Alexandra is having a hard time in the very strong rapid invitational in Cap d’Agde (France), after missing twice winning moves against Negi in an otherwise very nice game. She nevertheless went on to draw against Stefanova and against GM Karjakin today. Have a look at Pufichek’s portraits by clicking here. More photos will soon be added to that album.

Alexandra is flying down today to the well-known French chess town of Cap d’Agde, where she has been invited to take place in the Rapid Invitational. The participants are as follows (in order of starting ELO): Radjabov, Bacrot, Carlsen, Harikrishna, Karjakin, Karpov, Volokitin, Fressinet, Vachier-Lagrave, Negi, Koneru, Kosteniuk, Stefanova, Sebag, Zhao Xue, and Skripchenko. It will be a very interesting tournament to follow! Have a look at the Organizer’s Site and this page (in French). Also, make sure to visit Alexandra’s podcast page, so you can listen to the 24th episode (6 minutes MP3 file), which just came out today. Prizes are offered to people who send a nice MP3 greeting by email to Alexandra to celebrate the podcast 1st year anniversary on November 7. Finally, please answer the poll to the right, thanks!

The photo album of the spectacular 2006 Mexico Chess Festival is ready, click HERE to see it. It includes photos of the festival, but also exceptional photos of the rest day in Mexico, with GM’s Sergey Karjakin and Anatoly Karpov accompanying Alexandra Kosteniuk to see the Mexican pyramids, it was superb. Lots of photos of the tournament too! Remember you can vote for each and every photo (1 lowest, 5 highest), the highest rated photos move to the top of the page.

It was a most wonderful Chess Festival in Mexico today. In the quadrangular tournament Alexandra tied for silver with GM Viktor Kortchnoi (and beating him in the direct encounter) behind the winner Sergei Karjakin. Apart from that the city of Mexico beat the Guiness World Record of maximum number of games played in simuls on one day (14,065), and Anatoly Karpov also beat the Guiness World Record with the maximum number of autographed books (1,951), congratulations to all! We’ll put a monster photo album on Chesspics very soon.

Alexandra had a superb performance today in Mexico City by winning 2 out of her 3 matches, against Mexican GM Gilberto Hernandez (2551 ELO) and against legendary GM Viktor Kortchnoi (2607 ELO) from Switzerland. She only lost one match against GM Sergei Karjakin of the Ukraine (ELO 2672), who eventually ended up winning the tournament, with 4 points. Alexandra Kosteniuk and Viktor Kortchnoi share the second-third spot, with 3 points each. The Mexican GM ends the tournament table with 2 points.

On the photo you see Alexandra Kosteniuk and legendary Viktor Kortchnoi, the main attractions of Mexico’s 2006 Chess Festival, along with Sergei Karjakin and Gilberto Hernandez. Today Friday the press conference took place, and Sunday all the action will start, with Guiness World Records beaten, and the GM Rapid, in which Alexandra will participate. Alexandra recorded this morning a popular TV program, she’ll be again on TV tonight to promote the Event. We are preparing a photo album for you, come back soon to see it. Click here to see the organizer’s site.

Alexandra just got to Miami, and she is planning to fly on to Mexico on Wednesday to participate in the Mexico City Chess Festival. The goal is to beat the Guiness World record of most simultaneous games played at the same time. On October 22, an exhibition rapid tournament will take place, with 4 Grandmasters: Gilberto Hernandez (Mexico), Victor Kortchnoi (Switzerland), Sergei Karjakin (Ukraine), and Alexandra Kosteniuk. It will be fun, we’ll keep you posted with news and photos!