Kazan Chess Grand Prix Top: Koneru Muzychuk Cmilyte Hou Kosteniuk Danielian

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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Game Chess Queen Kosteniuk vs. Elina Danielian, Kazan Grand Prix 2012

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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