From June 16 to June 27 2017 in Khanty-Mansiysk the chess world team championship took place. The Russian women won the World Team Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk, finishing three match points ahead of the pack. In the team were playing, by board: 1. Kosteniuk 6/8, 2. Lagno 5/8 3. Gunina 6/8 4. Goryachkina 4/6 Reserve Girya 4.5/6. Read the full report on chess.com.
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Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk has won the 2016 Russian Classical Women’s Chess Championship, ahead of Pogonina and Bodnaruk. See the report by Chess24 here. And see the 2005 ChessBase report about her previous win 9 years ago.
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At the beginning of October 2016 the Russian Chess Rapid Championship was help in Sochi, Russia. It was won by GM Alexandra Kosteniuk with 8/10 ahead of Aleksandra Goryachkina with also 8/10 but a lower tie-break, and third Natalija Pogonina with 7.5 points. The full results are here and a report (in Russian) about the tournament is here.
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On May 10, 2016 the Russian Team Championship ended in Sochi, Russia. My team from Moscow won the event second year in a row. I flew to Sochi straight after the Grand-Prix to Batumi and was able to support my team by playing 5 important rounds and scoring 4 out of 5. Read more…
On May 2, 2016 the Batumi’s Grand-Prix was finished. Thanks to the victories in the last two rounds, I was able to finish the tournament on the clear 2nd place with 6,5 points out of 11. Valentina Gunina won the event, Nino Batsiashvili took third place.
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On April 3, 2016 I completed in the 40th edition of the Paris marathon. It was a real challenge for me and I was absolutely delighted to be able to complete the whole marathon in 4 hours and 8 minutes!
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Hello everybody! Just wanted to let you know that on March 20, 2016 the OSC Baden-Baden team for which I play won the women’s Bundesliga title for the 2015/2016 season. I want to congratulate the whole team – and our captain Thilo Gubler on this victory!
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I’m still in China at the 2016 IMSA Mind Sport Games, in which I participated in all chess events. I will return home tomorrow but wanted to post my results and a few photos from the event. I am happy because I ended the event very nicely by winning the Basque event (in which we play 2 games at the same time against the same opponent). I got 7 points in that event, followed by Nana Dzagnidze with 6 and Valentina Gunina with 6 points. In the blitz event I missed bronze by just a little and got 4th, Lahno won that event, and in the rapid, I got 12th with Tan Zhongyi taking Gold. Overall a great event very nicely hosted by the Chinese. See more results and photos below and also on my Instagram feed (you can follow me on Instagram to see all my photos during my travels and tournaments).
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Hi everyone!
I posted a competition on my newsletter, Facebook and Twitter and am glad to announce the winners below. The competition was in honor of the Bleecker Street’s new film PAWN SACRIFICE movie, which is coming out on September 25th. Since the movie is about World Champion Bobby Fischer, you needed to offer the best way to proceed in the position given. This position is from the 6th game of the World Championship Match of 1972 between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Bobby played 20. e4! in this position, and went on to win the game in a nice fashion (see the game in a Chess King applet below). Read more…
On August 24 the Irkutsk Grand Prix Rapid crowned their winners, GM Rublevsky for the men and GM Kosteniuk for the women. Lots of very strong Russian Grandmasters were playing. In the men’s at the top were 1. Rublevsky, 2. Artemiev, 3. Bocharov, and for the women 1. Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2. Girya, 3. Lahno, 4. Ubyennyx and 5. Gunina. Link to the organizer’s page.
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Hi everybody,
I have been very busy, playing non-stop events for the last month. I’m glad to report that it’s been quite successful, and first at the World Women’s Team Championship in China, our Russian team (with Gunina, Pogonina, Goryachkina, Girya and me) got Silver medals, behind Georgia but in front of China.
After that I flew to Sochi, where the Russian Women’s Team Championship was played, and my Moscow team (with Gunina, Girya, Kovalevskaya, Kashlinkskaya,and me) got Gold medals in Classical and Blitz, and Silver in Rapid Chess.
Below you can find some photos and I hope to post soon some of my best games.
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Hi everyone! I was so happy to get an email today from Stein in Norway with the message: “I visited Moscow many years ago, and played chess with a little girl sitting on the streetside. I think the little girl was you. You won easy. I send you a picture of the girl. It was you, yes?” – Yes it was!! I think it was late 1991 or early 1992, when I was only 7 or 8 years old, and I was practicing and earning some pocket money playing people in Moscow. So nice to see that great photo of me. You can see an album of photos of me from that period here. So an enormous thanks goes to Stein in Oslo, you made my day!
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I’m glad to report that I have been able to beat my personal best chess rating in the last ratings list. It’s now 2547 and I’m 7th in the world rankings and #1 in Russia. My last record was 2540 in 2006, just before I gave birth to my daughter in 2007. More info can be found below, you can also check at any moment the Women’s Live Chess Ratings at this link. It changes daily when tournaments are being played, see my most recent game at the Bilbao Club Cup.
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[See my post before the Olympiads began]. For the third time in a row, our women’s Russian team won Gold, this time at the 2014 Tromso Chess Olympiads. It was an incredibly tough battle, as expected, and our team, made up of GM Valentina Gunina, myself GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, GM Kateryna Lagno, WGM Natalija Pogonina, and WGM Olga Girya achieved 10 match wins out of 11, including a decisive match win against the key competitors China. Besides our team Gold medals, Valentina Gunina and I got individual board Gold medals, with 8/10 and a performance of 2651 for Valentina and 7.5/9 and a performance of 2639 for myself. I am posting some of the results below (full results can be found here), and photos. More photos and games will be posted shortly. If you have a smart phone, subscribe to my Instagram feed, and I hope you are subscribed to my email newsletter too. Read more…
Hello everyone! A week of intensive training has just ended. Tomorrow morning our team is leaving for Norway to participate in the 2014 Chess Olympiads. You might recall that we won the previous Istanbul 2012 Olympiads, and so we have to do our best to defend our title. Our team will be comprised of (from left to right on the photo) WGM Natalija Pogonina (2508), GM Valentina Gunina (2501), GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (2533), WGM Olga Girya (2493), and GM Kateryna Lagno (2540). There will be fierce competition especially from China, Ukraine, Georgia, India so the Olympiads will be wonderful to follow! Below are some photos taken the last 2 days of our training camp (subscribe free to Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk’s Instagram feed), enjoy!
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Hello everybody!
In case you were planning a summer vacation in Europe, consider going to the beautiful island of Corsica, where on the Sunday July 13 will take place the Corsica Blitz Chess Tournament. Check out the official poster below, the organizers page with an introduction video in Corsican language and a mate in 1 puzzle, and some of my blitz games below. I was last time in Corsica and won a match against French women’s champion Sophie Milliet (see post, photos, and the YouTube video). Let me know if you will come to Corsica and play chess, it’s only one day of chess and lots to visit on one of the most beautiful islands in the world: Corsica!
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Hi everyone!
This is a quick post to let you know I just finished my tournament today and got a nice third place in the super strong Women Chess Grand Prix 2014 in Khanty-Mansiysk. I drew my last game with current world champion Hou Yifan and overall got 6.5/11, a performance of 2558, which allows me to go up in the world rankings to #8 from #9. I got 4 wins among which 2 nice ones against GM’s A. Muzychuk and Dzagnidze and only 2 losses to my compatriots T. Kosintseva (11th) and Olga Girya who got a superb 2nd place. It was possibly the strongest Grand Prix ever played, with the current world champion playing (and who won the event) and 3 ex-world champions (me in 3rd place, Stefanova in 7th place, and Ushenina in 9th place). I post some results and photos in this post, I will soon post some games too. Starting tomorrow there will be also in Khanty-Mansiysk two important events, the world blitz and world rapid tournaments, so wish me luck for the 45 next games I will play this week! [see my other post about the GP on www.chessblog.com]
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Hello everyone! Yes that’s me on the photo! It was taken when I was a kid (remember I started to play chess at 5 years old), and my dad had created a chess program (called “Alexandra”) so I could practice tactics and endgames. It was very rare at the time and it helped me progress a lot. Now there are lots of wonderful chess programs that can help you achieve your goals of becoming stronger at chess. You can see below the best programs by our Chess King Labs and by our partner Convekta, at the very best prices, in our DVD and download shop www.chesskingtraining.com. Make sure to use the coupon code 10dOFF to get $10 off any order >$50, and 5dOFF to get $5 off any order >$25. Download or view a partial price list here and see the most popular items below (Chess King and the items marked in yellow). I use both Chess King 4 Pro and Chess Assistant 14 Pro, as well as several other tactics trainers. Email me if questions. Or visit the shop directly for the biggest assortment and lots of extra discounted super combos.
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I am glad to announce that I will participate in the Peace and Sport International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, on April 6, 2014, and will play a goodwill simul on www.chessking.com at 8 PM Moscow time. More details will follow soon.
You will recall I was named Champion for Peace (see Press Release, with other champions for Peace, among which you can find champions Novak Djokovic, Yelena Isinbayeva, Paula Radcliffe, Marie-José Pérec and many more) and inaugurated a Chess for Peace program in Puerto Tejada, Colombia. I also supported the project “Chess for Creativity and Leadership” in Palestine.
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Hi everyone!
Just want to let you know that as a special guest of the international Ljubljana Chess Festival I will play the VIP Simultaneous Exhibition on Saturday 15th March 2014. It will take place in the Hotel Lev in Ljubljana. Chess players will compete for a prize fund of 11,000 EUR and have loads of fun too. Sign up for the tournament on the official site www.caissa.si.
Visitors to the tournament and one-day chess spectacle at THE LJUBLJANA CHESS FESTIVAL will be able to challenge me to a match. In parallel with the tournament a charity auction of chess-inspired artworks will take place. With the raised funds, chess sets for kindergartens and retirement homes will be purchased.
The festival also has some other special features, such as “the Dress Code” rule. Since the event will get a lot of media attention, preferred attire are evening gowns and suits, also in order to break the stereotypes about chess players.
Winners of the tournament will be honoured by a special visit from Grandpa Frost from the Russian town of Veliki Ustjug who will present the awards. Ljubljana Chess Festival will thus be his last destination in this year’s winter before his well-deserved rest. See the Invitation below and I hope to see some of you in Ljubljana in about 3 weeks! Ljubljana is in beautiful Slovenia and is certainly worth the detour, pretty close to Venice, Italy and reachable from any European airport. Write to info@caissa.si to find out how to play with me. See you there!
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Hello everyone! New videos just were posted about what may well be the most exclusive, the most beautiful and the most expensive chess watch. You may have seen the original PRESS RELEASE, the PHOTO ALBUM, and an article I posted about it. Well now it’s time to check out the videos below! Let me know if you think it’s cool!
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After a not-so-good start 2/5 on the first day of the Moscow Rapid Chess Superfinal, Alexandra Kosteniuk was able to come back with 4/4 to tie for 3rd place, then beat Olga Girya in the Bronze tie-break in a very sharp Sicilian Defense game. See below some photos (thanks to the organizer) of the event and the last tie-break game in Chess King’s applet. You can download a PDF analysis of the last game, generated by the chess software Chess King.
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The XXII Winter Olympic Games will start in less than a month in Sochi (Russia). Alexandra Kosteniuk writes about her passion for sport and the Olympics and tells about her anticipation for the beginning of these Games (text in Russian, use Google to translate).
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My 2013 competition chess year is over! It was filled with interesting games, exciting discoveries, beautiful combinations and sad omissions. In this post I review my 2013 chess year so I can move forward to my competition year 2014. Overall the year 2013 was quite successful for me – I increased my rating to 2527 Elo and I finished the year in the worlds women top 10. In this post I share with you (in Russian for the moment – use Google Translate for full text in English – but you get to see the photos and games) the most important and memorable events of 2013.
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Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk – the 12th Women’s World Chess Champion – would like to wish most happy holidays to all of you, wherever you are in the world. Celebrate with happiness and joy in your hearts. Let the season be full of kindness and love, and make sure to play some great chess too! Season’s Greetings and Happy New 2014!
Hi everybody!
My new software version Chess King 4 and Chess 4 Pro is out! It’s now the best version of the software we’ve ever created and it includes the brand new Houdini 4 and Houdini 4 Pro engines.
The software is still as easy to use and more powerful than ever. The “normal” version is graded “deep” and can handle up to 6 processors, and you could build the ultimate chess system with the “Pro” version which supports up to 32 processors and 256 GB of hash. That’s the one I use because it’s the fastest and I have 8 processors.
On the www.chess-king.com site, you can buy the downloads today and preorder the DVD’s and get them before Christmas (they ship December 18). It’s possibly the best chess present you can make yourself or a loved one.
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Hello everybody! I was teaching my daughter how to train moving the chess knight across the board as fast as possible, and she asked me to show how to do it fast. I recorded a short video about how I can do it in about 3 seconds (with slow motion). If there is anybody out there who can do it faster, I’m glad to announce that Chess King has offered several prizes to anybody who can do it faster than me. So practice your knight’s moves and speed, and send me by email the result (video or link to video), and you may win a prize! Good luck! (Please “Like” my post and my video if you want me to make more chess videos!)
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As it happens pretty often, my chess autumn this year was extremely busy. During two months, from September 18 to November 17, I played 33 tournament games, made 1561 moves over the board, won 18 games, lost 6 and made 9 draws. I completed 12 flights and took two train rides, in five countries. I hosted the 7th Alexandra Kosteniuk Chess Cup for Kids, gave one 21-board simul, rose my classical FIDE rating by 31 points and came back into the world top 10. Here is my story.
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If you happen to be in Geneva, Switzerland on December 8 at 2 PM, come and meet me or even play with me in a 30-player simul at the yearly Geneva Telethon, which collects money to support research to cure people from genetic diseases. You can read the announcement below.
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This year again, 12th women’s world chess champion Alexandra Kosteniuk will be the official Chess Ambassador of the 2013 Sport Accord World Mind Games, which will take place in beijing, China between the 12th and 18th of December 2013. You can read the official announcement here. This is the third edition of the Mind Sports Games. It’s a unique multi-sport event which highlights the great value of Mind Sports. The world’s best players will deliver top-level performances and create new valuable experiences based on intelligence, strategy and exercise of mind.
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I am pleased to share with you a special feature in the Russian edition of Cosmopolitan of December 2013. The interview is interesting and deals with my personal life and how I combine my professional chess life with the life of a fashion conscious lady. Makes you feel like learning Russian? Below is a scan of the article, it’s a good way to promote chess to the general public. Let me know if you like the photos!
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Following her European Team Championship success with the amazing score of 7.5/8 (tournament top performance of 2766!), Alexandra Kosteniuk gained over 16 ELO points to reach 2526 ELO, which makes her #9 woman in the world and top woman player in Russia. You can see live chess ratings for women on this site. That’s a little lower than her record of 2540 achieved in 2006, just before she became 2008 women’s world chess champion, but close to 90 ELO more than last year this time. In Rapid and Blitz Alexandra has 2588 and 2612 ELO, respectively.
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One of the toughest tournaments of the year in the women’s circuit is the Russian Superfinal. This year both Valentina Gunina and Alexandra Kosteniuk showed performances well above 2600 to grab Gold and Silver medals, with respectively 7 and 6.5 out of 9 games. Bronze medal was obtained by Natalia Pogonina with 5.5, then Kovalevskaya, Kovanova and Goryachkina 4.5 and T. Kosintseva and Bodnaruk 3.5/9. Below you will find many photos of the event. Alexandra beat T. Kosintseva and Pogonina in their direct encounters,and drew Gunina, but most important, she created a masterpiece in her game against Charochkina, presented at the bottom of this post.
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For the first time in Switzerland’s 113-year chess history, a woman has been able to win both the women’s and men’s national chess titles. Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk has conquered the top step on both podiums last week in Grächen, Switzerland. Read about it below and check out our exclusive photos of the event.
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The first edition of the 8-player Geneva Chess Masters was incredibly strong, with top seeds Vladimir Kramnik (2784), Hikaru Nakamura (2775), Shakriyar Mamedyarov (2761), E. Bacrot (2714), J. Polgar (2696), R. Edouard (2666), Y. Pelletier (2578), and A. Kosteniuk (2489). The tournament was a great success, and provided very exciting matches, which saw the final win of Shakhryar Mamedyarov over Vladimir Kramnik, who himself eliminated Hikaru Nakamura. In the preliminaries, Alexandra Kosteniuk created a sensation when she beat 2-0 reigning French champion Romain Edouard rated almost 200 points higher. You can find below the standings and a YouTube video, with comments by WGM Almira Skripchenko. Read more…
Thanks to everyone who connects with me on all social sites, I sincerely appreciate it! Last week I passed 300,000 followers on Twitter, and to my knowledge I remain the only chess grandmaster (male or female) to be “verified” on Twitter.
I’ll be glad if you connect with me on Twitter (accounts “chessqueen“, “chessking“, “chessblog“, Facebook (“chessqueen“, “chessking“, “chessblog“), YouTube (chessqueen, chessking, chesskillertips, “chessqueentv“), Instagram (“chessqueen“), LinkedIn (Alexandra Kosteniuk). I’d love to connect with all of you on all my social sites, or by email. If you have not yet signed up for my free email newsletter, please sign up now!
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We hope you’ll like this 18-minute Youtube video of Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk introducing the game of chess to a kindergarten class in the USA. If you do please Like this post! Enjoy!
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As you may know in 2003 I graduated from the Russian State University of Physical Education and Sport with a B.A. degree in Physical Education and Sport. This is the institute where many world level athletes have studied, such as Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Bure, Svetlana Khorkina, Anna Chicherova, Yaroslav Rybakov, Vera Zvonareva, Svetlana Feofanova, Svetlana Zhurova, Pavel Kolobkov, and many more. Now 10 years later, yesterday, June 10, at the Moscow State Academy of Physical Education and Sport I defended a thesis about the pre-school pedagogical technology for chess that I developed and am using in my pre-school chess school in Moscow (where kids from 3 to 7 years old study chess and prepare for school). It is most useful to show the world that chess helps kids do well at school and that it is a great game that parents can teach their kids anytime after age 4.
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Below you will find a 4-minute interview I gave last time I was in Sochi at the Peace & Sports Forum. I consider it my duty to do the most I can to promote Peace in the World, and Chess helps me to do that! Watch the video to see my message of Peace.
You will recall I was named Champion for Peace (see Press Release, see the current champions for Peace, among which you will find champions Novak Djokovic, Yelena Isinbayeva, Paula Radcliffe, Marie-José Pérec and many more) and inaugurated a Chess for Peace program in Puerto Tejada, Colombia. I also supported the project “Chess for Creativity and Leadership” in Palestine.
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Hello everyone! A Russian fan contacted me on Twitter to let me know that he published 2 music videos with slideshows of some of my photos. The first song is truly a chess song, called “e2-e4” by the Russian group “Recital” of 1984 (that’s the year I was born) and with chess lyrics, the singer is Alexander Kalyanov. The second is by the group VIA, music by Viacheslav Dobrynin, and singer Alexei Kondakov. Both videos are embedded below. Please “like” the videos and my post, and share on Twitter and Facebook!
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Hello everybody!
Lots of people have asked me why I’m called the “Chess Queen”, so I decided to write an illustrated post about it. It all started in 2001, when I was 17 years old. My rating was 2469 and I had the titles of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) and Men International Master (IM).
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Dear friends!
As you know, each year I organize a tournament for kids U-6, U-8, U-10, with many prizes and no entry fee, so I am glad to let you know that this year it will take place again!
The 7th Alexandra Kosteniuk’s Chess Cup will take place on October 19 and 20, 2013 in the city of Kaliningrad, Russia. All kids born in 2003 and younger are invited to take part in this tournament. There is no entry fee and each participant gets a present.
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Below you will find my Russian language report about the Fondation Neva FIDE Women’s Grand-Prix in Geneva (Russian Report). If you’d like to see the English Google Translate version of my post, click here.
Со 2 по 16 мая 2013 в Женеве при поддержке фонда «Нева» прошел 1-й турнир серии Гран-При ФИДЕ 2013-2014 среди женщин. Турнир собрал очень сильный состав. Средний рейтинг участниц был равен 2510. В упорной и небезошибочной борьбе первое место с прекрасным результатом 8 из 11 заняла Бела Хотенашвили из Грузии.
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I just got back from the largest rated chess tournament ever, the 2013 SuperNationals, to which I was invited to open the event, and to play a chess simultaneous exhibition at the start of the event! I had a couple book signings in the bookstore on Friday and Saturday, and the lines were huge and did not stop during the 4+ hours I was there. Below you can see a few photos and a couple videos by the USCF so you can sense the great chess atmosphere present.
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Hi everyone! Right now I’m in Nashville, Tennessee, at the USCF Supernational 2013, having a great time and very excited to see so many young chess players around me, I’ll soon make a post with photos and news about it. In a few days I will be playing at the Russian Team Chess Championship in Sochi, then in May I have a very strong FIDE Grand-Prix tournament in Geneva and in-between my chess tournaments I always make sure to come back to Miami to rejuvenate and to spend as much time with my family as possible. That is one of the greatest advantages of being a chess professional – to be able to travel so much and to see so many new places around the world.Since I love traveling so much and to share my traveling experience with others, it is with great pleasure that I accepted an offer from the Russian web-site – TravelTipz.ru to write regular reviews about the hotels where I stay, the restaurants which I discover and different activities I take part in during my trips. I will share my reviews on my site, Twitter and Facebook. My first review will be about the huge hotel Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, coming up soon! I hope you will like it and it may be useful to you!
The 2013 Astana World Team Championships ended with the victory of the Ukrainian team with their top formation (Lahno, Ushenina, M. Muzychuk, Zhukova and Gaponenko), congratulations to a great team! The silver and bronze was taken by two teams that were not able to align their best formations, first China playing without Hou Yifan and Zhao Xue, and second Russia (Gunina, Kosteniuk, Pogonina, Galliamova, and Girya) playing without the Kosintseva sisters. My (Russian) team did well, with 4 players out of 5 receiving individual board medals (super performance by Olga Girya with 6.5/8 on the last board). I started on a roll with 4.5/5 and even though I lost the last 2 games, still ended up with a performance of 2502 and just about 1 Elo point gained. More info and photos about the event can be found below. I hope to comment one or more games soon for my YouTube channel. Read also the report on USA’s top chess blog www.chessblog.com.
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At the same time as I received the Certificate of Honorable Master of Sports of Russia last week (see post), I received officially the Medal and booklet representing the Order For Merit to the Fatherland. The certificate to me, Alexandra Kosteniuk was signed by President Medvedev. This award was given based on my win of the women’s world chess crown in 2008, and is extremely rare, even in the second class. Read about the Order For Merit to the Fatherland on Wikipedia. It shows how important Russia considers the game of chess and values champions who have brought fame to their country.
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