Kosteniuk wins 2009 US Open Blitz

Hi to all!

Finally now that I'm back home, I'm ready to tell you about the 2009 US Open blitz championship which I won on August 8, 2009.

It was a 7 double rounds event with 5 minutes for each partner to finish the game. Since I LOVE blitz I couldn't miss a chance to participate in the US open blitz championship. However in the first few rounds I could feel some lack of blitz practice, and at the beginning of the 6th round I was 1 point behind the leader GM Mesgen Amanov. In the first game of our mini-match I was playing Black and equalized pretty easily to reach a draw. In the second game I was playing White and of course wanted to win. My opponent chose the very sharp Najdorf variation of the Sicilian defence and so we went into a long theoretical battle which ended with an unfortunate mistake of my partner. I commented the game for you and posted it on youtube.com/chessqueen . You can also click on the image at the top of this post to be redirected to my video.

In the last round I was able to win 2-0 (Amanov was not able to win 2-0) and so I became the 2009 US Open blitz champion.

I'm now preparing for the Moscow Blitz Championship which will take place on August 30, 2009 in Moscow. It will be super strong, and I hope that this win will give me enough confidence that will help me in Moscow. I hope to post many more games from Indianapolis and from Moscow in the near future on my YouTube channel "chessqueen".

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