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.

The Women GM Chess Tournament Krk – Mediterranean Golden Island in Croatia took place from September 11 to September 18, 2009. Tatiana Shadrina and Nino Maisuradze shared first and second place with 7 points out of 9. The full table can be found here.

Maotai Prince Cup China National Chess King/Queen Championships is taking place from 17th to 25th September 2009 in Jinzhou, China, each group has 8 players. Time control: 90 minutes + 15 minutes + 30 seconds increment per move from first move.
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

Official site: http://live.chinaqiyuan.com/chessen_jz.html Parings and resuts of the King championship are here. Parings and resuts of the Queen championshipare here.

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