Tatev Abrahamyan Shines at the Chicago Chess Open

Hello everyone!

The Chicago Open concluded recently with GM Loek Van Wely winning the Open Section. He beat IM Sam Shankland in the final round. Van Wely finished with 7½/9, which was a half-point ahead of GMs Adams, Evgeny Najer, Victor Mikhalevski and Jiri Stocek.

But there were two women stars of the tournament also - WIM Tatev Abrahamyan who scored an IM norm and Viktorija Ni who scored a WIM norm.

Tatev Abrahamyan was born on January 13, 1988 in Yerevan, Armenia. She is the one of the youngest top-rated U.S. women's chess players. She tied for the 2005 U.S. Women's Chess Championship but lost the play-off match to Rusudan Goletiani. She now lives in Glendale, California. Tatev is an ethnic Armenian. She went to Clark Magnet High School, in La Crescenta.

Here is an interesting game by Abrahamyan from the fifth round of the tournament where she beat GM Alexander Shabalov.

PGN: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.Be3 Be6 9.Qd2 O-O 10.O-O-O a5 11.Kb1 a4 12.Nc1 a3 13.b3 Ra5 14.g4 d5 15.g5 Nxe4 16.Nxe4 dxe4 17.Qxd8 Rxd8 18.Rxd8 Bxd8 19.fxe4 Nc6 20.c3 Kf8 21.Nd3 b6 22.h4 Ra8 23.Bh3 Ke7 24.Ne1 Na7 25.Nd3 Nb5 26.c4 Nc3 27.Kc2 Nxe4 28.Nxe5 Bxh3 29.Rxh3 Bc7 30.Nc6 Kd7 31.Nb4 Bd8 32.Nd5 Kc6 33.Bd4 g6 34.Be5 b5 35.Nb4 Kc5 36.Nd3 Kc6 37.Rf3 bxc4 38.bxc4 Ra4 39.Bc3 Bc7 40.Kb3 Ra7 41.Rxf7 Rb7 42.Nb4 Kd6 43.Be1 Ke5 1-0

Source: USCF web site

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

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