Alexandra and her team have started quite well at the European Team Championships in Crete by winning their first three matches, against Israel, Armenia and Bulgaria, then drawing against Hungary and Poland. Alexandra has a score of 3.5/4 up to now. Look at our new photo album, and vote for the photos you like best.

Did you know that Alexandra has already published 45 episodes of her Chess Killer Tips Free Video Podcast? Short 2-4 minute instructional videos, entertaining and instructive, and sure to make you a better chess player. In both MP4 and Flash formats. Check’em out!

Alexandra will leave tomorrow morning for Crete to participate in the European Team Chess Championships. The Russian Women’s team will have a very strong team composed of Alexandra Kosteniuk, Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosintseva, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, and Ekaterina Korbut.

We have lots of material from Villandry, so if you have not yet seen it all, here are the links: photos, Alexandra’s 5-minute video report (MP4, Flash), Chess Killer Tips 44 (MP4, Flash), Chess Killer Tips 45 (MP4, Flash), Chess is Cool Podcast Episode 27 (MP3), and a TV program with Alexandra speaking French (MP4, Flash). Please vote for the photos and the videos using 1 star for lowest up to 5 stars for best. Enjoy

Alexandra just got back from the beautiful Château de Villandry Chess and Music Festival, where she reached the final and only lost in the tie-break against GM Fressinet. We have very nice exclusive photos for you to watch. We now also have finished a superb 5-minute video that will make you feel sorry for not being with us in Villandry last weekend If you prefer the Flash version click here). Thanks to the castle owner Henri Carvallo for his wonderful Chess and Music Festival, it was a great success. We look forward to coming back to Villandry next year!

We are pleased to present to you an 11-minute video of Alexandra on French TV during the Villandry 2007 Chess and Music Festival. Note that it is the first time Alexandra gives an interview in French, her native language being Russian and the foreign language she learned first is English. Press here to watch this video in MP4 or here for Flash.

The match for the main prize of the 2007 Villandry Chess and Music Festival was fascinating. After losing her first game in the main match, Alexandra created a sensation and came back to win her second game with Black after more than 200 moves, to tie at 1-1. That proved quite exhausting, and she finally lost the blitz tie-break 0 – 2. Congratulatipons to Laurent for his winning the 2007 Villandry trophy.

Alexandra played her friend Almira Skripchenko in the semi-final of the 2007 Chess and Music Festival in Villandry. The match ended with 1.5 – 0.5 in favor of Alexandra. We have recorded both games and will soon be able to present them to you in video. In the second semi-final, Laurent Fressinet beat Viktor Korchnoi after a fierce battle and a 1-1 tie in the main part of the match. Tomorrow in the final Alexandra will play GM Laurent Fressinet.

Alexandra has been invited to the beautiful and well-known Château de Villandry, one of the best jewels of the Loire castles, 250 kilometers south of Paris, on October 20-21, 2007. She will play a series of rapid games, together with GM Viktor Kortchnoi, GM Laurent Fressinet, and WGM Almira Skripchenko. The festival will include classical music composed by Philidor (chess player and composer), played by the excellent pianist Natacha Kudritskaya. See the official event poster.

Our photo album of Alexandra’s trip to Gmunden, including the simul is online. Enjoy!

We hope you will enjoy the 10 minute video of Alexandra commenting her blitz game against Jackova. Click here to see it.

Alexandra just came back from a long chess weekend in Gmunden, Austria. On Friday she participated in a fun blitz tournament, scored 9/13 and got the highest rating performance, beating I. Krush, J. Jackova, and both T. and E. Paehtz. We have all of Alexandra’s blitz games in video and will soon be able to present them to you. On Saturday, Alexandra took on 26 players of all levels in the beautiful Esplanade in front of the Traunsee lake. Tomorrow we’ll post a nice photo album of the event.

Today September 12 is the 20th birthday of Alexandra’s little sister, Oxana. We would like to congratulate Oxana, and wish her lots of happiness, love, and many new and exciting events in her life. Oxana has just started her 4th year at the Moscow State University, in the Journalism Department. She’s currently working at the company Sportbox, writing daily chess news. If you know Russian, you can read them here.

Alexandra Kosteniuk and Garry Kasparov will be the guests of honor at the 17th Senior World Championships 2007 in the charming town of Gmunden, Austria, on September 21 and 22, 2007. Alexandra will play a blitz tournament on Friday night at 9 PM and on Saturday at 3 PM she will give a simultaneous exhibition to Austrian fans. The organizers have secured to fans of Alexandra up to three free spots in the simul, so if you have any chance to make it on the 22nd of September to Gmunden, please send us an email and we will reserve a free spot for you. Only 3 free spots available, so hurry!

You did it! Thanks to many of you, Alexandra’s CHESS KILLER TIPS video podcast made it to #1 of all video podcasts (1,146 entries), as compiled by the well-known podcast aggregator Podcast Alley. Among all podcasts in the world (audio and video), Chess Killer Tips is ranked #24 out of over 34 thousand podcasts. If you haven’t voted yet, you can continue to do so here. Already 20 episodes out and getting close to 1,000 subscribers in less than one month, is that not a good way to promote chess? Please send feedback and ideas for future episodes.

UPDATE: Today August 13, thanks to your votes, Alexandra’s new chess video podcast “Chess Killer Tips” is up in position #28 (on the Top 50 List) out of 34,223 registered podcasts of all genres at Podcast Alley, which is an incredible success and the best possible promotion for the game of chess. We would be grateful if you could please cast your VOTE for Chess Killer Tips simply entering your email address then confirming the vote when you get the email from Podcast Alley. If many of you vote, Chess Killer Tips can make it to the top 10, and then it will be on Podcast Alley’s Front Page, which will give more exposure to Chess, that would be so nice. Voting and watching the podcast is totally free, and we hope you enjoy it as much as Alexandra enjoys recording them. Links: CKT in iTunes, CKT-016 (MP4), CKT-016 (Flash), Chess Killer Tips Home Page.

Thanks to all of you who have sent emails to Alexandra and asked how her daughter Francesca is doing. Well we are pleased to report that Francesca is doing fine, she passed the 4 kilo mark, and today she even was a mini chess star in front of the camera. You can read more about her and see the last photos on Francesca’s personal web site.

Alexandra is pleased to introduce to you her new project: the new free chess video podcast "Chess Killer Tips". Each podcast is a short educational video of about 3 minutes, with a chess position to think about. After a short introduction to the position, you have a chance to press "pause", and when you are ready you can continue and watch Alexandra talk about the position and give the solution or best continuation. Alexandra is putting a great deal of effort into her new podcast and sincerely hopes you will like it. She will gladly listen to your comments and suggestions. You can download the videos automatically for free on iTunes (direct link to the podcast on iTunes), or else at the main site. She already published 11 episodes, watch the last one in MP4, or in Flash, and the first one in MP4 or Flash. If you regularly watch Alexandra’s Killer Tips, you will improve at chess, guaranteed!

After a long break, Alexandra just published today a new episode of her audio podcast Chess is Cool. It’s less than 7 minutes long in MP3 format and you can download it either via iTunes, or via our Podcast Page, or simply listen to it by clicking here. Find out what Alexandra has been doing and what she’s working on right now.

Alexandra continues in the world chess elite and is rated World Top 6 on the official July 1, 2007 FIDE rating list. Her rating stays at 2515 ELO, as last rating list of April 1, 2007. You can see all details by clicking here. One major improvement in the top 10 is the 4th position of Chinese Hou Yifan, she was only 8th a year ago, and she is one of the youngest players in the circuit.

As you can see on the following chart compiled by FIDE, average ratings of women chess players have improved over the last 7 year. In the year 2000 the average rating of the top 50 women in the circuit was 2444 ELO, whereas now it is 2463 ELO. More talented young players have arrived and top tournaments are clearly more competitive than they used to be years ago. Congratulations to all women who are doing their best to improve in the tough world of competitive chess. Now to be fair let us note that the average of men rating has also increased over the same period in approximately the same manner, but it’s good to see that women are not losing ground.

Several people have asked us how to buy Alexandra’s new book “Play like Kosteniuk”, with over 100 positions from her games, with solutions. A handy book to take along and train your brains. We have some in stock and Alexandra will gladly autograph a copy for you for the discounted price of only $5.99 instead of the regular price of $9.99 (Payments via Secure Paypal). Order your copy while supplies last by clicking here.

It is with immense happiness and emotion that Alexandra and her husband Diego announce the birth of their daughter Francesca Maria. Francesca was born 2 1/2 months premature, weighing only 1.46 kilos at birth, and spent 8 weeks at the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Today June 19, Francesca has made tremendous progress and was allowed to go home to her parents. You can read about Francesca’s progress on her Official Web Site. Thanks to all of you who sent emails with good wishes the last two months, they helped Alexandra in this very stressful period at the hospital.

Alexandra was overwhelmed by the large number of correct answers to her last chess puzzle (1. Ra3+! bxa3 2. b3 mate), so she has decided to give 20 free copies of her new book Play like a Champion as prizes. To the left is a collage of some of the great chess photos that people sent in for extra credit (those entries had more chances to be chosen). Thanks to all of you who have sent Alexandra good wishes about her baby, she is very thankful to all of you. Alexandra has just written to the winners asking for their mailing addresses. Winners come from Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, USA, Italy, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Palestine, Indonesia, Germany, UK. Chess allows you to make friends all over the world! Chess is cool!

Alexandra is really glad that her latest book has been published, “Play like a Champion“, 192 pages, with 103 examples from her games, with diagrams and solutions, that she will give away 10 copies of the book to people who solve correctly the mate in 2 position of the diagram to the left. It’s mate in two moves, white plays and whatever Black plays it’s mate the next move. Send the solution to Alexandra by email and she will randomly pick 10 winners. People who send alongside their solutions, also their photos with a chess set or chess motive get extra credit! We’ll get the book in stock on June 3 and we’ll send the prizes then. Good luck!

Some of you already knew it, and many guessed it… Alexandra is extremely pleased to present to you a superb and exclusive Chesspics photo album by photographers Pierre-W. Henry and Pufichek taken on April 19, of herself, almost 7-month pregnant, in the beautiful gardens of Vizcaya in Miami, Florida. Feel free to rate any of the photos you like from 5 (best) to 1 (worst). Enjoy! Thanks to all of you who have already sent emails of congratulations for Alexandra’s pregnancy. There is nothing better than the gift of life! Thanks to Chesspics for hosting the album and to Miss Boll for the beautiful green chess board.

We’re finally working on our photo albums, and we have the first one ready, of Alexandra’s Goodwill appearance at the 2007 Florida Superstate IV Scholastic Chess Championship in Miami last weekend. Enjoy the 70 pictures of our photoalbum by clicking here. More albums to come very soon.

Thanks to Peter Burton for the superb photo of his 4 year old granddaughter Bryony in front of a beautiful chess set. Peter is teaching Bryony how to play chess and he must be doing a great job, because she thinks it’s the coolest of all games. According to Peter she gets excited and happy when Peter offers to play chess with her. Alexandra wishes Bryony good luck in the learning of the wonderful game of chess and hopes to meet her across the board in a few years, that would be so cool!

According to the new FIDE rating list which was published today April 1, there are only 7 women in the world rated above 2500 ELO points, and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk moves up to the #5 spot from the #6 spot last quarter. She has 2515 ELO points and is training hard to continue to improve. The top women apart from Alexandra are Judith Polgar (HUN), Humpy Koneru (IND), Pia Cramling (SWE), Zhu Chen (QUA), Yifan Hou (CHN), and Maia Chiburdanidze (GEO). Thanks to all these brilliant women for making chess so cool!

Yesterday Alexandra took some time off to go and see the Tennis Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, she will be watching all semi-final and final matches. Photos to come.

Last weekend was a superb chess Festivity at the Florida Scholastics in Miami. Alexandra was there all along the tournament, giving a simul, running a puzzle competition, reviewing games with kids, signing autographs, and she was interviewed by the local TV station for a program to promote the game of chess in schools. Thanks to Alexandra’s partner Excalibur Electronics (maker of the “Alexandra the Great” Chess Computer), nice prizes were given to the top girl in all 11 sections. There is great talent in Florida, congratulations to all players! Come back soon to see the photo album of the whole weekend.

Mark your calendars! Alexandra will be a guest of honor at the 2007 Florida State Scholastic Championship (Superstate IV), in Miami on March 23, 24, and 25. To mark a good start to the collaboration with the Miami-Dade county Public Schools, she will sponsor gifts to the top girl finisher in all sections, and will give a free simul and go over games for participants of the Superstate Competition. Alexandra will bring along many gifts, there will be plenty for all visitors! Come and meet Alexandra, get her autograph, let her show you how cool chess really is! You can find more about the tournament by clicking here. Click here for exact times of Alexandra’s events.

After her long European travels, finally Alexandra is back in Miami, training and enjoying the nice weather. She will stay here till the big summer events and for the next competitive chess season. She has brought many photos for which we will make many photo albums for you, as well as much other material that you will certainly enjoy. More to come very soon!

We have just received two past issues of the excellent chess magazine Black & White. In the first one you can see Alexandra Kosteniuk’s game against Zhukova from the Torino Olympiads (very well commented), and in the second one you can read the whole article relating to last year’s Chess960 World Championship. You can find out more about Chess960 (Fischer Random Chess) on the site www.playchess960.com. We remind you that in August 2007 in Mainz Alexandra will defend her Chess960 Women World Champion title against Natalia Zhukova.

Alexandra Kosteniuk is starting the year 2007 with an ELO rating of 2515, she’s now ranked 6th in the world, behind Judith Polgar (HUN), Humpy Koneru (IND), Pia Cramling (SWE), Zhu Chen (QAT), and Xu Yuhua (CHN), and ahead of all the other women chess players of the world. Only 8 women in the world have a rating over 2500 ELO. It’s great when there is potential to improve, and Alexandra certainly is up to the challenge! Besides that, Alexandra hopes that 2007 will be a successful year for you, dear visitors, and that it will be filled with happiness, good health, love, and of course many happy moments with the coolest game among all: Chess!

Alexandra is collaborating with the site chessmovies.com to show many of her personal chess videos, including many blitz videos and many TV programs about her. Thanks to chessmovies for accepting to sponsor the heavy bandwidth this generates. Please check out that site and vote for your favorite chess videos. If you have any fun or instructive non-copyrighted chess videos, of yourself or of your favorite chess player(s), feel free to submit them to the webmaster of chessmovies.com.

Alexandra would like to wish most happy holidays to all of you, wherever you are in the world, with happiness and joy in your hearts. Let the season be full of kindness and love, and make sure to play some chess too! You can reach our special HOLIDAY page by clicking here. Season’s Greetings!

Recently well-known photographer Vladimir Shirokov photographed Alexandra for the Russian magazine Prosport. You can see his work by clicking here and the article by clicking here. It’s great to see articles about chess and chess champions in general sport and fashion magazines. Alexandra does her best to show the world that Chess is Cool!

We are sure you will enjoy the 3-minute video clip we have prepared for you, showing Alexandra playing very fast blitz chess with GM Alexander Riazantsev. As usual, Alexandra gives her comments all along the video. Click HERE to watch it. Enjoy!

You can watch Alexandra’s game against GM Vladimir Potkin (ELO 2580) in a 9:44 minutes video (15.2 MB) by clicking here. All along the game Alexandra comments all the moves, and so this video has great instructional value. The bandwidth for that movie is offered by our friends at chessmovies.com, thanks! If you’d like to get the pgn file of this game, please write Alexandra an email and she will send the moves of that game to you. We will soon have several more of Alexandra’s games in video, so come back soon to get the link. NEW! Blitz video against GM Evgeniy Najer, click HERE to see it. More videos to come very soon.

Alexandra did really well today, winning 2-0 against GM Stutovsky (2607), and obtaining wins against GM Naer (2648) and GM Smirin (2659). She only lost 2 matches against GM Bu (2671) and GM Rublevsky (2688). All in all, Alexandra obtained 8.5 points and shared 21st place, much better than her 36th starting number, ahead of seasoned GM’s (see final table). The tournament was won by GM’s Jobava and Karjakin, ahead of Radjabov, Jakovenko, Bologam and Timofeev. We are preparing some video material for you, come back soon to see it.

Alexandra has been invited to the extremely strong Tal Memorial Blitz tournament in Moscow, taking place today and tomorrow 16-17 of November. She’s the only woman allowed to play in this tournament. There are 40 players, of which 38 GM’s and 2 IM’s. Alexandra is rated #36 on the start list but after the first day she’s tied for 20-26 place, with 4 out of 8, together with GM’s Karjakin, Sutovsky, Bu, and ahead of some very strong GM’s. Her first 4 matches went as follows: 1) Loss to GM Joel Lautier (2656) 2) Win against GM Smirnov (2623), 3) Draw against GM Inarkiev (2628), and 4) Win against GM Potkin (2580). Good start! You can see all results on this page. we will soon post photos and videos of some of Alexandra’s games.

Well-known cartoonist Waldo Matus has drawn Alexandra and has given us permission to show you a bigger version of his work. You can see more of his drawings by visiting his site.

Alexandra is having a hard time in the very strong rapid invitational in Cap d’Agde (France), after missing twice winning moves against Negi in an otherwise very nice game. She nevertheless went on to draw against Stefanova and against GM Karjakin today. Have a look at Pufichek’s portraits by clicking here. More photos will soon be added to that album.

Alexandra is flying down today to the well-known French chess town of Cap d’Agde, where she has been invited to take place in the Rapid Invitational. The participants are as follows (in order of starting ELO): Radjabov, Bacrot, Carlsen, Harikrishna, Karjakin, Karpov, Volokitin, Fressinet, Vachier-Lagrave, Negi, Koneru, Kosteniuk, Stefanova, Sebag, Zhao Xue, and Skripchenko. It will be a very interesting tournament to follow! Have a look at the Organizer’s Site and this page (in French). Also, make sure to visit Alexandra’s podcast page, so you can listen to the 24th episode (6 minutes MP3 file), which just came out today. Prizes are offered to people who send a nice MP3 greeting by email to Alexandra to celebrate the podcast 1st year anniversary on November 7. Finally, please answer the poll to the right, thanks!

The photo album of the spectacular 2006 Mexico Chess Festival is ready, click HERE to see it. It includes photos of the festival, but also exceptional photos of the rest day in Mexico, with GM’s Sergey Karjakin and Anatoly Karpov accompanying Alexandra Kosteniuk to see the Mexican pyramids, it was superb. Lots of photos of the tournament too! Remember you can vote for each and every photo (1 lowest, 5 highest), the highest rated photos move to the top of the page.

Alexandra had a superb performance today in Mexico City by winning 2 out of her 3 matches, against Mexican GM Gilberto Hernandez (2551 ELO) and against legendary GM Viktor Kortchnoi (2607 ELO) from Switzerland. She only lost one match against GM Sergei Karjakin of the Ukraine (ELO 2672), who eventually ended up winning the tournament, with 4 points. Alexandra Kosteniuk and Viktor Kortchnoi share the second-third spot, with 3 points each. The Mexican GM ends the tournament table with 2 points.

It was a most wonderful Chess Festival in Mexico today. In the quadrangular tournament Alexandra tied for silver with GM Viktor Kortchnoi (and beating him in the direct encounter) behind the winner Sergei Karjakin. Apart from that the city of Mexico beat the Guiness World Record of maximum number of games played in simuls on one day (14,065), and Anatoly Karpov also beat the Guiness World Record with the maximum number of autographed books (1,951), congratulations to all! We’ll put a monster photo album on Chesspics very soon.

On the photo you see Alexandra Kosteniuk and legendary Viktor Kortchnoi, the main attractions of Mexico’s 2006 Chess Festival, along with Sergei Karjakin and Gilberto Hernandez. Today Friday the press conference took place, and Sunday all the action will start, with Guiness World Records beaten, and the GM Rapid, in which Alexandra will participate. Alexandra recorded this morning a popular TV program, she’ll be again on TV tonight to promote the Event. We are preparing a photo album for you, come back soon to see it. Click here to see the organizer’s site.

Alexandra just got to Miami, and she is planning to fly on to Mexico on Wednesday to participate in the Mexico City Chess Festival. The goal is to beat the Guiness World record of most simultaneous games played at the same time. On October 22, an exhibition rapid tournament will take place, with 4 Grandmasters: Gilberto Hernandez (Mexico), Victor Kortchnoi (Switzerland), Sergei Karjakin (Ukraine), and Alexandra Kosteniuk. It will be fun, we’ll keep you posted with news and photos!

Today a press conference took place at the well-known Coffeemania in central Moscow to celebrate Alexandra’s Photo Exposition and her recent title of World Champion Chess960. Alexandra also played with 20 winners of our recent puzzle competition, it was a wonderful day! Have a look at our photo album by clicking here. Please go and vote for the photos you like best
!

Alexandra is pleased to be able to offer to our site’s members 2 deeply commented games from the recent Tomsk Russian championship. The first one is a draw against Russian national team member GM Artiom Timofeev and the second is a loss against the future winner of the Russian Championship, GM Ernesto Inarkiev. Both games are very interesting and present opening novelties and sharp play. Members can watch them by clicking PDF1, PDF2, PGN1, PGN2. If you’re not a member, it’s not too late, buy anything from our shop above $40 and you’ll become one for a year! Thanks for your support!