Today I was invited to the Moscow Central Chess Club on Gogol street to honor the veteran lady players participating in the Olga Rubtsova Memorial Tournament, taking place exactly 100 years after her birth.
Olga Rubtsova was the fourth Women's World Chess Champion in history (1956-1958), see the Wikipedia article about her.
All the participating ladies next to me in the photo below are true pioneers of Soviet and Russian chess, and it is with great emotion that I was among them. The veteran of the tournament was Kira Zvorykina (see her Wikipedia page), who will turn 90 years old next week, she was 5-time champion of the USSR, and was married to GM Alexei Suetin. It's very impressive to be playing a chess tournament at 90 years old... I hope I will be able to do that...
The winner of the tournament was no one else than Elena Fatalibekova, who actually is the daughter of Olga Rubtsova and you can see me here giving her the first prize trophy.
Every single woman in that group deserve most warm congratulations. They were simply amazing! The results table is below.
Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk
12th Women's World Chess Champion
Good for you, Alexandra, very good deed, indeed. Amazing ladies. I doubt I will be playing chess at 90 LOL
ReplyDeleteAn incredible gesture to these pioneers!. Alexandra you genuinely are an ambassador of chess. I salute you always..Jose :-)
ReplyDeleteIsn't it awful that I have never heard of these pioneering players. I had never heard of any women's champions prior to Gaprindashvili, who was women's champion in the 70s when I started playing. It's inspiring to hear about these great ladies. Thanks for posting this, Alexandra, it's a great article.
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