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Monday, March 4, 2013

Astana Chess: Women's World Team Event Begins with Kazakhstan holding USA to Draw

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hello everyone,


The first round of WWTC in Astana got under way on the 3rd of March 2012. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov made a first symbolic move in the game Nakhbayeva-Zatonskih to start a tense struggle between young ambitious team from Kazakhstan and a rating favorite of the match the team from the USA. For a long time it seemed that the match would finish in favor of the Central Asian team but Dinara Saduakasova, who was so close to the victory, made a mistake and let her opponent to make a draw. Thus, the USA team equalised the score and managed to save face.


There were no surprises in other matches – all other rating favorites managed to win quite confidently. China and Russia lost only half a point each and was stronger in the matches against France and Romania respectively. It was not difficult for Ukrainian team to outplay Indian team, which came here without such top seeds as Humpy Koneru, Harika Dronavlli and Tania Sachdev. World Champion Anna Ushenina and Ukrainian champion Maria Muzychuk won against Nisha Mohota and Rout Padmini and, after two draws on other boards, the final score is 3-1 in favor of Ukraine. After the first round four teams are in the lead – China, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia. Pictures of the round 1.

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5 comments:

  1. alexis cochran, nzMarch 4, 2013 at 12:04 PM

    nice to have Galliamova there. Go Russia.

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  2. Amrit Puri, Knights Chess Club, New DelhiMarch 5, 2013 at 3:14 AM

    Actually Russia should have no problem getting the gold here. I do hope the Indians do well.

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  5. The Russian team has done very well and must be exhausted !! Astana must have been quite cold, also. I hope the rooms were heated well.

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