We are pleased to present to you Alexandra’s Favorite Chess Links, on this special page. We would like to make this page of links most useful to you, so we would be very grateful if you would send us your favorite chess links to complete the list. They can be in any language and about anything related to chess. Thanks!

We are preparing for you a full report on Alexandra’s recent trip to Colombia, to take part in the Tarrito Rojo Chess Talent. In the meanwhile, you can watch a 1m22s video (in Spanish) that aired on Colombia TV. You can see the hi-res version (4.7 MB) by clicking here, and the med-res version by clicking here.

Did you know Alexandra also likes to take photos during her trips around the world? We show you here 23 of her favorite shots. Enjoy!

Today June 10 was a beautiful day in Moscow (Russia), and Alexandra and her sister Oxana walked around the center of town. We offer you a photo album, see it by clicking here.

After her simul last Sunday in the charming city of Frascati (famous for its wine), Alexandra spent a day in Rome visiting some beautiful sites, like the Coliseum and the Vatican. Have a look at our photo album by clicking here!

Just after becoming 2005 Russian Champion on the 27th of May, and on the invitation of Vice-Mayor Giancarlo Marcotulli (on the photo shaking hands with Alexandra), Alexandra went to the beautiful town of Frascati near Rome, to give a simul last Sunday to a very strong group of Chess Correspondence Players (result +15 =5 -0). She also promoted chess in Italy (who will host the 2006 Chess Olympiads), and was a guest of honor at the Prize giving Ceremony of the GM Tournament, won by Italian Champion Fabio Bruno. A photo album will soon follow.

ALEXANDRA KOSTENIUK IS RUSSIAN CHESS CHAMPION 2005! Instead of a quick draw which would have guaranteed her first place, Alexandra went all out and won her last game against Kochetkova, which gave her clear first place with the incredible result of 9 points out of 11 in the strongest Russian Championship todate, and an amazing performance of 2691 ELO, which will earn Alexandra more than 18 ELO points on the next rating list! Results: 1. Alexandra Kosteniuk 9 out of 11 2. T.Kosintseva 8 3. Kovalevskaya 7.5 4. N.Kosintseva 6.5 5. Galliamova 6 6-7. Pogonina and Matveeva 5.5 points, etc. You can look at all of Alexandra’s games in an applet by clicking here, or in our PGN Player here.

Breaking News! Alexandra won today against Valentina Gunina and yesterday against Tatiana Kosintseva, and continues to be alone in the lead of the Russian Chess Superfinal, with 8 points out of 10! Her followers are Kovalevskaya with 7.5 and T. Kosintseva with 7 (but these 2 play together tomorrow). You can look at all of Alexandra’s games in an applet by clicking here, or in our PGN Player here. Continue to follow the live games daily by clicking here. There is only one more game till the end of the tournament, tomorrow May 26,2005.

Alexandra is continuing strong and is leading the Russian Superfinal with 5 out of 6 points, with 4 wins and 2 draws up to now. On the photo to the left you see Alexandra at the beginning of her game with Nadezhda Kosintseva (which Alexandra won). Yesterday Alexandra beat Natalia Pogonina in 30 moves in a Sicilian Dragon, don’t miss her winning 29.Rh8+! sacrifice by looking at her game here. Today Alexandra beat Matveeva in 18 moves. Continue to watch the games live daily by clicking here. The tournament is fiercely fought, especially by the “K’s” Kosteniuk, Kovalevskaya, and the two Kosintseva sisters.

NEW! We are pleased to present to you a free PGN Player! You can use it very simply, in the case you don’t have your chess software handy, or maybe you are in an internet cafe or at a friend’s computer and you absolutely must see a chess game someone sent you in the universal PGN format. Just go to the PGN Player by clicking here, then copy-paste the moves in the box (or type them in), press Reset and you can watch the pieces move on the board by clicking on the arrows. We hope it will be useful to you! Enjoy! P.S. If you have a technical comment about it, please use the contact form to let us know!

Alexandra is pushing hard at the Samara Women Superfinal by winning her first two games, against World Champion U-20 Ekaterina Korbut in the first round and Nadezhda Kosintseva in the second. Today Alexandra drew Alisa Galliamova. Look at Alexandra’s games in an applet by clicking here. Women tournaments in general and this Russian championship promises to be extremely competitive and hard fought, and very few draws are expected among the top contenders! We remind you that you can watch the games live on the official tournament site by clicking here or here. The games start at 3PM Samara time, one hour ahead from Moscow. Please keep your encouraging emails coming!

Alexandra just arrived in Samara with her trainer GM Alexei Korotylev. She will participate in the 2005 Russian Superfinal, in which the top 12 Russian women are competing. Even though Alexandra is the top rated player, it will be a very hard tournament, and we wish Alexandra the best of luck! The first round is tomorrow at 3PM Samara time (which is 2PM Moscow time, noon CET, and 6AM EST). You can follow the tournament on the official tournament site (including watching live games) or the good Russian site ChessPro.

We have finally created 2 new photoalbums, one of the simul in Montreux (Switzerland) and one of Torino (Italy), enjoy! We are preparing more photo albums for you, so come back soon to check them out. Alexandra is now preparing for the Russian Women Superfinal, which will take place in Samara (Russia) next week. Wish her good luck!

Look at the beautiful little bear-keychain we have to the left: his name is “chess is cool” and he would like to be yours! For a limited time and until we receive those cool little bears, we would like to offer them to anybody who gets membership to Alexandra’s site, or makes any purchase or donation above $40. So please visit our shop to help Alexandra promote chess in the world, and this cute little bear will come to you!

Last week, we had the visit of famous Swiss photographer Pierre-William Henry, and asked him to do a summer beach chess fashion photo shoot. He has done a fantastic job and we are pleased to present to you 49 wonderful chess-fashion photos of Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk in Miami. See them by clicking here. We hope these photos will prove that “Chess is Cool” and will help to promote chess in the world, which is Alexandra’s most fondest dream.

On April 14, Alexandra was in Colombia on the TV show “Yo, Jose Gabriel”, and she was given as a present the smallest chess chess set ever made, which measures only 1.2 centimeters in total for all 8 squares and pieces! It’s made in Tinjaca, Boyaca (Colombia), and is in Tagua, which is a fruit of the ivory-nut palm, which becomes very hard and is also called vegetable ivory. The artists are Cesar Bonilla and his wife Julia Vergara, who are true masters of their craft. See the chess set next to a standard Queen here, and enlarged here.

Today 23rd of April Alexandra is celebrating her 21st birthday, congratulations! In the name of all chess players of the world we thank Alexandra for giving us her love of chess, and wish her continued success in her career and in her personal life. In a few days Alexandra will be going back to Moscow to prepare for the Russian Women Superfinal which will take place in Samara in 3 weeks.

Alexandra ran today a 5 kilometer race in Coconut Grove (Miami), and did a spectacular performance, completing the race in just over 21 minutes. She was the 4th woman overall and she won her age category (20-24 years). Look at her getting her Gold Trophy! More photos to follow soon. This shows that to be a good chess player you need to be in perfect physical condition. Mens sana in corpore sanum, as says the latin proverb. Follow Alexandra’s example!

Alexandra has been invited by the brand Tarrito Rojo of the company JGB to promote chess in Colombia, with events in Bogota, Cartagena and Cali. Today she gave a simul at Bogota’s Unicentro to the top 26 finishers of the Chess Talent tourney that was recently been held. Alexandra did a great +19 =5 -2, with many presents given out, including a laptop and many other gifts. Tomorrow she will play 40 kids at the Parque Bolivar and on Monday she will have a meeting with the Colombian first lady, to sponsor the project to have chess a school subject for all Colombian kids.

We are glad to present to you today a Press Report about chess champion Alexandra Kosteniuk. See the report by clicking here.

Alexandra visited the Nasdaq Tennis Open today and was witness to the women’s semifinals, where her compatriot Maria Sharapova beat Venus Williams in 2 sets. To the left you see a photo of Alexandra in between Andre Agassi and Maria Sharapova taken in one of the booths of the Nasdaq Open. Next week Alexandra flies to Bogota for a 3-city tour of Colombia.

Alexandra wishes all of you a wonderfully Happy Easter, and many chocolate bunnies and eggs! Alexandra is now training and resting in Miami. She will soon go to Colombia (South America) for a Goodwill Chess Tour to the cities of Bogota, Cali, and Medellin. After that she will come back to Miami and will run in a 5 kilometer race on April 15.

Alexandra’s Team in the German Bundesliga, Baden Oos, has secured their top place, two rounds before the end of the competition, congratulations to all for becoming the German Women Team Champions: A. Kosteniuk, K. Kachiani-Gersinska, A. Skripchenko, E. Kovalevskaya, E. Paehtz and all others in the team! See the two games Alexandra played and won in this years Bundesliga by clicking here.

We want to let Alexandra’s fans know that a limited edition of stamps with Alexandra Kosteniuk has been printed in Austria. These stamps are valid for postage in Austria. The person who took this nice initiative with Alexandra’s permission is Mr. Manfred Herbold from Germany. Only 200 stamps have been printed and they will soon become a rarity, so if you want to get one for yourself or if you have a friend who is a stamp collector, visit his site by clicking here.

Today March 8 is the International Women’s Day, and Alexandra gave a simul in the Maison Visinand of Montreux, Switzerland, to 31 male members of the Club d’echecs de Montreux. She got 24 wins, 4 draws, and 3 losses (to J.-F. Croset, M. Bandler, and W. Baumgartner), bravo! We will soon have a photo album of the event. Coming back to the Chessdarts Championship, have a look at a 14 MB mpeg video we found on the web about the Chessdarts event by clicking here, we hope there is enough bandwidth for everybody.

Alexandra just came back from Italy, where she inaugurated the Torino Chess Olympiad 2006 Web Site, in front of a multitude of Press and visitors. Alexandra is the official godmother of the 2006 Torino chess Olympiads. She also played a 24 board simul and did a very good +16 =6 -2 against various club players and VIP’s. You can see 4 of her games by clicking here. We will soon have a nice web album of the event. On the photo on the left you can see Alexandra shaking hands with the President of the Organizing Committee, Mr. Paolo Fresco.

For a limited time only while bandwidth permits! We have taped a full video of all 5 3-minute games Alexandra played at the Chessdarts World Championship in Amsterdam on February 28. As a gift to you now we offer free the key last game of this event, in which Alexandra Kosteniuk beat Tea Lanchava to take the world title with her partner Andy Fordham. You can watch the 7MB Quicktime format movie by clicking here. We will soon be offering a unique BLITZ FEVER CD with 8 (5 min.) blitz games from Iakimanka and 5 more (3-min.) blitz games from the Chessdarts event (in higher resolution). Keep posted! Please be patient while the 7MB .mov file loads. You can watch the game in an applet by clicking here, or even download the pgn file.

On February 26, Alexandra played with the Groningen Chess Team in Breda for the Dutch League. She drew against GM Vadim Milov (ELO 2668). You can see our photo album of the Breda match by clicking here. On the next day February 27 she gave a Simul to 12 Amstelveen club members, we also have a nice photo album for you here. Enjoy!

Alexandra is WORLD CHAMPION Chessdarts!! Today February 28, 2005 Alexandra and her partner darts champion Andy Fordham became 2005 Chessdarts World Champions in the first ever World Championship, organized by the company hotels.nl in Amsterdam. It’s the first time in our knowledge chess and darts competition has been combined and it was most fun! The event took place in the Krasnopolsky Hotel, in the same room, where Euwe beat Alekhin in 1935. Alexandra made a no-fault appearance, with 5/5, first 2/2 against IM Yge Visser (ELO 2451) and then 3/3 against WGM/IM Tea Lanchava (ELO 2366). Her points were added to the points of her team-mate Andy Fordham (world darts champion 2004) and the team won the Cup! We have a superb 73-photo album for you, so click here to see it! And soon you’ll be able to see too the entirety of the 5 3-minute blitz games, in video. AD article. Read a report here.

The super strong Aeroflot Tournament ended today, with a win of 5 players: GM’s Sutovsky, Kharlov, Ivanchuk, Motylev, and Akopian. Alexandra played against 9 male GM’s, average rating 2590 (which is 100 points higher than Alexandra is), and did pretty much what she was supposed to do statistically, which is 3 points. We are happy that Alexandra has proven in both the Wijk aan Zee “B” Grandmaster tournament and the Aeroflot “A1” that she is able to give a very hard time to the strongest male GM’s in the world. You can see our photo album of the event by clicking here. On the photo to the left you will see Alexandra and her fan Liza Chetina, 7 years old, who played in the “C” tournament and often came to support Alexandra during her games.

The Aeroflot tournament just ended yesterday, and now Alexandra will spend her time to promote chess in the world. She just arrived in Paris, and tomorrow she will go to Holland for a game in the Dutch League (Feb. 26), followed by a Simul (Feb. 27) and a world first combined competition Chess-Darts (Feb. 28). Immediately after that she will go to Torino for a Simul (March 5) to inaugurate the 2006 Chess Olympiad Site, followed by another Simul in Montreux, Switzerland on March 8. Then she will go to the USA to train and then continue on her way to a Chess Goodwill Tour in Colombia, South America. Come often to our site and follow Alexandra, we promise many new photos and news!

Congratulations to Alexandra, who today beat GM Al-Modiahki (ELO 2581, Qatar, the husband of ex-world champion Zhu Chen), and she now has 1.5 out of 3 in the extremely strong Aeroflot A1 Grandmaster tournament in Moscow. Yesterday Alexandra lost against GM Izoria (ELO 2607, Georgia), and we remind you that in the first round Alexandra drew Sergei Karjakin (ELO 2599, Ukraine). 6 more rounds to go. Keep your emails of support coming, Alexandra loves them!

Last night was the Opening Ceremony of the very strong Aeroflot Tournament in Moscow. Alexandra will be playing in the strongest “A1” tournament, facing the strongest male competition in the world. We have a photo album of the opening ceremony. Click here to see it! Look at the photo to the left, it’s Viktor Kortchnoi and Boris Spassky who are doing quite a good job at entertaining Alexandra!

We have a winner! Raymond Dowson was the first to give us the answer to our photo-competition. On the photo are pictured, from left to right, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, Svetlana Matveeva, Ekaterina Korbut, and Alexandra Kosteniuk. Several people guessed 3 out of 4, but we waited till we had a sole winner, congratulations! BREAKING NEWS: Alexandra just drew her game in the first round of the “A1” Aeroflot tournament, against Sergei Karjakin. It was her 12th game against Sergei! We’ll have some photos of the competition later on.

COMPETITION: Look at the photo to the left, and please email us who these 4 women are. In 5 days latest we’ll turn them around for you to see, and we’ll give a prize to the first person who guessed their names right. A hint: They are all chessplayers, and all in the top 10 in Russia. The photo was taken during a training session before the Moscow Aeroflot Tournament, which starts tomorrow. We have a photo album for you of Alexandra at the Chess Camp. Click here to see it!

EXCLUSIVE: We bet you have never seen two beautiful women chess grandmasters karaoke singing, in both Russian and French! We have for our members an exclusive fun video of Russian champion Alexandra Kosteniuk and French champion Almira Skripchenko at their best! Click here to see the video (Quicktime format, 1.9 MB). If you’re not yet a member, it’s time to sign up, you will not regret it. We will have many new goodies for our members in the coming weeks. And the same time you’ll be helping Alexandra to do more for chess. Here’s how to get to our shop and our donation page. Thanks for your support!

Alexandra worked very hard this week and has commented very deeply EVERY game she played in Wijk aan Zee 2005, 13 of them in all. They are free to see for our current members by clicking here. There is a java applet to replay all games including comments, and you can even download the complete pgn file. If you are not yet a member, you can purchase 1-year membership here. If you don’t want to become a member it’s possible to buy the 35-page PDF with all that material, including photos, diagrams, all comments (2.4 MB) for $8.95 by clicking here. Enjoy nicely commented games and at the same time support Alexandra! Due to improvements to our systems we are in the process of reassigning all member passwords, so if yours doesn’t work, please contact us with the date of your last purchase and you will be issued a new password if it’s within the last year.

We are working on a superb video-CD, which will include 8 blitz games Alexandra played in the famous Moscow Iakimanka Chess Club in November 2004. The CD will include footage from all those games, several of them also in pgn form (including against GM Riazantsev), and a video commentary all along the movie by Alexandra herself. Most entertaining. You can watch one last minute of an incredibly fast game ending which was played by Alexandra, in a one-minute video (1.4 MB, Quicktime format). Click here to see it! On the video CD, the screen will be much bigger!

Two days ago the Corus “B” tournament ended in Wijk aan Zee, with a win by GM Sergei Karjakin and a good performance by Alexandra. Both young GM’s are in Paris today, and Alexandra invited Sergei and his mother Tatiana to see the famous and beautiful Sacred Heart Basilica. We have an entertaining 31-picture photo album that you can watch by clicking here. Enjoy! The rest of the time, Alexandra is working on a full report on each one of her 13 games at Wijk aan Zee, it will be instructive, keep posted.

Alexandra did a very respectable 5.5 points at the 2005 Corus “B” Grandmaster tournament in Wijk aan Zee, earning the Xth spot in the rankings. Thanks for all the support emails and letters Alexandra received during the tournament. She started the tournament as the 13th player, so we are very pleased to see that she keeps exceeding expectations. We will update latest tomorrow Pufichek’s Photo Albums to include the closing ceremony, and you can watch all of Alexandra’s 13 games in an applet by clicking here. Alexandra is preparing a special gift for our members: she will fully comment all her 13 games, with general comments, detailed variations, diagrams, photos, etc.! Check back within a week, it should be up!

Finally we are announcing the winners of the Christmas Competition Puzzle Solving Contest. The “Mate in 2” Puzzle from the most recent Newsletter Number 3 is solved by playing 1.Qh8! and whatever Black plays White will mate next move. For example: 1…Rxh8 2.Be5# or 1…Rh2+ 2.Qxh2#. From the hundreds of correct answers we have selected 5 winners, who will get an autographed present from Alexandra: 1.Kieran O’Donnell (Ireland), Bas Schokker (Holland), Giovanni Fagian (Italy), Miguel Narva Mallqui (Peru), Riley Driver (USA). Congratulations! So we are awaiting the mailing addresses of the winners and as soon as we get them we will send the gifts out! We will soon post another puzzle for you to solve, so keep posted!

We’d like to give some feedback to Alexandra’s fans about her cat, “Kaissa”: Alexandra has a cat, called “Kaissa” (named after the goddess of chess, Caissa). She was born on July 30, 1993. Here’s a photo of Kaissa with Alexandra and her little sister Oxana in 1994, Kaissa was then less than 1 year old. Now she’s 11 years old. Some recent photos: 1) with Oxana 2) on a chair 3) with Alexandra 4) on the bookshelf. This last photo was taken in November 2004. Enjoy!

In the last rounds Alexandra drew against the tournament’s top rated player Nikolic (ELO 2676), then drew GM Nijboer, and won against GM Ramirez. She has a very respectable 4 out of 8 in this very strong field, 5 more rounds to go. Don’t miss Pufichek’s photos of the event by clicking here. You can watch Alexandra’s first 7 games in an applet by clicking here.

Today’s a day off at Corus, and Alexandra visited the very nice steel plant of CORUS, the sponsor of the Wijk aan Zee Tournament. We have an illustrated report with photos you can see by clicking here. Enjoy!

Alexandra created a sensation by beating Grandmaster Alexander Onischuk, ELO 2652, 47th strongest player in the world, at the first round of the Corus Grandmaster “B” tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Onischuk was the first board in the USA men team in the recent Calvia Olympiads. The game was fascinating, and lasted 114 moves! You can watch it in an applet by clicking here. We have the best PHOTO ALBUMS of the tournament. After 4 rounds, Alexandra has 1.5 points, yesterday she drew GM Cheparinov (ELO 2562). Today is a day off, nine more rounds to go!

Alexandra just arrived in the Dutch town of Wijk aan Zee, where she will be playing in the very strong “B” Grandmaster tournament from January 14-30, 2005. We promise many and regular updates to our site, and of course many photos of Alexandra and of all the players of all 3 tournaments, “A”, “B”, and “C”. Come often and visit our site!

Just before taking her flight back to Europe from Miami, Alexandra paid a visit to the 2004 Orange Bowl Youth Tourney, gave away pens and photos, autographed the photos and posed for photographs with fans. You can find the photos by clicking here. If you see a photo of you with Alexandra, please send us an email and we will mail or email it to you for free!

Alexandra would like to thank all of you for your support during all of 2004, and wishes you a wonderful Christmas Holiday, filled with joy, love, and good mood. Alexandra has for you a little present: 28 Christmas Photos! Look at them by clicking here. Enjoy!

Alexandra Kosteniuk, in the framework of her Chess Fund to promote chess in the world, gave last week a Goodwill Simul to the children and players of Cali (Colombia). The simul was entirely free to both the players and the organizers, and many gifts were handed to the kids by Alexandra, books, caps, pens, puzzle cards. You can see the 66-photo album by clicking here. An article came out in El Pais Online here. If you would like to donate (any amount is helpful, and any amount above $30 gives you free Membership to the site with full access to all its Member Area photos, commented games, and web videos), click here! Alexandra is most grateful to all who help her Chess Fund! Please help Alexandra do more for kids and for chess!

Alexandra participated in the Grand Prix d’Aix-en-Provence, together with Karpov, Stefanova, Lautier, and 4 other GM’s who qualified in an open tournament the week before. The tournament was at the forefront of technology and it was a pleasure for spectators to watch the games live, with Grandmaster commentary on headphones and arrows and squares lighting up in line with the commentaries. This made it wonderfully entertaining to watch for chess masters and beginners alike. Contratulations to the organizer Stephane Laborde and we hope his Grand Prix becomes regular in the future. Alexandra was eliminated by the very strong Kazakh Grandmaster Murtas Kazgaleyev in 1/4 finals. Murtas was himself eliminated in 1/2 finals against Anatoly Karpov, who eventually won the tournament, and proved that he is still in top form. Look at our new photo album by clicking here.