On the photo to the left you can see the whole Russian Women Team (Kosteniuk, Kovalevskaya, Kosintseva N. and T., Galliamova) training with coaches Y. Yakovich and M. Sorokin, and getting ready for the European Team Championship, which will start in 4 days in Goteborg, Sweden. The Russian team has the firm intention of coming in first. The official site of the championship is here. Soon you’ll get a photo album of the training session in Zvenigorod, and we will be on site in Gotebord to give you regular updates. Keep posted!

Alexandra received as a gift a unique and beautiful Fedoskino Lacquer Box, of incredible detail and quality. The person who donated the box would like it to be given to the person who will make the highest bid for a donation to Alexandra’s Chess Fund. The box is hand painted by famous Fedoskino artist Tatyana Kovganko (see another one of her works by clicking here). Send your serious bids to us by using our Contact page. A true unique collector’s item.

By convincingly beating Kovalevskaya in the last round, Alexandra tied for 2nd-3rd in the strongest women’s tournament of the year, just a 1/2 point behind India’s star Koneru and with equal points with Chinese Xu, ahead of the Kosintseva sisters, Galliamova, Chiburdanidze, Kovalevskaya, Zhukova, and Stefanova. You can judge the strength of the tournament when you see the current world champion Stefanova tied for last place. Alexandra got 5.5 out of 9, which is a strong 2569 ELO performance. You can watch all of Alexandra’s games in our pgn Player by clicking here.

Alexandra came into the lead of the strongest women tournament of the year by beating world champion Antoaneta Stefanova in a very convincing game. Alexandra has now a score of 3.5 out of 4 against Stefanova. You can watch the game and look at the nice move 36.Nxg7!! in our pgn Player by clicking here. Alexandra has now 3.5 out of 5 in the tournament, with four rounds left. Alexandra is sharing the lead with Koneru and Kovalevskaya. Follow with us her results!

Alexandra is playing right now in what is probably the strongest women chess tournament in the world of this year 2005: Krasnoturinsk! The North Urals Cups presents 10 players among the top of the top, Koneru, Kosteniuk, Chiburdanidze, Stefanova, Zhukova, Xu, Kovalevskaya, T. + N. Kosintseva and Galliamova, average ELO 2491! Extreme fighting spirit is present, and you can see Alexandra’s games in our PGN player by clicking here (select Krasnoturinsk in the pulldown menu, then the game you want to watch). Breaking News! Four rounds have been played up to now, and Alexandra has the following results: she won against T. Kosintseva, and drew Chiburdanidze, Koneru, and N. Kosintseva. Let’s wish her luck for the rest of the competition!

The new July 1 FIDE rating is out, and Alexandra has reached a personal record of 2516 ELO, well within the male Grandmaster range. She is now the 5th woman in the world overall. Alexandra’s last 15 rating positions in the world since 2001 have been 15-21-18-17-18-17-18-19-13-15-4-4-8-9-5, which shows definite progress since July 2004 when Alexandra has always been in the world top 10. Alexandra just left today for one of the strongest tournaments in the world, in Krasnoturisnk (Russia), you can follow her results and games by clicking here. Breaking News: Alexandra won her first game against T. Kosintseva.