Archive for June, 2012
 Dear friends!
As you know, each year I organize a tournament for kids U-6, U-8, U-10, with many prizes and no entry fee, so I am glad to let you know that this year it will take place again!
The 6th Alexandra Kosteniuk’s Chess Cup will take place on October 6 and 7, 2012 in the city of Svetlogorsk, Russia. All kids born in 2002 and younger are invited to take part in this tournament. There is no entry fee and each participant gets a present.
You can read the regulations in Russian here,in English here, in German here, and in Polish here.
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 Today June 30, one day early, FIDE published the new chess rating lists. The big novelty is that new Rapid and Blitz rating lists have been inaugurated! So each player who plays all speeds of chess will have 3 ratings. In my case (see Alexandra Kosteniuk’s official FIDE rating page), on July 1, 2012 I will have 2472 ELO for classical chess (that’s +15 vs. last list), and I enter the Rapid list with 2568 ELO, and the Blitz list with 2505 ELO, which gives an average of 2515 ELO. I think that it is a great idea to have different rating lists for different styles of chess (classical, rapid, and blitz), as it is a fact that players have different success in different styles of play. In my case, I am close to 100 ELO stronger in rapid chess, which was obtained in having good success in most recent top level Rapid tournaments. Do you agree it is a good idea to have different chess ratings for classical, rapid and blitz chess? Please write your opinion in the comments or vote on the issue on www.chesspolls.com.
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 Tomorrow July 1, the prestigious yearly chess match Russia vs. China will take place in Saint Petersburg, Russia, until July 9. Will play 5 men and 5 women, in both classical and rapid chess. For Russia, men: Tomashevsky, Jakovenko, Nepomniachtchi, Vitiugov, Matlakov, for women: Valentina Gunina, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Natalia Pogonina, Olga Girya, Baira Kovanova. The full lists and regulations are here (Russian, English via Google Translate). A history of the Russia – China matches are here (Russian, English via Google Translate). The girls have been in training for the last week (see “locker room” photo). Several photos of the free day today spent visiting the beautiful park of Peterhof can be found below.
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 Hello everyone! I just found out that exactly 3 years ago I signed up to Twitter under the nickname @ChessQueen. Since then I have tweeted over 5,000 times to close to 180,000 followers around the world. That main twitter account is in English, and I have also opened a Russian Twitter account @Kosteniuk, where I tweet in Russian. I do post more photos on @Kosteniuk, so be sure to follow both @chessqueen and @kosteniuk. I recommend you follow my chess ventures @ChessKing (for the best affordable chess software), @ChessBlog (the world’s leading chess blog), @ChessPics (for beautiful chess photos) and @ChessKillerTips (for free chess educational videos). Happy chess tweeting!
 Today we’d like to present a couple photos taken both in Kazan (Tatarstan, Russia) in 2004 and in 2012. They show the Russian chess champions Alexandra Kosteniuk and the sisters Nadezhda and Tatiana Kosintseva. The first photo was taken in 2004 during the Russian Superfinal (news). The last one was taken last week during the 2012 Grand Prix (news). In between these 8 years, all three ladies have won countless titles and awards, all three won at least once the Russian championship, and they are now all full GM’s. Both Alexandra and Tatiana have been European champions, and Alexandra has been the 12th women’s world chess champion 2008-2010. Together all three girls have won many team competitions (2010 Olympiads, 2007-2009-2011 European Team Championships). A great combination of competition and friendship! Best wishes to all of them for the continuation of their careers!
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 One of the strongest women’s chess tournaments ever, the 2012 Kazan Chess Grand Prix just ended! Congratulations to Humpy Koneru and Anna Muzychuk for their 7.5 points win. Cmilyte and the current world champion Hou Yifan ended up with 7 points, and I (Alexandra Kosteniuk) finished 5th with Danielian 6th. Tatiana Kosintseva 7th, Lahno 8th, Stefanova 9th, Nadezhda Kosintseva 10th, Galliamova 11th and Yildiz 12th. I am pretty happy with my result, with 4 wins, against Cmilyte, Galliamova, Danielian and Yildiz, and a good finish 2.5/3 which will let me gain about 15 ELO points in the next FIDE rating list. Below is the full results table. The official site has a great photo gallery.
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 We present the game played on June 20, 2012 between the 12th Women’s World Chess Champion, Chess Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk and Elina Danielian from the Kazan Grand Prix 2012 (official site). There are 2 rounds to go. You can play over the moves in the Applet below, generated by Chess King software (we modified the board color from green to pink). Pay particularly attention to the moves 23. Nxd5+!! and 24. e6!! and 27.Qh8 with unavoidable mate to come. You will find a video of the press conference where Alexandra and Elina analyze their game (in Russian) on the official site.
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 Hello everybody! I’m playing in the Kazan Grand Prix, with the best women chess players of the planet (Hou Yifan, A. Muzychuk, Koneru, T. & N. Kosintseva, Stefanova, Cmilyte, Galliamova, Danielian, Yildiz and I). You can follow the tournament at the official site. Below is my game of today against Alisa Galliamova. The analysis and the applet was generated automatically by Chess King (I changed the board color from green to pink).
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 Hello everyone!
I’m in Batumi, Georgia, and just finished the two incredibly strong Women’s World Rapid and Women’s World Blitz Championships. Although I always want to do better, I’m pretty happy of my result, Silver medal in the Rapid with a performance of 2672 ELO, behind Antoaneta Stefanova, and 4th in the Blitz, with a performance of 2583, behind Valentina Gunina, Natalia Zhukova, and Anna Muzychuk. Have a look at the full Rapid and Blitz tables. Below I attach some photos of the event. I have videos of many of my games, and will post them soon on my YouTube channel “ChessQueen”. Tomorrow I’m going to go sight-seeing in Batumi, so you will have more photos too!
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