Alexandra has been training very hard and is looking forward to going in 6 days to Nalchik to participate in the World Women’s Chess Championship. The championship will start on August 28, and we will let you know regularly how Alexandra is doing. The official championship site is here. It will be extremely hard fought, as the top world elite will play, for example Xu Yuhua, Humpy Koneru, Yifan Hou, Antoaneta Stefanova, Pia Cramling, Marie Sebag, Zhao Xue, Kosintseva T., Viktoria Cmilyte, Anna Muzychuk, Lufei Ruan, Natalia Zhukova, etc. Top players wait for this event every 2 years, so let’s wish that good games are played and may the best player win!

The very respected Association Chess Journalists of America has awarded 3 Top awards to Alexandra for her work in promoting chess: 1) Best Chess Blog Video or Podcast for her free Chess Killer Tips Podcast 2) Best Analysis for her Huss-Kosteniuk game (download PDF or download pgn) and 3) Best Chess Art for her Comic Series Chess is Cool, with text by Alexandra Kosteniuk and Illustrations by René Duret. If you have a web site or cover chess in the press, we recommend you join the CJA to increase excellence in chess press coverage in the world.

Alexandra has commented in detail her two recent wins with the Black pieces in Rapid chess against Grandmasters Tregubov (ELO 2658) and Hracek (ELO 2625). You can watch them either on YouTube (Tregubov, Hracek), or Tubechess (Tregubov, Hracek), or Chessmovies (Tregubov, Hracek). Each video is less than 10 minutes and is very educational. We hope you have also watched Alexandra’s report on her Mainz Chess960 World Championship Win YouTube (10 minute version), Tubechess (24 min.), Chessmovies (24 min).