Winter and Women Playing Chess

Hello everybody!

While I was traveling all around Europe many interesting women's events have been played. The national championships in Georgia, Armenia and Romania have been finished during January. The women's tournament of the Moscow open was very strong, as well as women showed many great results in strong open and closed tournaments.

Anna Muzychuk finished the Corus B tournament with a respectful 5,5 out of 13 in a very strong field. The final standings of the B-tournament can be seen here.

Salome Melia became the Georgian champion 2010 with a nice result - 10 out of 13, followed by Nino Khurtsidze (9,5 points) and Maia Lomineishvili (8,5 points). The final table can be seenhere.

Anahit Kharatyan is the Armenian champion 2010. She took 6 points out of 9 and the clear first place. The full table is here.

Elena-Luminita Cosma is the new Romanian champion 2010. She shared the first place with 7 points out of 9 with Iozefina Paulet but was better on tie-breaks. The bronze medal with 6,5 points out of 9 won Cristina-Adelina Foisor. The final standings can be seen here.

The game between Valentina Gunina and Anastasia Bodnaruk from the Russian Superfinal 2009 was voted among the best 10 games of December on the Russian web-site www.chesspro.ru . You might have already seen this game with my comments on one of the previous posts, here.

Only the photo-finish was able to determine the winners of the exciting Moscow-open. Before the last round Zhao Xue was leading the event with 7 points out of 8 and was followed by 3 strong chess-players - Valentina Gunina, Salome Melia and Nazi Paikidze. Salome Melia with the white pieces was able to win against Zhao Xue, while Nazi Paikidze won also with white against Gunina. So Melia and Paikidze shared the first place with 7,5 out of 9 but the tie-break was better for Nazi Paikidze who became the winner of the Moscow-open 2010. The final table can be seen here.

From February 9 to February 18, 2010 the very strong Aeroflot-open takes place. There are 5 ladies who decided to take part in the strongest A1 tournament: the Kosintseva's sisters, Hou Yifan, Lela Javakhishvili and Marie Sebag. After 3 rounds Nadezhda and Tatiana both have 2 points out of 3, winning in the first round and making 2 draws in the 2nd and 3rd round.

From February 10 to February 18 in Bucarest, Romania a strong women's closed tournament takes place. The participants are: Beta Khotenashvili (Georgia, 2461), Maria Muzychuk (Ukraine, 2447), Cristina Foisor (Romania, 2440), Eva Repkova (Slovakia, 2434), Salome Melia (Georgia, 2431), Corina Peptan (Romania, 2411), Irina Turova (Russia, 2386), Anita Gara (Hungary, 2370), Szidonia Vajda (Hungary, 2369) and the new Romanian champion 2010 Elena-Luminita Cosma (2332). The official web-site is here.

Even though we are right now in the middle of winter, chess battles are heating all around the world. Don't you think it's because chess should be named a winter olympic sport? ;) By the way,the Winter Olympic Games is starting tomorrow in Vancouver, Canada. What are your favorite winter sports (beside chess, of course) and what are the athletes and countries you will be routing for?

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com