The SuperNationals in Nashville, Tennessee are approaching, and Women’s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk will be there! It’s a unique chance to sign up for one of her simuls, either on Friday April 3 at 9 AM or on Sunday, April 5, at 3:30 PM. In each simul, the best 3 players of each simul will receive Alexandra’s new DVD “Kosteniuk World Chess Champion” as a prize, so give it a try!

Alexandra and her 23-month old baby Francesca just came back from New York, and we have a Photo Album for you. As you can see from the photos, everybody had a great time, first at the Marshall Chess Club, then at during the Fundraising Simul for the U.S. Chess Trust. And walking around New York is always great! Have a look at Jennifer Shahade’s article on the USCF site.

This coming weekend Women’s World Chess Champion and Chess Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk will be in New York! She will perform a 20-board Simul as a Fundraising event to benefit the US Chess Trust. It will take place on Saturday March 21 at 2 PM at the British International School of New York. Request a free invitation and come and see her in action. Details are on the U.S. Chess Trust site. Alexandra will also pass by Bobby Fischer’s favorite chess club, the Marshall Chess Club
at 23 West 10th Street around 6:30 PM on Friday night, for a short ceremony, you’ll be able to catch her there if you want.

Kids from 5 to 18 are invited to take part in ALEXANDRA KOSTENIUK’S FIRST ANNUAL CHESS CAMP! You can sign up for any or all of 4 weekly camps (June 22-26, June 29-July 3, July 6-10, and July 13-17), which will take place at the historic Chess Hall of Fame and Chess Museum in Miami, Florida. Sign up fast as space is limited. More information as well as the sign up form can be found on the Chess Museum’s site. There will also be a tournament, 10-12 July Alexandra Kosteniuk USA Chess Cup (for girls and boys U-8, U-11, U-14, U-18) 4 sections 6 Rounds USCF Rated Swiss System Tournament Time Control Game/45 minutes, trophies top 5 medals for all, and lots of prizes in kind each section.

Alexandra got an wonderful email today, from Marc Gonsalves, author of the best-selling book “Out of Captivity” (see pages 252-253 for the reference to Alexandra and to chess), in which he writes about how he survived 1,967 days in the Colombia jungle. Marc writes that when in captivity, he somehow got hold of of article in the local press about a visit by Alexandra to Colombia (which indeed took place in April 2005, see this video), and that the article and photo were very inspirational for him, it gave him a glimmer of light during hard times. Marc used the photo in the article to design his own chess set, and chess is now close to his heart. Congratulations to Marc and let’s thank Chess for giving us all quite a bit of inspiration in our lives!

We just received today the new Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year 2009, with the main events of the year 2008. We are pleased to report that, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the most notable event of the 18th of September 2008 was that Alexandra became world chess champion after defeating Hou Yifan of China 2.5-1.5 in the final round of the three-week tournament.

We finally got news that Alexandra’s new DVD “
Kosteniuk World Chess Champion
“, or “How I became the 12th Women’s World Chess Champion” will be soon coming off the press and ready to ship within 10 days. It is a professionally mastered dual-layer DVD with close to 4 hours of high quality video, including over 3 hours of Alexandra deeply commenting all her 12 games played in Nalchik, plus the full 38 minute exclusive Nalchik video and other video from Mainz and Beijing.

Watching this DVD will increase your understanding of chess, guaranteed!
Order it now
for yourself or for a loved one. Free autographed postcard with each order.

We are pleased to report that today World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk was
named co-chairman of the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess. This appointment is in addition to the Presidential Board Member role she currenly holds. She will co-chair this committee with S. Polgar and work with eminent chess figures such as Xie Jun, Chiburdanidze, Stefanova, Xu Yuhua, Zhu Chen, Gaprindashvili, Dapiran and Baquero. Note that all 8 women world champions since 1962 will work in this Commission! May Women Chess flourish under these champions leadership!

This weekend World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk is taking part in the FIDE Presidential Board in Istanbul as a named delegate. On the photo to the left you see her with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and his assistant Polina Tsedenova. We expect an annoucement to be made on Monday, come back to see it.

World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk just arrived in Istanbul, Turkey, to participate in the FIDE Predidential Board. She was warmly met at the airport by school children and an article came out in the leading Sabah newspaper. Read also this page from Chessbase. More info to come tomorrow.