Nadezhda Kosintseva, courtesy of the Aeroflot open 2010
Every chess tournament, even the most exciting one has its end. And often only a photo finish or some kind of tie-breaks can name the winners of an event. The A1 Aeroflot chess tournament had an only winner - the vietnamese GM Le, Quang Liem, who finished in clear first place with 7 out of 9.
However, there was a tie between the best ladies players. Hou Yifan, Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosintseva all finished with 4 out of 9, which is a very respectful result in this strong tournament.
The full standings of the A1 tournament can be found here. Below is an example of the Hou Yifan win over the russian GM Stanislav Novikov. Hou Yifan is playing Black and it's her turn to move. White was doing OK until the last move where Novikov played 35. Bb2??, trying to exchange the strong dark-squared bishop on d4
Hou Yifan continued the game with 35. ... Re5! and White realised that there is no way to keep this bishop on b2 protected. The game continued for a few more moves 36.Qd3 Qd5+ 37.Kh3 Bxb2 38.Qc2 Ba3 39.f6+ Qe4 40.Qxe4+ and White resigned.
Rxe4 41.Ra1 Bb4 42.f7 Re5 0-1
In the A2 tournament Evgenia Ovod and Ekaterina Kovalevskaya finished the tournament with 5 out of 9, the results can be seen here.
In the B tournament Gulnar Mammadova shared the first place overall with 7 out of 9. The full standings can be found here.
In the C tournament, Alexandra Nikolaeva took bronze overall with 7 out of 9. The full table is here.
Melia Salome continued her nice tournament stroke. After winning the Women's Georgian Championship and sharing the first place in the Moscow open, she now won another strong women's tournament in Romania. She took 6 points out of 9 and was followed by Maria Muzychuk with 5,5 and Corina Peptan with 5 points. The full table can be found here.
In 2 weeks the European Championships 2010 for men and women will start in Rijeka, Croatia. I'm sure we will witness for exciting chess over there. So stay tuned!
Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
Aeroflot Chess Open 2010 rules!!!
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