Some of you already knew it, and many guessed it… Alexandra is extremely pleased to present to you a superb and exclusive Chesspics photo album by photographers Pierre-W. Henry and Pufichek taken on April 19, of herself, almost 7-month pregnant, in the beautiful gardens of Vizcaya in Miami, Florida. Feel free to rate any of the photos you like from 5 (best) to 1 (worst). Enjoy! Thanks to all of you who have already sent emails of congratulations for Alexandra’s pregnancy. There is nothing better than the gift of life! Thanks to Chesspics for hosting the album and to Miss Boll for the beautiful green chess board.

We’re finally working on our photo albums, and we have the first one ready, of Alexandra’s Goodwill appearance at the 2007 Florida Superstate IV Scholastic Chess Championship in Miami last weekend. Enjoy the 70 pictures of our photoalbum by clicking here. More albums to come very soon.

Thanks to Peter Burton for the superb photo of his 4 year old granddaughter Bryony in front of a beautiful chess set. Peter is teaching Bryony how to play chess and he must be doing a great job, because she thinks it’s the coolest of all games. According to Peter she gets excited and happy when Peter offers to play chess with her. Alexandra wishes Bryony good luck in the learning of the wonderful game of chess and hopes to meet her across the board in a few years, that would be so cool!

According to the new FIDE rating list which was published today April 1, there are only 7 women in the world rated above 2500 ELO points, and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk moves up to the #5 spot from the #6 spot last quarter. She has 2515 ELO points and is training hard to continue to improve. The top women apart from Alexandra are Judith Polgar (HUN), Humpy Koneru (IND), Pia Cramling (SWE), Zhu Chen (QUA), Yifan Hou (CHN), and Maia Chiburdanidze (GEO). Thanks to all these brilliant women for making chess so cool!