Kaleidoscope: Switzerland, Russia, Greece, France

Hi everybody!

Here is a review of the recent women's tournaments and chess results all around the world.

Just a few minutes ago the very strong tournament "The Baltic Queen" in St-Petersburg, Russia has finished. Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (on the photo) scored 6 points out of 9 and took clear first place. The second place was taken by Ekaterina Atalik with 5.5 points and the third place was shared by Pia Cramling, Viktoria Cmilyte and Elizabeth Paehtz with 5 points.

The Jubiläums-Open «200 Jahre Schachgesellschaft Zürich» in Zurich was won by GM Alexander Areschenko from the Ukraine who scored 7.5 points out of 9. The top women's result in this open-tournament in Zurich was shown by Hou Yifan, who scored 6,5 points out of 9 and shared the 5th place. The final table can be found here.

The Acropolis-open 2009 in Greece was won by GM Borki Predojevic who took 7.5 points out of 9. The best women's result was shown by Elina Danielian from Armenia, who finished the tournament with 5,5 points out of 9. The final results can be seen here.

The Russia - China match is currently under way. The classical part of the match has finished. The Russian men won 13:12, but the Russian women lost 11,5 to 13,5. Tomorrow the rapid part of the match begins and then the participants will play the blitz part. Nevertheless in the last classical game Valentina Gunina who plays for Russia won in a very convincing style against the leader of the Chinese team Zhao Xue.

Zhao Xue just took the pawn on d4 17. ... cxd4 It's White to move now, can you find it?

Valentina found a very nice rook maneuver. She played 18. Rd3! and after Rd5 transfered her rook from the center to the king's flank 19.Rg3! This maneuver forced Black to weaken the king's side by playing g5 and after 20.f4 d3 21.Bxd3 Kf8 22.Kh1 Qc7 23.c4 Ra5 Valentina finished the game with a nice tactical blow:

24.Nxf7! gxf4 25.Nxf4 Qxf4 26.Qxe6 Re8 27.Nh8 Black resigns 1-0

Here is the pgn of the game:

[Event "Match Russia - China 2009"]
[Site "Sochi"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Gunina, Valentina"]
[Black "Zhao, Xue"]
[Result "1-0"]
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5 h6 4.Bxf6 Qxf6 5.e4 d5 6.Nbd2 Qd8 7.Bd3 Be7 8.O-O O-O 9.c3 Nd7 10.Qe2 dxe4 11.Nxe4 b6 12.Rad1 Bb7 13.Bc2 Qc8 14.Rfe1 Rd8 15.Ng3 Nf6 16.Ne5 c5 17.Nh5 cxd4 18.Rd3 Rd5 19.Rg3 g5 20.f4 d3 21.Bxd3 Kf8 22.Kh1 Qc7 23.c4 Ra5 24.Nxf7 gxf4 25.Nxf4
Qxf4 26.Qxe6 Re8 27.Nh8 1-0
You can copy and paste the moves into the pgn-player.

The women's championship of France is under way right now and Sophie Millet is leading the event with 6 points out of 8 and almost secured herself the first place.

At the end I'd like to show you one photo which I liked very much. It's a photo of Irina Sudakova from the Baltic Queen tournament in Saint-Petersburg. Vicktoria Cmilyte is analyzing her game. There is some poetry in this photo. A beautiful chess player, the board and the light that comes into this small room.


Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
www.chessblog.com