14 November 2009

3rd Asian Indoor Games


The 3rd Asian Indoor Games have been held in Vietnam, from October 30th, 2009 to November 8th, 2009. Chess was one of the other 30 games represented in Vietnam and were presented with players from 19 countries.

The chess program consisted of the following 4 competitions: Team Blitz (Preliminary, Semi-Final, Final), Men Rapid (Preliminary, Semi-Final, Final), Women Rapid (Preliminary, Semi-Final, Final), Team Rapid (Preliminary, Semifinal, Final).

In the team blitz event, the team of Vietnam took the gold medals winning in the final match against the team of China.

In the team rapid event, China took their revenge, winning in the final match against the team of Vietnam. The women rapid was won by Hou Yifan who won the final match against Zhu Chen All the results and many photos can be found on the official organizers site.

Here is a nice example from the games of Hou Yifan from the 3rd Asian Indoor Games:

It’s the position from the game between Hou Yifan and Alattar Ghayda, Black just played 24. … Rad8, what is the best way for White to finish the game?

The full table of the medals won in the chess program can be found here and in the chart below:



That’s great to see that in Asia chess now is part of the Indoor and Outdoor Olympic Games, I hope that in the near future we will see chess as a member of the Global Olympic family.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women’s World Chess Champion