The excellent European Chess Magazine "Europe-Echecs" just came out, and Alexandra, victorious from the European Team Championships, graces its cover. The magazine features an interview, photos, and commented games by Alexandra. You can see the cover in higher resolution by clicking here.

Exclusive: Alexandra Kosteniuk comments for you the most important blitz game of the year, the one that decided the World Blitz Champion title, between Vishy Anand and Vassily Ivanchuk. The game was won by Ivanchuk who took the title. Watch Alexandra show you how he did it, in a 10-minute video file (approx. 60 MB, please be patient while it loads, it’s worth it), either in Flash or in Quicktime. If you’d like to analyze the game further, you can download the pgn file with the key variations explained. Enjoy!

Tonight Alexandra Kosteniuk took part in a friendly closed blitz tournament in Moscow, with select GM’s playing as well as two of the highest Russian government officials, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov and Deputy Economy Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, both avid chess players, and supporters of Russian chess. In the blitz tournament Alexandra shared first place with GM Vasiukov with 9/11, then GM Vaisser 8.5, WGM Zhukova 8, GM Dlugy 7, etc. Watch Pufichek’s photo album by clicking here.

It was undoubtedly the strongest blitz tournament in the world, held in Moscow’s famous Central Chess Club, the World Blitz Championship Qualifyers, with over 60 Grandmasters (men). There were only two women that hold that supreme GM title that were invited to play, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Kateryna Lahno. They both did a respectable 9.5 points, with Kateryna beating GM Smirin 2-0 and Alexandra beating GM Naiditsch 2-0, both 2639 ELO, among several upsets suffered by the men. That’s what we call girl power! We have all games in video and will soon post the best ones on Chessmovies (Quicktime) and Tubechess (Flash).

Pufichek’s photo album is ready for you to view, we will add new photos in the next days.

Watch the short news clip (hosted by Tubechess) that aired tonight, filmed at the Moscow airport Sheremetievo upon arrival of the triumphant Russian teams (men and women) from Crete. The clip features Alexandra Kosteniuk and Petr Svidler, and it is in Russian.

PHOTOS OF EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS. Pufichek brings you a special gallery of smiling European champions, taken during the prize giving ceremony in Crete last night. We remind you that for the first time since the Soviet years, Russia has been able to regain both men and women’s titles simultaneously, it’s a great achievement for the men (Svidler, Morozevich, Grischuk, Alekseev and Jakovenko) and for the women (Kosteniuk, T. and N. Kosintseva, Kovalevskaya, Korbut). The Russian champions earned each a Gold team medal, and no less than 8 medals for top board results. Congratulations!

BREAKING NEWS! Both Russian teams, men and women, have won their sections in the 2007 European Chess Championships!! Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk, leader and first board of the Russian women’s team, is pleased to congratulate her fellow team-members T. and N. Kosintseva, E. Kovalevskaya, and E. Korbut, in a well deserved success. See the final results and the individual performances.

Top 3 (women): 1. RUSSIA 2. POLAND 3. ARMENIA. Alexandra will also get in addition to the Gold team medal a medal for being among the highest individual performance on the first board (2587 ELO).

Watch Pufichek’s photos in the best photo album of Crete 2007.

Today was a key day and all eyes were turned to Table 1 – Board 1: Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk beat GM Zhaoqin Peng and led her team to a 3.5 – 0.5 win. The Russian women’s team is in top position ahead of Poland going into the last round.

Make sure to visit our monster photo album. We’d also appreciate if you could vote for Alexandra’s new free video podcast Chess Killer Tips either in Podcast Alley or in iTunes, so she can go up in the podcast rankings and show more people that chess is cool!

Pufichek has posted on Chesspics more than 150 photos of the participants of the 2007 European Team Championships in Crete. The collection is growing daily and promises to be the top chess photo album of the year. Have a look at it and vote for your favorite players.

As far as the competition is concerned, in the women’s section, it’s a fight between top teams Poland and Russia. Today on table one Russia beat Georgia, with Alexandra Kosteniuk drawing ex-world champion Maia Chiburdanidze on board one.