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hosted by Chess Queen™ & 12th Women's World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk
Monday, November 30, 2009
Kosteniuk - Calzetta New Chess Video
Dear Chess Friends,
I've been asked quite often to post more commented chess videos, so I have a new one for you! It's my game against the Spanish lady champion, Monica Calzetta. It was the first round of the recent European Team Championship in Novi Sad. I was playing on the first board of the Russian Team (my team mates were Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosintseva and Valentina Gunina) and Monica was playing on the first board of the Spanish Team (Her team mates were Sabrina Vega, Natalia Pares and Patricia Llaneza). I posted the moves to that game in a previous post.
If you have a login to YouTube, feel free to go directly to my channel "ChessQueen", where I have many other nice commented chess videos. I am grateful when you give a 5-star rating to my videos and leave any comment below the video, I always do my best to answer them. Here is the direct link to my Kosteniuk - Calzetta video.
Best chess wishes to you, Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com
Here's one more video for you, of my game from the last World Blitz Chess Championship, in which I won against Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk, rated #10 in the world (ELO 2736). Look at how surprised he was when I played 24. Qxg8+ which leads to mate next move.
Leonard Barden, in this week's Guardian article, titled "Magnus Carlsen's star continues to rise in Norway", talks about the World Blitz Championship, where I was able to beat him in one of our direct encounters. I post my game against Magnus below. Magnus resigned after he played 43. R3e2, since he saw that I can win a Rook by simply playing 43...Qxf2+.
Here is the text of his article. Go to the original page to see a nice position from the game Kramnik-Aronian.
Magnus Carlsen's World Blitz victory in Moscow has made the 19-year-old the darling of the Norwegian media. Carlsen scored 31/42 in the double-round event against the elite, with a rating performance close to 2900. He finished three points clear of world champion Vishy Anand, and six ahead of Sergey Karjakin in third.
Despite this impressive performance, it was one of Carlsen's few defeats which really put him on the front pages and raised his fame quotient in Oslo to a par with Bobby Fischer. In an early round he lost to the world woman champion Alexandra Kosteniuk after blundering a rook, briefly attempting to substitute another move, and resigning without shaking hands. Kosteniuk's other career is as a model, and it was her glamorous poses which accompanied the banner headlines. In fact she also beat Anand and Levon Aronian, full points against three of the world top five men.
Carlsen's recent training with Garry Kasparov included blitz sessions, after which he revealed that they had finished about even and that neither liked to lose 'especially him'. The Moscow event was the strongest ever official world blitz contest, and the only superior achievement was Fischer's famous win in the unofficial contest at Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia, in 1970. Bobby there scored 19/22, won by 4.5 points ahead of Mikhail Tal, and reportedly never took more than two and a half minutes of his allotted five for any game. He wiped out the Soviet contingent of three world champions and two challengers 8.5-1.5.
So Fischer rates best, but Carlsen has yet to peak. You can watch him in action against England's top GMs led by Nigel Short and Michael Adams between 7-15 December in the London Classic at Olympia which includes GM running commentaries and side events for spectators.
As you know, my new book, "Diary of a Chess Queen" will be hitting the shelves in just 10 days, in the first week of December. I am very proud of that book, it contains my whole life story, from the moment my Dad taught me to play chess until I became Women's World Chess Champion. You can preorder it on www.chessqueen.com and get a free personal autograph. See the official ad (Quicktime required).
To accompany the book, I just finished my new "My Best Chess Games" DVD, and will also be getting it at the same time as my book in 10 days. It contains 2 hours of video with me showing you in detail the 10 best games that influenced my career most, including my first tournament win when I was 10 years old, my first win against a male Grandmaster when I was 15, as well as the key games from my most important tournaments. It's professionally filmed in my new office and I comment all games in full.
Only for this Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, until Monday November 30, 2009, I would like to give you my new "My Best Chess Games" DVD absolutely free for any order you place for either one of the three following products, these 3 next days:
Just order at least one of those 3 products and you will my new DVD free! Note that this offer is only valid on Thursday-Sunday November 26-30, it does not affect any previous order, or pre-orders not shipped yet, or any future orders, it's a 4-day event only!
If you have any questions, or if you order the book and would like to tell me how you'd like me to autograph it, feel free to write to me an email.
My DVD "Kosteniuk World Chess Champion", with close to 4 hours of video, including a full 37 minutes documentary on the World Championship, which I narrate myself, as well as over 3 hours of commented games. This DVD will increase your understanding of chess, guaranteed!
My CD-ROM "Alexandra Teaches Chess" is a perfect holiday gift for any child who wants to start learning chess. Both PC and Mac versions included on disc.
Since tomorrow Thursday is Thanksgiving, I would like to wish you all a wonderful holiday, filled with love, hope and peace.
It is also a good moment for me to think back about all the wonderful reasons for me to be thankful:
First I would like to thank my father for teaching me the wonderful game of chess at the age of 5, and my Mom for bringing me up in a loving environment. My sister Oxana for being my closest friend while I grew up. I would like to thank my husband and daughter for being so understanding when my chess tournaments take me away from home.
Thanks also to the FIDE, who organizes the World Chess Championship, which allowed me to win the title last year that I still hold. And thanks to the Russian Chess Federation, which invited me to play in the World Blitz Championship, without that opportunity I would not have 10 new wins against super GM's that I can share with you.
Thanks to my trainers Grandmasters Alexander Chernin, Konstantin Landa, Alexey Korotylev and of course Yuri Razuvaev, for doing everything to keep me in good form. And thanks to Grandmaster Julio Becerra for helping in my blitz training last month.
I am also grateful to all my chess competitors, who keep me always wanting to improve. First of all thanks to Judith Polgar, whose superb accomplishments playing against men have always been an inspiration to me to keep improving. Thanks also to my team-members in the Russian National Team Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosintseva, and Valentina Gunina, who contributed to our Gold Team Medal in Novi Sad last month.
And finally thanks to you, my friends and fans, and lovers of our royal game, without you life would not be the same.
This may be the biggest news for Women's & Girl's Chess of this end of the year, at least it can rejoice all supporters of women's chess and visitors to my blog, dedicated exclusively to ladies playing chess. November 17 was a great day for me at the World Blitz Championship in Moscow, I scored an incredible 7/14 (performance 2725 ELO) and managed to beat many super Grandmasters, such as Morozevich, Grischuk, and Aronian, as well as the #1 rated woman in the world Judith Polgar. But my biggest achievement that day was when I beat the (Overall - Men's) World Chess Champion Vishy Anand. It's extremely rare when a reigning Women's World Chess Champion beats a reigning (Men's) World Champion, I think the last (and probably unique) time was when Zhu Chen beat Ponomariov in 2002.
So I dedicate this victory to all of you, supporters of women's and girl's chess! With it, I send out also a special message to all girls and women chess players, don't be afraid of being out-numbered by men and boys, you can do it, you can play well and beat anybody! Chess is the fairest of games, the more you love it, the more you study and practice chess, the more chess will give back to you!
Long live Women's & Girl's Chess!
Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion Chess Blog for Girls & Women: www.chessblog.com
Here's one more video for you, of my game from the last World Blitz Chess Championship, in which I won against Grandmaster Levon Aronian, rated #5 in the world (ELO 2786).
Alexandra Kosteniuk 12th Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com
Here's one more video for you, of my game from the last World Blitz Chess Championship, in which I drew 12th Men's World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov. The game was hard-fought all the way to the end.
Alexandra Kosteniuk 12th Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com
I just managed to get hold of the video of all of my games of the last World Chess Blitz Championship in Moscow. I was very successful and won several nice games against World Champion Vishy Anand (also World Rated #3), World Rated #1 Magnus Carlsen, World Rated #5 Levon Aronian, World Rated #6 Gashimov, World Rated #10 Grischuk, World Rated #11 Morozevich, and several other top players such as Arkadij Naiditsch, Vladislav Naiditsch, and Women's World Rated #1 Judith Polgar.
I am preparing a commented blitz DVD with 15 of my best games, including games I drew and games I lost, which should prove very instructive and entertaining. I will let you know when it's ready.
For now, I will present to you many of those games in their raw, uncommented state, so that you can see them without delay.
Very best chess wishes to you! Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion Much more chess on www.chessblog.com and chess videos on www.tubechess.com
Humpy Koneru - Mysterious Chess Grandmaster from India
Humpy Koneru from India has been rated number 2 in the world since January 2006. Now she is rated 2603. Humpy crossed the magic 2600 mark in October 2007. This October, I played with Humpy in the same team - Cercle d'échecs de Monte Carlo in the Eurocup in Ohrid. Koneru took 5 out of 6 on the first board and had a perfomance of 2714. That helped our team to take the silver medals. Just before the closing ceremony Humpy agreed to give a short interview for my chess blog. After this interview Humpy Koneru for me is like never before a mysterious girl from India that works very hard for achieving her goals and we can be sure that we will hear her name many times in the future.
AK - Congratulation on your result! Are you happy about that?
HK - Yes, I’m happy about the way I have played. Ok, in the game with Elina Danielian, in the 6th round it was a bit shaky, but I managed to make a draw. Overall, I think I played better chess here.
AK - What is your best game in this tournament?
HK - My game against Muzychuk was the best in the tournament with very complicated middle game. She had a chance to sacrifice a piece on my king, but later on I got the exchange but still it’s not clear. Finally I won the game in a tactical manner.
AK - Ok, now let’s us move a little bit back, when were you born?
HK - I was born on March 31, 1987 in Gurivara, it’s the Southern Part of India, I belong to the State Andhra Pradesh.
AK - How did you start playing chess?
HK - I started playing at the age of 6, I learned chess from my dad. He is a national master level player and he has won several southern championships, he was my only coach so far and we work together 6-7 hours a day.
AK - And you are still working with you father only?
HK - Yes, only with my father.
AK - Do you have any brothers or sisters?
HK - I have one younger sister and she also played chess for some years. She reached the level of 2300 and then she thought that it would be much better for her to take studies as her career. She finished her degree recently and she is looking for a job right now :)
AK - What about yourself? Do you consider chess your profession?
HK - Yes, it’s my profession, also because being a chess player I joined the oil-company – ONGC (oil national gas corporation), they pay me a monthly salary and they also reimburse me travel expenses.
AK - How did you understand that you have a talent in chess?
HK - It was only my dad who thought I’d be having a good career in chess on international level. He sacrificed his job and he started training me. He took me in every tournament in India. When I was 14 I was already pretty serious that I want to devote myself completely to the game.
AK - What are your main achievements so far in chess?
HK - I think winning the recent Grand-Prix (in March in Istanbul), also two gold medals in the Asian Games, apart from that crossing the rating of 2600, it’s a very tough thing for me because it took almost 5 years for me after becoming a GM to reach this rating. In the past two years I maintain myself on the 2600 mark but just recently I dropped it down but again I’m going back.
AK - What are your goals in chess?
HK - Of course to win the women’s world chess championship and also I want to improve my rating to 2650.
AK - Are you trying to catch up with Judith Polgar? Do you think it’s possible?
HK - I hope so, but I know it’s really very tough, when you are playing on high-level tournaments, the competition will be much more tougher but I would like to do that.
AK - What are your hobbies beside chess?
HK- Well, most of the time I play chess. But ok I do like to spend time with my family, we go out to movies. I do go to gym everyday for one hour.
AK - Why do you think men are playing stronger than women?
HK - Well, I think because they work hard and also because they have more resources. Like for women you don’t think only about playing in a tournament . You have to think about family. You don’t even get support from the family at the right moment, but for men, they are independent, they always feel they can do whatever they think. And physically, they are stronger.
AK - Do you think it’s possible that one day a woman will become the overall chess champion?
HK - Hope is always there, but practically I think it’s not going to happen because we can see that the ratio of women chess players is less and we play fewer tournaments and apart from that the results that we get from the men’s tournaments when we are seen somewhere last in the table, so we can only expect to move somewhere in the middle in the coming years but not to be on the top.
AK - What are your next tournaments?
HK - I’ll be playing in the Asian Indoor Games (unfortunately shortly after this interview Humpy had to withdraw her participation from this Games dues to some problems with her Federation, you can read about it here) and from November 27 onwards I will be playing in the match against Veterans in Prague, in January I will be playing in the Gibraltar-open tournament for the first time.
AK - What do you think we should do in order to make chess and particulary women chess more popular?
HK - I think first of all there should be no draws. And we should pay more attention to blitz and rapid tournaments as they are more interesting for the spectators and I also think the format that we play the women’s world chess championship – the knock-out format, we should have more tournaments with this system.
AK - Thank you very much and good luck on your next tournaments!
The second and third weekend of November, the Panamanian Women Chess Championship Finals took place in Panama-city.
The Championship Finals was a 6 player round-robin, played the 14,15,20,21 and 22 of November. Five of the finalists came from the qualification tournament and, together, with the Panamanian 2008 champion, Betty Arosemena, fought for the 2009 chess title.
Betty Arosemena, 2008 Panama Women Champion
After five rounds of hard fought games, the final standings were as follows:
1.Raisa Barría5.0 pts
2.Betty Arosemena4.0 pts
3.Alba Muñoz3.0 pts
4.Yesuri Foster1.5 pts
5.Yaribeth Gonzalez1.0 pts
6.Yaleika Chung0.5 pts
Great performance done by Women National Master, Raisa Barría, who won all of her games, showing great tactical skills!
Raisa Barría, 2009 Panamá Women Champion
The first 5 girls of this championship qualified to play for the Panamanian team that will participate in the coming Central American Games in March of 2010, and the first 8 places have gained valuables points, for the race to become a member of the team that would represent the country on 2010 chess Olympiad.
I met most of the participants of this championship during my visit to Panama in June of this year.
Me playing in Panamá in a Hot simul against Betty, Yaribeth and Raisa
I'm very happy to see that the girls continue playing chess and fight hard to become better chess players. I wish all the participants the very best in their chess careers and live and hope to be able to meet them in live one more time.
I'm in Khanty-Mansiysk right now. It's my first trip to this town and I'm already pretty impressed with what I saw today. During the opening ceremony that took place today the Governor of the Ugra Region - Alexander Filipenko told that this Cup is the general repetition before the Chess Olympiad 2010 which will take place here from September 19 till October 4, 2010.
Tomorrow is the first round of the World Cup. Boris Gelfand, ELO-favorite of the tournament, during the drawing of colors today picked the white pawn, that means all odd numbers will play white in the first round. I will start my match against Shakhriar Mamedyarov with the black pieces.
Below are some photos from the opening ceremony.
That's the welcome speech by the prime-minister of Russia Alexander Zhukov and the Governor of the Ugra region Alexander Filipenko.
Drawing of colors. Elo-favorite of the tournament Boris Gelfan picked the white pawn.
I'm sorry for not updating my blog for a few days. Now I'm back since the World Blitz Chess Championship that took place on November 16-18, 2009 in Moscow has come to its end.
Magnus Carlsen won this event with a fantastic result - 31 out of 42! That's 3 points ahead of Viswanathan Anand who took the silver medal of the championship!
In the last 4 days I played 59 blitz-games! Since just before the world blitz championship, on November 15, I took part in another strong GM's tournament in Moscow. So I had a very long blitz marathon.
I did have some spectacular wins over very strong GM, for example two days ago I beat the world #1 rated Magnus Carlsen (who later went on to win the tournament). I am especially happy about yesterday's (17th of November) where out of 14 blitz games in the super strong world blitz championship I took 7 out of 14, beating Grandmasters Anand (who is the current Men's World Champion, Aronian, Judith Polgar, Tkachiev, Grischuk and Morozevich! In total I scored a respectable 12.5 points, which corresponds to 10 wins and 5 draws, against players on average 200 ELO points above me. It was a great experience, and I am so happy to have been able to play and beat such world renowned players. I will soon prepare for you some of my best games with comments and some in video.
Already tomorrow I will be flying to Khanty-Mansiisk where I will take place in the World Cup and will face in the first round GM Shakhriar Mamedyarov. But I can promise you that as soon as I have time I will tell you in details about the World Blitz Championship as well as about many interesting events that took place while I was away from blogging.
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.
I'm at the airport, flying in a few moments to Russia, where I will play lots of chess tournaments.
First in Moscow, thanks to my being the current Women's World Chess Champion, I have been invited to play in the strongest blitz chess tournament on the planet, the World Blitz Championship, where the strongest players on the planet will be playing, such as Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, Carlsen, Invanchuk, Ponomariov, Morozevich, Karpov, Grischuk, Karjakin... even the other ones are fantastic chess players. I will probably be the lowest rated player in the tournament, so that it's a wonderful opportunity for me, and means that I can only gain from it!
After the World Blitz Championship I will fly to Khanty-Mansiysk, to play in the World Cup, also with the world's best male chess players. More info here.
This photo was taken yesterday, next to a Christmas tree and snow on my head - be the first to guess exactly where I am and send me an email about it, and you might be the winner of an autographed gift!
Lawrence Cooper, Director of International Chess, English Chess Federation wrote to me:
"I have at least one spare place in the London Chess Classic Womens Invitational which takes place from 8th to 15th December at London Olympia Conference Centre in Kensington. It is a ten player, nine round all-play-all and WIM norms will be available. Please apply to Lawrence Cooper lozcooper@hotmail.com for further details. Entry fee is £100 and includes access to the The Classic which includes world number two Magnus Carlsen, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik as well as England's top four players. The schedule will be identical to FIDE rated Open. A list of participants will be posted in the near future."
So if you can go to London, this is a great opportunity!
In May 2009 I had a chance to visit the island of Corsica and met the main inspirer of the "chess fever" on the island - Leo Battesti. I also played a rapid match against Sophie Milliet. I had a wonderful time in Corsica you can read about this visit here, you can also go and see my photo memories of this trip here.
On October 31st and November 2nd another big chess match between Viswanathan Anand and Anatoly Karpov took place in Corsica. Below is a nice video-clip which was prepared by the organizers especially for this event.
Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk Women's World Chess Champion www.chessblog.com
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Best chess wishes to you! Alexandra Kosteniuk
12th Women's World Chess Champion
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