It’s total success for Women’s World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk and her team at the European Team Chess Championships, one of the most important team event of the year. The 5 girls (Kosteniuk, T. & N. Kosintseva, Gunina and Romanko) won Gold at the team event (see report), and in addition, Alexandra showed the best performance on the first board, also winning an individual Gold medal on the first board, with 6 out of 8, 75% and 2621 ELO performance (see report). Full results are on Chess-Results and on the Organizer’s page. As usual the freshest news can be found on Alexandra’s leading women’s chess blog: www.chessblog.com.

Alexandra would like to wish you all a very Happy Halloween. She has posted 3 Halloween chess postcards you are free to use to celebrate the day, postcard 1, postcard 2, postcard 3. Alexandra will give out prizes to the best Halloween Chess photos you send her by email. Good luck!

Alexandra just posted a new YouTube commented chess blitz video with the second game she played in the Tal Memorial against Grandmaster Emil Sutovsky (FIDE ELO 2607 at the time). She had already commented her first blitz game against him last year.There are many more blitz and serious games commented on Alexandra’s YouTube channel, named “chessqueen”.

Alexandra takes the plane today to Belgrade, Serbia, to participate in the European Team Chess Championship. It takes place in Novi Sad, from October 21 to October 31st. Alexandra will play on board 1 of Russia, and her team mates are, in order of boards Tatiana Kosintseva, Nadezhda Kosintseva, Valentina Gunina, and Marina Romanko. Useful links: Official Page of the Organizer, Results Page. Alexandra’s team is the highest rated women’s team in the championship and boasts an average of 2500 ELO. It’s going to be close though, with very strong teams of Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, and Armenia. We’ll keep you posted on developments.

Alexandra today was in Moscow’s biggest book store on Novy Arbat street to introduce to the Press and to the public her new book “Diary of a Chess Queen” (Russian version). She played a simul and commented her moves to the public via microphone which was heard in the whole store. The English version of Alexandra’s Book will come out on December 1 and is available for pre-order now. Free autograph to any order placed before publication date. Read more about Alexandra’s book on her blog.

Alexandra Kosteniuk has published an article on her blog “Abolish Women’s Titles? Ridiculous!” in a strong response to the weakly thought up article from the Wall Street Journal, calling for abolishing women’s chess titles.

After reading Alexandra’s post, please feel free to leave your comments and opinion at the end of Alexandra’s post. Alexandra is most grateful for the show of support she has received (already 50+ comments in less than 24 hours). Note: comments closed.

Women’s World Chess Champion and Chess Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk is currently ranked #1 most influential chess personality on Twitter, according to the Social Benchmarking site WeFollow, who ranks people according to many keywords. Go to the CHESS category, where you will find currently in the lead Alexandra (nickname on Twitter @chessqueen ), then @ChessTweets, @ColonelCrockett (that’s our friends at Chessvine) and @HarvardChess. Alexandra is also very big on YouTube, and on Facebook, making her a strong leader in the chess Social sphere. If you haven’t already, consider joining Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and make sure to become friends and follow Alexandra, whose nickname is all the services is “chessqueen“.

Watch and listen to Alexandra as she comments her game against International Master Andreas Huss from Switzerland. Taken from a tournament played in beautiful Silvaplana in Switzerland.

Alexandra won a prize for the best analysis from the Chess Journalists of America Association for the analysis of this game, as published in the Swiss Chess Review. You can see this commented game and many more on Alexandra’s YouTube channel.

Alexandra is right now at the 80th FIDE Congress, being both a full member of the FIDE Presidential Board and the Co-Chair of the Women’s Chess Commission. Read her report on the Commission Meeting of October 12. More news to come soon on chess blog. Also: Post about Anand-Topalov.

Alexandra was in Athens, Greece today to give a simul and a big boost to the Athens Chess Festival. It was a wonderful time for all. Alexandra wrote an extensive post with many photos on her Chess Blog . You can also visit the official Facebook Page and WordPress Site for the Festival.

Watch and listen to Alexandra as she comments her recent game from the Eurocup in Ohrid against International Master Inna Gaponenko from the Ukraine. Alexandra was playing this game on the first board of the Team of Monaco and that win contributed her team to get Silver medals in the competition.

Alexandra and her team from Monaco composed of Humpy Koneru, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Pia Cramling, Monika Socko, and Almira Skripchenko got an excellent result and silver team medals at the recent Eurocup in Ohrid. Read a full report with photos and many commented positions from her games at these links: PART 1, PART 2. Alexandra will comment tomorrow her very nice win against Inna Gaponenko on her YouTube channel. Update: Link.