Russia Supreme At Women’s World Team Championship

September 1st, 2017

Russia Supreme At Women’s World Team Championship

From June 16 to June 27 2017 in Khanty-Mansiysk the chess world team championship took place. The Russian women won the World Team Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk, finishing three match points ahead of the pack. In the team were playing, by board: 1. Kosteniuk 6/8, 2. Lagno 5/8 3. Gunina 6/8 4. Goryachkina 4/6 Reserve Girya 4.5/6. Read the full report on chess.com.

FM Mike Klein asked GM Alexandra Kosteniuk a few questions, and we’ve now received her answers:

Q: You’ve accomplished a lot in your career but Russia had never won a Women’s World Teams. Was this the last “big one” that you wanted to win?

“Yes, indeed, I have been playing for the national team of Russia from the year 2002 (I also played in the 1998 Olympiad but for the team of Kalmykia – Russia-3), and now I’m very happy to say that I have won all the major team titles with the team. I wanted to win a world team championship very much and am very happy that we managed to win the tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk.”

What was your toughest match or game?

“We had a very good tournament, making only 2 team draws and winning other 7 matches. I’m also happy with my personal result – I didn’t lose a single game and took 6 out of 8 on the first board with the performance of 2663. I was a bit lucky in the game against Dzagnidze where despite me having an extra pawn, we had a fortress on the board and instead of simply waiting she played 45. h3??, this victory let out team win a very important match against Georgia. I also had 2 very long games against Ju Wenjun (104 moves) and against Monika Socko (95 moves) and I won all of them. There were not very important for the team result but it definitely helps when you win such a roller-coaster.”

Q: In your final game, you only needed a drawn match with Ukraine to ensure gold, but your game was crazy! What were your thoughts as the game unfolded?

“Our main goal was to become world champions. So I wasn’t very happy when despite having a huge time advantage and promising position, instead of 18. Rc4 I played 18. Kb1? and missed a very strong counter-play connected with 18. … d5, but I’m quite happy that I stayed calm and managed to play pretty well after that even though the position became very hectic. At the end I understood that I had chances to play for a win (31. gxf3), but decided to secure the title for the team especially since we were doing fine on the other three boards at that moment.”

An article came out in the Russian Magazine “64”: