Archive for February, 2013
 I have confirmed my participation in this year’s Memorial Razuvaev, which will take place on August 6-12, in Washington, DC. The tournament has been announced by the Maryland Chess Association, by ChessBlog and ChessDom. A team of women (GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, WGM Anna Zatonskih, WGM Irina Krush, WGM Elena Sedina) will battle a team of seniors (GM Adrian Mikhalchishin, GM Boris Gulko, GM Vladimir Tukmakov, GM Lev Alburt). You will recall that GM Yuri Razuvaev was my coach, who passed away a little over a year ago. He helped me become women’s world chess champion in 2008. More information can be found below.
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 Many people know that I love playing blitz chess, from my YouTube channel and from my DVD “Chess Blitz Fever“. Yesterday I played in what may be the one of the strongest blitz open tournaments ever, the Aeroflot Blitz Open, with over 270 players, of which 107 players were Grandmasters, and in total 182 titled players. Ian Nepomniachtchi won with 15.5/18 followed by Peter Svidler and Grischuk. I was the best woman with 11 points and the 48th rank, followed by Harika 72nd, Tatiana Kosintseva 92nd, Lahno 93rd, Zhukova 117th. It was a tremendously strong tournament. My performance was 2632, which makes my FIDE rating go from 2581 to 2612 in the next Official March 1 FIDE Blitz Rating List, that’s a new record for me! You can see my detailed results and the complete rankings. My best result was to beat 2-0 each in our mini-matches GM Bukavshin (2697) and GM Kobalia (2636). See also the reports by top USA blogs ChessBlog, ChessDom, and Chessvibes. NEW! 3 GAME VIDEOS POSTED BELOW!
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 Thanks to my Twitter follower who sent me as a gift this original stamp from Mozambique. It’s great they came out with a chess collection, that can help popularize the game. I have a whole collection of chess stamps from all over the world, but usually from small countries. It would be nice if a major country would issue chess stamps, that would do a lot for chess. If you have any chess stamps, please send me a scan!
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 I just opened my new “Chess King” eBay store, and posted some of the most popular items from our Chess King Shop. Since I just started, there are few bids and the prices may be unbelievably low, some prices are only 10% of the list price. Check it out! –> Link to the Chess King eBay Store. I will try to create new auctions when old ones end so you should be able to get good deals at any time.
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 Today the USCF has announced that 12th Women’s World Chess Champion and Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk has been invited to the Nashville Chess SuperNationals, which take place Friday, April 5th through Sunday April 7th, 2013 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee. The SuperNationals is the largest event run by the USCF. More than 5,000 scholastic chess players are expected to attend, putting it among the largest chess events ever held. Alexandra will play a simul on Thursday at 2 PM. Here is the official page about the SuperNationals. Since the simul is limited to a maximum of 40 players, it’s recommended to sign up early. See you there!
 I just uploaded a new chess video to my YouTube Channel “ChessQueen“. It’s my game against 13th women’s world chess champion Hou Yifan, played last month at the Sport Accord Mind Sports Games in Beijing. The game is a complicated Sicilian Defence, Scheveningen variation, where I go all out for an attack on the black king. I won the game in 26 moves. If you like it, please click the “Thumbs Up” button in YouTube, the “Share” button on Facebook, and Retweet on Twitter! Let me know in the comments if you like the video and if you’d like me to make more chess videos, and if yes, what kinds of chess videos. In the video I use the software “Chess King“. Enjoy!
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 I had great success last year playing chess tournaments, and was able to increase my FIDE Elo ratings by more than 100 Elo points on average from January 2012 to January 2013. You can see my FIDE rating card here. My ratings are now as follows: Classical: 2495, Rapid: 2575, Blitz: 2581.
My best results in 2012 were:
• European Rapid Championship: Silver
• World Rapid Championship: Silver
• Team Russian Championship: Team Bronze
• Team Russian Championship: Individual Silver
• Swiss Championship: Bronze
• Istanbul Olympiads: Team Gold
• Istanbul Olympiads: Individual Bronze
• European Club Cup: Individual Gold
• Mind Sport Games: Blitz Gold
(see my full 2012 review)
I hope to do well also in 2013, I’ll also be training a lot and playing many tournaments.
Alexandra Kosteniuk
12th women’s world chess champion
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