NEW PHOTO ALBUM! We are pleased to present the promised photo album of Alexandra’s friend and excellent chess player, the Champion of France Almira Skripchenko, look at it by clicking here. Thanks to Pufichek for a great album with photos of Almira alone and with Alexandra. You will have to agree that it’s hard to beat those two champions with a combined coefficient beauty + brains! Is that not a great way to promote chess?

NEW PHOTO ALBUM! Alexandra is glad to offer to all her fans a new series of beautiful Christmas Photos, look at them by clicking here. Latest tomorrow we will present another exclusive chess photo series together with French champion Almira Skripchenko, don’t miss seeing it!

Alexandra is in Las Vegas, playing in the North American Open. Today was the first day, and Alexandra is fighting hard, at the moment she has 2 points out of 3. Many GM’s are playing in the event. There are 4 more rounds to go, 2 per day for 2 days. We’ll let you know how it goes. Update: Alexandra finished the tournament with 5 out of 7, sharing the 8th-14th place. She then played the blitz tournament and finished 2nd-3rd with GM Milov, behind GM Nakamura.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! Today Christmas day Alexandra and Almira spent the afternoon in the studio. We’ll soon have an exclusive photo album of the two beautiful and intelligent chess champions. An incredible combination of chess power and unsurpassed elegance, not to be missed, so come back soon to see them! Tomorrow flight to Las Vegas, and on the 27th begins the North American Open, we’ll keep you informed. We hope you have listened to the recent interview of Almira in Alexandra’s Chess is Cool Podcast Episode Number 8. You can listen to it from our Podcast Page by clicking here.

From the bottom of my heart, I wish everybody a Merry Christmas 2005! May you spend it in happiness with your family and your loved ones. In this bright holiday, let’s give even more love and attention to all the people around us. It depends on us to make the world a happier place. Sincerely yours, Alexandra Kosteniuk.

Look who came to visit Alexandra in Florida: it’s her best friend Almira Skripchenko, the chess champion of France. Alexandra and Almira are now enjoying together the beautiful Florida weather and the nice shopping opportunities. Yesterday the two champions went to visit the Cape Florida Lighthouse, which was built in 1825 and is the State’s oldest landmark. Have a look at the photo album we made specially for you by clicking here. Tomorrow we will issue our 8th episode of Alexandra’s podcast, and yes you guessed right, Almira Skripchenko will be the special guest of honor, make sure to visit our podcast page and take a listen when it comes out. Just after Christmas, Alexandra and Almira fly to Las Vegas, where Alexandra will play in the North American Open, which will take place on December 27-29, 2005.

We are proud to present a most beautiful work of art, a lacquer box of incredible detail from the MSTERA painting school, painted by hand by M. Papsheva in Russia specially for Alexandra. The motive is totally unique, it depicts a king playing chess with a wiseman, and yes, Alexandra is there to help those two men play chess! View close-up. The person who will make the highest bid for a donation to Alexandra’s Chess Fund (minimum $300 bid) will get it (deadline December 31, 2005), with a “Buy me now” feature of $600 (just in time for Christmas). Send your serious bids to us by using our Contact page. See more photos of it by clicking here. A true unique collector’s item. Note 18.12: Sold.

Here is our Christmas Competition! We will send a Chess Computer Alexandra the Great, made by Excalibur Electronics, to the happy winner, selected at random from the correct answers. There will be other winners, who will receive autographed postcards from Alexandra, so make sure you include your postal address in the email to Alexandra. Also, if you want to increase your chances of winning just a little (your name will be entered 3 times into the drawing), please send a short voice greeting to Alexandra, either by sending it in MP3 format by email, or by calling her voicemail at +1-305-7672143. It might end up being played in one of Alexandra’s next podcasts! Good luck!

Valid USA postage has been issued with Alexandra and Chess as their theme. We have extremely limited numbers of these stamps. They are true collectors items, sure to go up in value, but they are not for sale. Alexandra will send a thank you card using those stamps as postage to anybody who makes a donation to her Chess Fund. See all the stamps by clicking here. Help chess and at the same time make yourself a gift!

Thanks to our good friend IM Jovan Petronic, who send us a nice photo report from his Kavala Chess Club in Greece. The kids there really liked Alexandra’s comic and it is posted on their board for all to see. Look at Jovan’s report by clicking here. By the way if any chess club writes to Alexandra by email, she will gladly send a color version of the comic and some goodies for the kids, all entirely free! Alexandra wants the whole world to know that… Chess is Cool!

It is the holiday season, and as a special gift to all our visitors, with the help of our good friend René Duret, Alexandra is very glad to be able to offer you a beautiful chess story. Please click here to find out whom Alexandra is going to visit and what they will do together.

As promised, here is the solution to our Thanksgiving Puzzle Competition. The mate in 2 is obtained by playing 1. Qc1-e1 !! and in all 4 variations Black cannot avoid mate in the next move. We have received close to 300 correct answers and Alexandra picked the winners depending on their descriptions of why they think “Chess is Cool”. Some of the stories are wonderful, thanks to all for participating! Alexandra loved your emails so much she will soon put up another competition for you! The names of the winners are published in Alexandra’s podcast #5 and on our podcast page, click here to see it.

The list of top Russian chess players came out in this month’s Russian magazine “64 Chess Review”. Alexandra continues to be rated #1 Russian woman, while in the men’s list Garry Kasparov leads the pack. Note that Alexandra is the only Russian woman to have the (men’s) Grandmaster title, and she is also the only Russian woman to have passed the symbolic 2500 mark. You can see the full list (men and women, in Russian), by clicking here.

Alexandra today gave a simul in Penza to dozens of very happy kids, delighted to know Alexandra had flown so many hours specially for them! Alexandra will be back to Miami tomorrow, just in time for Thanksgiving! Alexandra and her site www.kosteniuk.com wishes to all of you a very happy Thanksgiving! Alexandra is very thankful for all your emails of support, that gives her more strength to prove that… Chess is Cool!

Alexandra took a 13-hour flight from Miami to Moscow, in order to visit an orphanage in the city of Penza and give the children a chess simul and many gifts. She is happy also to say hello to her parents and her sister Oxana (who is studying at Moscow State University). Alexandra will be back in Miami just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. If you have not yet heard Alexandra’s podcast (= radio show on demand), you can find out everything about it (and listen to it) by clicking here. There are already 3 episodes out!

Alexandra did wonderfully well at the 2005 Key Biscayne 5K Lighthouse run. Her time was 22:24, she ended up 5th woman overall, taking prizes for the 2nd place in the open 20-24 age group, as well as the 1st place in the Key Biscayne residents 20-24 age group. She set a record time for this group, congratulations! Tonight we will put up the second episode of Alexandra’s podcast, it will be posted on this page. Please remember to VOTE for Alexandra’s podcast both here and here. Thanks!

Alexandra will participate tomorrow morning in the 2005 Key Biscayne 5K Lighthouse run. She has been training daily, and so we hope to be able to report a good result tomorrow. Keep posted! Also, Alexandra’s Podcast has been very well received in the world, as all top podcasts aggregators have listed it. If you haven’t yet please listen to Alexandra’s first episode by going to the Podcast Page. Alexandra would be most grateful to you if you could vote for her podcast on both Podcast Alley (click here) and Yahoo Podcasts (click here). The more people like and vote for the show, the more it will be pushed to the front and more people will be interested in chess. Alexandra is working right now on her second episode, it will be put in the feed very shortly! If you subscribe (free) to her feed, you will get it automatically on your PC! This is the technology of the future, to prove that chess… is cool!

Great news to report, Alexandra’s new Chess Podcast is on iTunes, the most popular podcast aggregator in the world, with more than 25,000 podcasts listed! It is now super easy for you to subscribe to Alexandra’s podcast (100% free) and have her weekly podcasts downloaded automatically to your computer, and also synchronized to your MP3 player (like an iPod), if it is attached to your computer. Click here (this is an iTunes link) to go directly to the iTunes page, and please subscribe to Alexandra’s Podcast, and spread the word to all your friends! If you don’t have iTunes nor an iPod, you can always visit our Podcast page by clicking here, from where you can download manually or simply listen to all the episodes for free. Alexandra really hopes her podcasts will attract more people to the wonderful game of chess!

We are pleased to announce the birth of Alexandra’s new CHESS PODCAST, totally free, and coming to your ears on a weekly basis! We have created a special podcast page for you, with all details about this new technology. Click here to get to that page. If you don’t want to waste any time and listen to the first edition of Alexandra’s podcast, click here to listen to or download the 6-minute 8.8MB MP3 file. Since this is Alexandra’s first experience with podcasting, please feel free to send Alexandra by email comments with ideas and suggestions if you have any. Thanks and enjoy!

Today is a very sad day, Alexandra’s cat Kaissa (named after the Goddess of Chess, her short name was Kaska) died today November 5, 2005, at the age of 12. She was an integral part of Alexandra’s family. You can watch the last small movie Alexandra filmed by clicking as follows: here for a Quicktime version (better quality, 1.7 MB), and here for a MP4 version (1.2 MB). See here a photo of Kaissa with Alexandra and her little sister Oxana in 1994, Kaissa was then less than 1 year old. Some recent photos: 1) with Oxana 2) on a chair 3) with Alexandra 4) on the bookshelf. We will never forget you, Kaissa!

COMPETITION! We have another Puzzle Competition for you, with 10 great prizes to be given out on Thanksgiving Day (A Chess Computer, 2 Chess Books, 3 Puzzle sets, and 4 Teddy Bears!). To win, you need to send Alexandra by email 1) The solution to the puzzle to the left (it’s mate in two moves: white plays and whatever black plays white will mate next move) and 2) A one or two sentence text why you think “Chess is Cool!” (in your own words). On Thanksgiving we will publish the names of the winners as well as the most imaginative texts! Good luck!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! We have made a large 80-photo Halloween Chess Album for Members, click here to see it. Remember if your Membership expired you can renew or purchase a one-year Membership by clicking here. Any purchase above $50 in our shop will get you a one-year Membership for free. Getting a membership is a way to tell Alexandra you support her promoting chess in the world. Don’t forget to answer our special competition of Oct. 27 which runs till Thanksgiving, you can win one of the 10 prizes!

Alexandra continues to support chess tournaments all over the world. The last one, being last weekend, was the Youth Championship Marktredwitz-Stiftland in Troestau, Germany, where many of the presents were offered by the Kosteniuk Chess Fund. The arbiter was our good friend Tobias Feigel, who made a photo album to be viewed by clicking here. Alexandra needs your help to support chess, please be so kind to make a donation to her Chess Fund. Any amount is welcome and will be personally acknowledged by Alexandra.

Halloween is only 3 days from now, and so we have some exclusive Halloween Chess Photos for our Members. If you are not a Member of Alexandra’s site yet, you can purchase a one-year Membership by clicking here. Any purchase above $50 in our shop will get you a one-year Membership for free. Members have access to special features such as commented games, special photo albums and videos. By supporting Alexandra you also support chess. Thanks for your support!

Thanks to all of you who sent emails of encouragement to Alexandra, who was caught right in the path of hurricane Wilma yesterday. The hurricane was a powerful category 3, and winds upwards of 120 mph were felt right next to Alexandra’s home (even worse in the Fort Lauderdale area), knocking down all services (such as electricity) to millions of people in Florida. There is a lot of damage to be cleaned up, signs, fences, and many many trees. We have a 12-photo album of Alexandra just as the storm left the Miami area, see it by clicking here. Let hope it will be possible for all to go back to normal life soon.

In about 2 weeks Alexandra will be interviewed on radio by a well-known chess collector from Las Vegas, and Alexandra will be asked questions from the public. We need YOUR questions, so the interview can be fun and informative. Please send your questions to us ahead of time via our contact form by clicking here or simply send us an email by clicking here with your proposed question(s). The interview will be put on the web in MP3 format afterwards for you to listen to. UNIQUE RECORDING! The chess collector’s site graciously gives you the chance to listen to a unique 1938 BBC interview of Alexander Alekhine, it’s fantastic! Listen to it by clicking here! (MP3 file, 3.9 MB).

Some people have asked to see the short news clip that appeared on Swiss TV about Alexandra’s simul in Sierre, so we put it online (3.5 MB video quicktime file). Click here to see it (Note: it’s in French).

Alexandra took today a short break from her chess and sports training. She was photographed by Pufichek in a new chess series, view it by clicking here. Enjoy!

After her long summer in Europe, Alexandra finally made it back home to Miami. For the next 3 months she will train very hard her chess and also she will do a lot of sports. You will see her play chess at the North American Open in Las Vegas in December. Before that, Alexandra will run in several 5K races, the next one being the Key Biscayne Lighthouse Run on November 12, then a Run for Manatees on November 19. As the saying goes, “mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body). In April, Alexandra ran 5K in 21:38, she’s now training to do better. Wish her luck and please don’t forget to do some sports too!

Today Alexandra played a perfect simul, winning all 28 games she played, in the beautiful Swiss city of Sierre. Alexandra attracted lots of TV and Press to cover the event, it was great to promote chess, lots of passers-by were assisting to the event. The simul was part of the 50-year celebration of the Club d’Echecs of Sierre, happy 50th birthday! We have a new photo album of the event, with 68 photos, look at it by clicking here!

NEW OCTOBER 2005 RATINGS! The new rating lists have just come out on October 1: Alexandra Kosteniuk is still rated number 1 in the USA with a USCF rating of 2565 (see USA top rated women list here) and number 5 in the world with FIDE rating of 2516 (see FIDE top women list here). Note that at this time in the year 2000 Alexandra was 44th in the world, and 2 years ago 19th, so we can see Alexandra has done great progress the last 2 years. After a Simul in Sierre on October 8, Alexandra will go back home to Miami for training after the long European tournament season.

We have a special album for you, with 48 scans of Alexandra in her role of Chess Cover Girl with one key mission – to show the world that Chess is Cool! Look at our album by clicking here.
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We have a unique photo album for you: Alexandra and her friend Almira Skripchenko were in Moscow on September 15, just after the Golden Blitz Tournament, enjoying a day off and beautiful weather. Almira Skripchenko is current French woman champion while Alexandra is current Russian woman champion, so you have tremendous chess power in those two ladies. But most important is their friendship, as you will see by looking at the photos here. Enjoy!

Alexandra Kosteniuk played a chess simultaneous exhibition in Zurich last week, organized by Bank Hofmann, whom we thank very much. She won all her games except for 1 loss (against Dr. Issler), and 6 draws. We have a 53-photo album about the event for you, you can watch it by clicking here.

Here’s a position that shows that everybody can make mistakes and you can learn from them. It’s from the recent Kazan Russian Championship, where Alexandra is playing GM Popov. Alexandra played very convincincly the beginning of the game and had the advantage. Alexandra’s last 2 moves were 28…c4!! 29.dxc4 d3!! 30. Qb1 (current position). Here Alexandra missed the very precise 30…Qe6!! which would have probably won the game. Instead she played 30…Qg6? which lost, and she was quite disappointed to have missed winning against a GM. The lesson to learn is that one has to play precise moves till the end! If you would like to see the position commented in detail, click here to see the pgn.

Alexandra Kosteniuk won convincingly the Golden Blitz tournament in Moscow, by defeating in the semi-finals ex-world champion Zhu Chen 2-0 and in the finals Almira Skripchenko 2-0. In the men’s competition Ponomarev beat Bareev in the finals. It’s a great promotion of chess to have such events on TV! We have a super photo album about the event for you (with 52 photos), you can watch it by clicking here.

Alexandra Kosteniuk took her revenge today from the final of the 2001 World Chess Championship (when Alexandra became vice-champion of the world) by beating ex-world champion Zhu Chen from China by a clean 2-0 in the Golden Blitz tournament in Moscow. The event is shown live on the Russian and satellite channel NTV+ and we expect it will be shown also all over the world later on. Thanks to the organizer, VV Profi, for this great idea to bring chess to the masses via Chess Blitz TV Shows. News here and here.

On the left you see a photo of the winner of the new Russian Championship in Kazan Evgeny Bareev, next to Alexandra Kosteniuk. Later today we will have for you a superb additional general photo album of the tournament, including the prize ceremony. Make sure to visit our Kazan Tourism album, and see our Gallery of all Players of the championship.

The Russian Men’s Championship was tough and Alexandra fought each game hard against strong male GM’s. After winning her game of the last round, she finished the tournament with a respectable 4/9 with a very strong ELO average of 2541 and 7 male GM’s. We have for you a GALLERY of ALL Players in the Kazan Championship that you can see by clicking here. We will soon put up another album of the closing ceremony and other Kazan photos.

Alexandra Kosteniuk continues to hold her own against the strong male competition in Kazan. In the second and third rounds she drew GM Belov (ELO 2596) and GM Dvoirys (ELO 2589), so she has 1.5 points after 3 rounds against 3 GM’s with ELO average close to 2600. Yesterday she had a walk around the beautiful city of Kazan, Tatarstan, and we have a photo album with 33 photos for you to see here. Enjoy!

Alexandra Kosteniuk drew GM Pavel Tregubov (ELO 2607) in the first round of the very strong Men Russian Chess Semi-Final Championships. You can watch the games live at 3 PM Moscow time (1 PM Paris time and 7 AM New York time) by clicking here and see news and results by clicking here or here. Please keep your emails of encouragement to Alexandra coming!

At the opening of the 58th Men Russian Championship in Kazan, Alexander Bakh, in the name of the Russian Chess Federation, handed over the official FIDE Grandmaster (men) Diploma to Alexandra Kosteniuk, which had been approved by the FIDE Board last year in Calvia. Alexandra is the first Russian woman to ever that that supreme title, and she is the Xth woman in the whole history of Chess, congratulations! You can see the diploma here and the official GM pin here.

Alexandra is leaving tomorrow for Kazan (Russia) to participate in the extremely strong Men Russian Chess Semi-Final Championships, a qualifyer for the Russian Men Superfinal, with $100,000 in prizes. More than 50 (male) GM’s are playing in this event. You will be able to see the results here or here. When she comes back Alexandra will play on Sept. 13-14 in a blitz tournament organized by the ACP shown on TV called “Golden Blitz”. More info here.

Today was held the Traditional Moscow Blitz Chess Championship, with the 20 strongest players of the city. This is undoubtedly the strongest city blitz championship in the world. Alexandra was the only woman admitted to this prestigious event, and she did a very respectable score of 7/19, with wins against GM Dreev (photo on the left), GM Korotylev, IM Gabrielian, GM Belov, IM Maslak, and Zuikov, and draws against IM Dvalishvili and GM Zviagintsev. The tournament was won by GM Morozevich. We have 53 photos of the event you can watch here.

Following Alexandra’s successful Chess960 Tournament in Mainz last week, we are pleased to present to you our new Fischer Random Chess960 PGN Player. Click here to see some of Alexandra’s games from the Finet Open from Mainz last week in our new Chess960 Player. Thanks to Lutz Tautenhahn for the code and Tobias Feigel for the design. Alexandra really enjoyed playing this new chess variant invented by Bobby Fischer in 1996. It’s wonderful because there are 960 possible starting positions, and so you have to start thinking from move 1 on, and the positions that arise are often most interesting. More info on Fischer Random here. Enjoy!

Thanks to the chess world for making our site www.kosteniuk.com the most visited chess Grandmaster site of the world. Our traffic numbers show from 2,000 to 10,000 unique visitors per day, and up to 100,000 unique visitors per month. This is a great result, which proves that the world is watching Alexandra in her quest in higher and higher chess results, as well as in her promotion of the game of chess around the world. However, Alexandra still needs your help to continue her work, so if you can, please donate to her Chess Fund. You can also help in a modest but helpful way by buying one of Alexandra’s charming Teddy Bear Keychains. More info here. Thanks for your help!

Another success for Alexandra in Mainz, coming out the top woman in the combination Fischer Random and Rapid Chess with highest overall points: 7 + 7.5 = 14.5 and tie-break points: 45 + 51 = 96. Second came in Stefanova (7.5 + 7 / 93.5) and third Cmilyte (6.5 + 8 /90.5), with same overall points, but lower tie-break points, which means Alexandra played against stronger opponents during the tournaments. The Rapid tournament was won by Radjabov with a fantastic field of 546 players! Thanks to the organizer of this festival Hans-Walter Schmitt (on the left in the photo). A photo album is coming soon…

Today was the first day of the Ordix Rapid Chess tournament in Mainz, Germany. Alexandra has now 4.5 points out of 5. She beat strong GM Ivan Sokolov (2691) in the 4th round and drew GM Zvjaginsev (2659) in the 5th round. Tomorrow there will be 6 more rounds. We have put Alexandra’s win against GM Sokolov in our PGN Player, in the pull-down menu “wins against GM’s”.

Chess Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk had a great time in Mainz in the largest Fischer Random tournament of the year. The tournament was of incredibly high level with 47 players with the Grandmaster (men) title, and was won by GM Levon Aronian. Alexandra got 7 points out of 11 and overall was second among women, behind Stefanova, but in front of Paehtz, Zhukova, Cmilyte, and Chiburdanidze (see full results here). According to Alexandra, Fischer Random chess is a great invention, it allows you to use your imagination from move 1 on, and there is no need to memorize variations since you will most likely be seeing the starting position for the first time in your life. The games that are played are more interesting and unpredictable.

Chess Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk is playing in the largest Fischer Random tournament of the world, in Mainz, Germany! This chess variant was invented by Bobby Fischer and is also called “Chess960”, because there are 960 possible starting positions. The tournament has 11 rounds, Alexandra did 4 out of 5 today and will play the last 6 rounds tomorrow. On the photo you can see ex-world champion Anatoly Karpov watching Alexandra’s game. More news on the official site.