We have a present for you, it’s a 4 minute video of Alexandra playing IM Belezky in last week’s Blitz Marathon in Cureglia. Alexandra comments the whole game on the video. Click HERE to watch it (Quicktime format, 6 MB). Since the viewing screen is quite small, we attach a commented chess pgn file for you to download , or a text file with the moves so you can copy and paste it into our best pgn player. If you don’t have the last version of Quicktime (download free from here), you can watch the video in Google Video by clicking here. Enjoy!

Our PHOTOGENICS competition has been closed after one month of voting. More than 10,000 people have voted for their favorite photographs from the Torino Olympiads Women Competition. Every photo got many votes and so we can say that all players present in the gallery are most photogenic, congratulations to all! At the top the photos of three players have been leading for quite a while, Mariam Mansur from UAE, Sanja Dedijer from Bosnia Herzegovina and Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia, and they are definitely all winners! You still have time to vote for the Men’s Photogenic competion. We added some albums to our CHESSPICS Page (look at the pulldown menus on the left), and we will continue to do so in the future, so come back often!

Alexandra just got to Paris, France, in time to join her friends Grandmasters Almira Skripchenko and Joel Lautier to watch and support the French soccer team, who beat Togo 2-0 tonight. Alexandra’s other favorite team, Switzerland, also won their match against South Korea 2-0 and so both France and Switzerland are qualified for the 1/8 finals, congratulations to both!

By clicking on the photo to the left (or here) you will see a bigger photo of all the winners of the Cureglia Blitz Marathon 2006. We have prepared for you a 47-photo photo album of the Goodwill Simul and Blitz Marathon, as well of several shots of one of the most beautiful towns in Switzerland, Cureglia! Visit this photo album by clicking HERE.

Alexandra is in Switzerland these days and yesterday she shared with the joy of all Swiss people with the win of their national team 2-0 against Togo. In between her chess training, Alexandra loves to watch the soccer matches of the World Cup in Germany.

It was a glorious weekend in the wonderful small town of Cureglia (Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, very close to Lugano), with charming surroundings, warm hospitality, perfect weather and unlimited chess! Alexandra first played a Goodwill simul with 16 players, conceding only one draw and collecting 15 wins. The next day, a blitz marathon of 25 games was played, and Alexandra shared top honors with a powerful 24 points out of 25! Top 3 finishers: 1-2 Sabino Brunello (ITA) and Alexandra Kosteniuk 24 points out of 25, then 3. Alexander Beletsky (UKR) 23 points. We are preparing a photo album for you, come back soon to see it.

GM Alexandra Kosteniuk has done the big job to comment in great depth three of her most interesting games from the Torino Olympiads, her wins against Radziewicz and Khurtsidze, and her loss against Zhukova. It is always the most important thing to do after a tournament, to study your games, find areas of improvement so you won’t make the same mistake twice. You will certainly learn from reading Alexandra’s comments, and at the same time the games are very entertaining, and you will enjoy going through the (sometimes) complicated variations (members can download the commented pgn). The commented games are reserved to our members, they can look at them by clicking here. For those of you who are not yet members, any purchase above $45 in our shop or any donation above $30 qualify for free memberships. Support Alexandra and at the same time enjoy the benefits of membership to the most lovely chess GM site on the web!

We have updated all our Torino Photo Albums: 1) Look at our NEW Closing Ceremony album by clicking here. 2) We now have 62 Women PHOTOGENIC photos, click here to VOTE. For the moment Sanja Dedijer is leading, but this may change. 3) We have 75 COMPLETE Women teams, click here to see them and vote for your favorite team. 4) Not to be called sexist, we now have a MEN’S Gallery too, click here to VOTE. 4) You can download an autographed photo by the whole women Russian team by clicking here. Remember you can order a real autographed photo by going to this page, or make a donation to Alexandra’s Chess Fund by going here. Thanks for your support!

Last night was the Closing Ceremony of the Torino Chess Olympiads, and our Russian women’s team got the Overall Silver medal. Tatiana Kosintseva also got a bronze medal for her performance on the second board, without forgetting Vladimir Kramnik who also got a top performance prize, congratulations to all! We are preparing our Closing Ceremony Album, come back soon to see it. By the way, have you “voted“?

The last round of the Torino Chess Olympiads just was played, and today the Russian women beat India 2-1, with the board 1 duel Koneru-Kosteniuk ending in a draw. The win gives The Russian women a Silver Team Medal, congratulations! While they had wished for the Gold, Silver’s great too (last Olympiads Russia got Bronze). What’s more important is Participation and team spirit! The winners are all of the chess players of the world who chose to participate in this great chess event in Torino. The losers are those who decided to stay at home. We’ll post many more photos of the closing ceremony a little later. Check out our “Photogenics” page, and our “Women Teams” page.

Today was the match Russia – France, and it ended up in a draw, at 1.5 – 1.5, and now the Ukraine is almost sure of winning the Gold, and Russia will try to get the Silver in the last round tomorrow. In the men’s competition, Russia beat Cuba 3-1, and her also, Armenia is sure of getting the Gold, Russia will be shooting for the Silver also. Tomorrow the games are at 10 AM Italian time. Have you voted for your favorite players in our “Photogenics” page? And look at most women teams in our “Women Teams” page.

ALL WOMEN TORINO TEAM GALLERY! By clicking on the photo on the left you will reach a collection of (almost) all women teams competing at the Torino Chess Olympiads 2006! At current count we are at 66 teams, more are added daily. Besides looking at your favorite teams, you can also vote for them, giving each team you choose from 1 to 5 points, just as you did for the “Photogenic” gallery for the individual players. Enjoy! You can also click here to see it. It’s a large page, so it may take a while to load. We are working on the same type of page for the men’s competition.

PHOTOGENIC GALLERY! Pufichek has created for you a gallery of his best photos of the women’s Chess Olympiads in Torino, and he invites you to have a look at it. You can vote for each individual player or photo only once. When you vote, that player gets points (from 1 minimum to 5 maximum) and moves up in its “photogenic” ranking. Averages are calculated for each photo. Enjoy! Click here to see it.

Today Alexandra won very convincingly with black against the first board of Georgia, Nino Khurtsidze, while the sisters Kosintseva both drew their games. On the other hand, in the 11th round, the Russian men lost to the USA, with Nakamura beating Grischuk in a complicated game.

As we look at the standings after 10 rounds, we see in the women’s competition Russia is second, and in the men’s they are third. we promised ups and downs and excitement, and we have it indeed! There are 3 rounds left for Russia to show they can get the Gold, and so let’s keep watching as the Torino Olympiads unfold. If you want to see full rankings, click here for the women’s statistics, and here for the men’s statistics. Our Torino page is here.