12 December 2009
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 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
From December 1 to December 12 the 36th National India Women’s Chess Championship took place. It was won by Harika Dronavalli (on the photo below)
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
