Alexandra Kosteniuk's CHESSBLOG.COM

The world's leading Women's Chess Blog, hosted by the Grandmaster

and Chess Queen™, Reigning 12th World Chess Champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk.


Friday, September 11, 2009

CHINA is 2 times women's world team champion!




The women's world chess championship 2009 came to its end. After a very exciting last round, where China could only achieve a draw against the outsider of the tournament, the team of Vietnam. Russia, after winning 3-1 against China-2, caught up China by match points. Ukraine after a very dramatic match by some miracle also managed to win their match against Armenia 2,5 to 1,5 and also caught up China by match points.

So 3 teams shared first place by match points - China, Russia and Ukraine, both with 12 match points. But individual team points are decisive. So China took gold with 21,5 points. Russia won silver medals with 21 points and Ukraine took bronze medals with 20,5 points. The full table of results can be found here.


The best player of the championship according to points and to the percentage was Russia's Valentina Gunina (on the photo below) with 6,5 points out of 8 (81,3%).


The best player of the championship according to perfomance was Russia's Nadezhda Kosintseva (on the photo below) with a perfomance of 2608!



Congratulations to the teams and all the players for a very interesting and hard-fought championship!

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion

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Monday, June 1, 2009

Women Chess Kaleidoscope

Various women's chess tournaments are taking place right now, or have just finished.

The
Women's Ukranian Championship just finished. Tatjana Vasilevich and Doluhanova Evgenia shared first place, but Evgenia was better on tie-breaks.

The higher league of the
Women's Russian Championship started today June 1 in Voronezh. Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (FIDE Elo rating 2450) is the elo-favorite of the tournament. Many young talented russian girls are playing as well. This tournament is the qualification for the Russian Women's Superfinal which is scheduled for December 2009. 5 top players at the end of the tournament will qualify for the Superfinal.

The
Russian Championship among boys and girls under 8 just finished. It's amazing that today we have championships under 8! And probably many future GM's played in this event. Alexandra Obolentseva, a 7-year old girl became the Russian Champion among girls U-8. Last year Alexandra Obolentseva took part in my annual tournament "Alexandra Kosteniuk's Cup" that took place on November 29 and 30 in the Central Chess Club in Moscow and I even have a photo of her playing in my cup. I hope Alexandra will continue playing chess and working hard, I wish her all the best!

The final of the
TOP 16 French teams took place in the Pyramides near Paris on May 31. Many strong female players took part in this event such as Almira Skripchenko, Inna Gaponenko, Sophie Milliet. The team of Evry (with Peter Svidler, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Sophie Milliet and other strong players playing for this team) took first place.

Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Ukranian Women's Chess Championship


From May 22 till May 31 the
Ukranian Women's Chess Championship is taking place. It's a Swiss system with 41 players fighting for the title of Women's Ukranian Champion. After the 3rd round 8 players are sharing first place among which the ELO-favorite of the tournament Tatiana Vasilevich (on the photo, rating - 2399).

















Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion

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