessblog.com
Labels: chess tournaments
Women's Chess Kaleidoscope: Sweden, Germany, Spain, Canada, Scotland and many more.
Summer is usually hot not only in terms of the weather conditions but also in terms of number of very interesting tournaments. Women achieved a few noticeable results playing in men's
competitions this week.
Pia Cramling  (on the photo below) became the runner-up of the Swedish Championship. She finished second with 8,5 points out of 13.
Elizabeth Paehtz with whom I met for the first time over the board in 1994 finished third with 6 points out of 11 in a strong closed tournament in Berlin.
A few interesting tournaments are going on right now.
Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa Tournament in San-Sebastian is still under way. After 6th rounds Sophie Milliet and Jana Melnikova are sharing first place with 5 points. They are followed by Sachdev Tania and Regina Pokorna with 3.5 points.
Scottish Chess Championship is taking place from July 11 till July 19 in Edinburgh. After 3 rounds GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant is sharing the third place with 2.5 points.
The Canadian Open Chess Championship started a few days ago, many strong GM's are taking part in this open, including Alexei Shirov and Michael Adams. A few very strong women chess-players are also playing in this competition such as Zhao Xue (2544) and Irina Krush (2481).
At the end of this post enjoy this nice ending combination from the 12th round of the Swedish Championship between Pia Cramling (white) and Blomqvist (black).
It's White to move and it seems that even though the Black's position is passive but at least it's quite solid. In fact, Pia will need only 5 more moves to finish the game.
29. Nc5! a fork! Using the fact that after taking on c5, the d-file becomes an open-file and the rook on d1 will be at the right time in the right place. 29. ... Bxc5 30. dxc5 Ke7 (the pawn on c5 is untouchable since after 30. ... Nxc5 White will win the knight by playing 31. Nd6+) 31.Rcd2! (doubling rooks on the open-file) Nf8 32.Nb6 Re8 33.Rd7+! delivering the final blow. Black resigned. 1-0
Here is the pgn of the whole game. You can review it by simply copying and pasting into pgnplayer.com
[Event "ch-SWE"]
[Site "Kungsor SWE"]
[Date "2009.7.10"]
[Round "12"]
[White "Cramling,P"]
[Black "Blomqvist,E"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "D17"]
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.Ne5 Nbd7 7.Nxc4
Nb6 8.Ne5 a5 9.e3 g6 10.Bd3 Bxd3 11.Nxd3 Nbd5 12.Qb3 Qb6 13.Qxb6
Nxb6 14.Ke2 Bg7 15.b3 O-O 16.Bd2 Nfd7 17.Rac1 e6 18.Ne4 Ra7 19.Rhd1
Rd8 20.Be1 Nd5 21.Nd6 Bf8 22.Nc4 Rda8 23.e4 Nc7 24.f3 f6 25.Rc2
Ra6 26.Bf2 Rd8 27.g4 Kf7 28.Be1 Rda8 29.Nc5 Bxc5 30.dxc5 Ke7
31.Rcd2 Nf8 32.Nb6 Re8 33.Rd7+ 1-0
Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
Women's blog www.chessblog.com
Labels: Arakhamia, chess tournaments, Cramling, Paehtz
San-Sebastian Chess Tournament
 Together with a super GM's men tournament with an average rating of 2682, a very strong women's closed tournament will start tomorrow, July 7, in the spanish city of San Sebastian. Gipuzkoa Regional Government or “Diputacion” sponsors this women event. The tournament has a 2318 average in a women category 11 and category 3 tournament. The players of the Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa Tournament are: Tania Sachdev (2410), Milliet Sophie (2388), Pokorna Regina (2381) (on the photo below),  Michna Marta (2379), Hamdouchi Adina-Maria (2324), Zakurdjaeva Irina (2305), Melnikova Yana (2285), Ionica Iulia-Ionela (2263), Rozic Vesna (2239) and Karlovich Anastazia (2211). The pairing of the first round: 1 WGM Hamdouchi Adina-Maria 2324 - WGM Pokorna Regina 2381 2 IM Milliet Sophie 2388 - WGM Karlovich Anastazia 2211 3 WGM Zakurdjaeva Irina 2305 - WGM Michna Marta 2379 4 IM Tania Sachdev 2410 - WGM Melnikova Yana 2285 5 WGM Ionica Iulia-Ionela 2263 - WIM Rozic Vesna 2239 The official website can be found here. Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.comLabels: chess tournaments, San-Sebastian
Women's Chess Kaleidoscope
Hello everybody!
The second session of my Chess is Cool camp for kids at the Miami Chess Hall of Fame and Museum will begin tomorrow and I'm preparing for it right now.
A few women's tournaments have been played this week. The zonal 3.4 in Uzbekistan was won by Nafisa Muminova, you see her below (the photo was taken in Nalchik's world championship last fall).
Nafisa qualified for the Women's World Chess Championship that is scheduled for 2010 in Turkey.
who also qualified for the Women's World Chess Championship in 2010. Labels: chess tournaments
Hello from Panama and Women's Chess Kaleidoscope
Hi everybody!
I'm in Panama right now, having a very good time and promoting chess. Today I had the honor to meet the Mayor of Panama who handed me a diploma of distinguished visitor of Panama City. After that I gave a press-conference about my trip to Panama and why did I decide to visit this country. In the afternoon I gave a one hour lecture in the University of Panama about how chess helps in life and business. There were over 300 hundred people who attended this lecture and everything went very well.
Tomorrow at 9 AM I will give a simul to 20 players. We will have more nice photos soon.
Meanwhile many interesting women's chess tournaments are going on or just finished.
The Maia Chiburdanidze Cup
(International Open Women's Chess Tournament) took place in Tbilisi, Georgia on June 4-12, 2009. It was a very strong tournament with 57 women's players participating it it.
Final Standings:
1-2. Khotenashvili (GEO, 2364) and Javakhishvili (GEO, 2463) (on photo on the right)– 7 out of 9.
3-5. Muzychuk (SLO, 2533), Purtseladze (GEO, 2327) and Melia (GEO, 2440) – 6½.
6-9. Dzagnidze (GEO, 2541), Galojan (ARM, 2323), Khukhashvili (GEO, 2424) and Khurtsidze (GEO, 2424) - 6 etc.
 Marisa Zuriel (photo on the right) won the 2.5 zonal tournament that was held in Asunció (Paraguay) from June 10 till June 18, 2009. She finished first with 8.5 points out of 10, ahead of Carolina Lujan and Maria Plazaola who had 7 points.
The zonal tournament 2.4 that was held in Brasil from June 8 till June 18, 2009 was won by Juliana Terao.
The zonal tournament 3.4 is going on right now in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It will finish on June 26, 2009.
The winners of the zonal tournaments qualify for the Women's World Chess Championship 2010.
The international chess festival "Ruy Lopez" just ended today in Zafra (Spain) and was won by Ivan Cheparinov from Bulgaria who finished with 5 points out of 7. Pia Cramling was 6th with 3 points out of 7. Humpy Koneru shared the last place with 2.5 points.
Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
www.chessblog.com
Labels: chess tournaments, Panama
Women's Tournaments Calendar 2009
 Dear Organizers of Women’s Chess Events!
I’m starting a special list with all the women’s tournaments that take place throughout the year. If your tournament is not listed here, please send me an email or post a comment in this blog.
I’m making this list in order to make the women’s chess tournaments calendar as clear as possible and to avoid possible clashes of events.
Women’s chess tournaments calendar 2009:
(tournaments shown in italic have already been finished)
Moscow Open, women’s tournament
Moscow, Russia 31 Jan – 08 Feb, 2009
FIDE Women Grand-Prix Series
Istanbul, Turkey, 5-Mar - 20-Mar, 2009
The winner of the FIDE Women Grand-Prix Series 2009/2010 will have a chance to challenge the women’s world chess champion 2010 in a match that is scheduled for 2011.
European Individual Women's Chess Championship 2009
St. Petersburg, Russia 7- 21-Mar, 2009
Women's Russian Team Cup
Dagomys, Russia, Apr 2 – 11, 2009
Women GM Chess Tournament, Mediterranean Flowers
Rijeka, Croatia, 07 - 15 March, 2009
41st international women's tournament of 8th March
Belgrad, Serbia 03-11 March, 2009
Puerto Rico Chess Federation Woman Open Classificatory, 29-31 May, 2009 Zone 3.5 Zonal, Open and Women, Beijing, China, April 17-28, 2009
Zonal 2.4 Absolute and Women, Río de Janeiro, Brazil 8- 18 Jun-2009
Zonal 2.5 Absolute and Women, Asuncion, Paraguay 15-Jun-2009
WIM-Tournament, Stockholm, Sweden, 17-25 June, 2009
Zone 3.4 Zonal, Open and Women, Tashkent, Uzbekistan 16- 27-Jun-2009
Puerto Rico Women's Championship, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 10-27 July 2009
Zone 2.3 Zonal, San Salvador, 10-17 July, 2009
African Women's Individual Chess Championship, Libya, 20-31 July, 2009
Zone 3.3 Zonal, Open and Women, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam 22-30-Jul-2009 Canadian Women Chess Championship, Guelph, Zonal 2.2, July 30 - Aug 3, 2009 Zone 3.2 Zonal, New Delhi, India, 09 - 18 Aug, 2009
"Baltic Queen" GM Tournament for Women, Saint-Petersburg, August 11 - 20, 2009
Annual Lyudmila Rudenko Chess Cup, Saint-Petesburg, August 25 - September 3, 2009 Continental Women Championship 2009, Cali, Colombia 1 - 7-Sep, 2009
World Women's Team Championship 2009, Ningbo, China 1 - 12-Sep-2009 Women GM Chess Tournament Krk - Mediterranean Golden Island Baska (CRO), 9-18 Sep, 2009
European Club Cup for Women 2009, Struga, Lake Ochid, FYROM 3-11, Oct, 2009 2nd FIDE Women Grand-Prix Tournament, Nanjing, China Sep 27 - Oct 9, 2009 2009 U.S. Women's Championship, Saint Louis, USA 2-12, October, 2009
European Team Championship, Novi-Sad/Serbia, 21-30 October, 2009
3rd Asian Indoor Games Halongbay, Quang Ninh, Vietnam 30-Oct - 8-Nov, 2009 Senior World Chess Championship, Italy, Oct 26 - Nov 11, 2009 London Chess Classic Women's Invitational, London, England, December 7 - 15, 2009 (10 player, 9 round, all play all with WIM norms available. Tournament organiser: Lawrence Cooper)
European Rapid Women's Chess Championship 2009 open
European Blitz Women's Championship 2009 open
World Rapid Women's Chess Championship 2009 open
World Blitz Women's Championship 2009 open Labels: calendar, chess tournaments
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