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July 21, 2007: Busy getting ready for my guests, and I'm on vacation for the next 10 days so I won't be updating the news much, if at all. Don't have time now to do the kind of report I'd like to so I'm copying this from my blog (sorry). You can find the games, etc. at the official website (link above, right). And great photographs. LIZ VICARY WON THE GODDESSCHESS BRILLIANCY PRIZE!!!!!!! I checked the official website again this morning and didn't see it announced anywhere, but she posted the news herself over at Mig's Daily Dirt (it's posted near the end). Krush, won her game with the black
pieces against Tatev Abrahamyan to finish the tournament in clear first
with 7.0/9. A respectable score :) SO, no play-offs! Krush also secures
a spot in the Women's World Chess Championship something or other -
STILL not sure how that works but Krush, along with Rohonyan and
Zatonskih, who finished second and third, respectively, each with 6.5,
take the other two zonal spots. July 19, 2007: A half-baked report - and I'm half-baked heh heh heh! Too much cheap wine (from the box - eeeeuuuuggggghhhh, I drink it anyway, although that is, according to reports I've seen of late, undergoing something of a renaissance... Maybe not so nasty after all...) And "the Don" called earlier tonight and kept me on the phone forever, just about, and we find ourselves dealing with nasty computer problems, oh damn! Well, here are the standings without the results added in from the game between Battsetseg (w) and Tuvshintugs (b), the immigrants from Mongolia who, as I type this, are still fighting OTB:
Liz Vicary continues to fight valiantly but, I think, needs more experience against this level of play - hey, I can identify from my own puny patzer-wannabe level! The luckless Airapetian got 1/2 point today. I think the most amazing thing to me from the action thus far is that Krush and Zatonskih have NOT dominated the field. I mean, come on - if they were really dominating, they'd be 8 for 8, or at least 7.5/8. They outrank most of the competition by several hundred ratings points. So, what's up ladies? Tsk tsk. Okay, time to call it a night, but first, here are the results from Round 7 held earlier today:
July 18, 2007: Round 6 is now underway. It's beauty v. beauty tonight as Melekhina (w) meets Baginskaite (b)! Vicary has another hard match-up (well, none of them are exactly easy) as (w) against Tuvshintugs (b). I hope she was able to sluff off that Round 5 loss to Abrahamyan. Will we see any short draws tonight, hmmm??? Well, the standings are the first thing in order - they are being updated constantly as games finish so these are the accrued standings after Round 5:
Here are the results from Round 5:
Decisive results!!! - all over the place!!! Not a draw in the bunch!!! I was really yelling at Elizabeth Vicary through the computer today - seemed to me she missed a couple of - well - what the heck do I know about her level of chess when all is said and done? I thought she had the game in the bag. Drat! She ended up losing! Battsetseg's game against Krush was awesome to watch - she had me on the edge of my seat. She came out swinging and never stopped - perhaps she played a bit too aggressively? Krush stayed calm and played precisely and came away with a victory - amazing after all of Battsetseg's fireworks! The youngest player in the group, Melekhina, got another victory today, this one behind the black pieces! (Update July 18) for July 17: First things first - Round 4 finished too late for me last night, so here are the results:
I was happy to see Melekhina win and Vicary get a draw; Airapetian continues outgunned - she seems to be having real problems with her time management. She has yet to score even 1/2 point. July 17, 2007: Oh for Goddess' sake, we have the first candidate for BS game of the Championship, the 10-1/2 move draw between Zatonskih and Krush in Round 4. Krush has another event lined up after this one, the finale of the Monroi Grand Prix series, with $7,000 on the line AND a stylish diamond watch. Perhaps she's looking ahead? - figuring that she has a shot at the U.S. Women's Champion title anyway but if she doesn't get it, she'll end up in second place, have secured a Women's World Chess Championship zonal spot, a nice pot of prize money, and move on to Montreal for the Monroi round robin on July 21st. Just speculation at this point - we'll see if JanXena turns out to be a prophetess. The rest of the players continue with Round 4. Check out Jen Shahade's coverage of Rounds 1 and 2 - analysis and photos. Round 3: Once again, I was able to catch snatches of the games. Fleeting impressions were that the chess femmes were all ready for Round 3 and fought hard. There seemed to be more material that what I expected left on the boards even after 2 1/2 hours of play in three of the matches. I don't know if that was due to some of the players getting into time trouble (what seemed like long "thinks" were definitely the order of Round 3) or cautiousness of play - with sudden flurries of activities and several pieces removed within the space of a few minutes. Sure enough - no short draws (or even long ones) in this round - all decisive results:
July 16, 2007: It's begun! Round 1 is over and Round 2 is underway. Here are the results from Round 1:
I was able to catch snatches of the games at the office; I'm far from an expert, but it appeared that Abrahamyan gave up early and just didn't have it in Game 1; Melekhina and Vicary fought like hell, their games lasting much longer than the other players', with Vicary's lasting the longest. She has to be exhausted right now, a worry for Round 2. There was something wrong with Airapetian's clock - it read 12 minutes left for nearly 2 hours! Round 2 results:
July 15, 2007: Hola Darlings! KABOOM! Both for the start tomorrow of the U.S. Women's Chess Championship, and for the power that exploded off at my house this morning, right while I was in the middle of a brilliant (naturally) post at Chessville about the event! Fortunately, the house did not catch fire, the computer is fine (the bucks I paid for a super-duper surge protector have paid off), and the power was restored in less than 30 minutes - guess all those high rates I've been paying all these years are good for something. It seems a "fuse" blew up on the power pole that sits just to the north of my lot line, possibly due to the weight of the wild grape vines growing all around the power pole and various mysterious wires that sprout therefrom. I take the blame - I have not kept up with trimming back the wild grape vine since mid-summer last year, and it's now a curtain growing over and off of some of the wires that dash across my yard to the homes (and poles) to the south, and also feed power to my immediate neighbors to the west, northwest and northeast. We all lost power. The last time this happened was during the midst of a horrible storm, when the power guys came out in the middle of the night (literally), and re-triggered the fuse with a long pole-thingy amidst the driving rain, lightning and thunder! Whew! This time it was a cake-walk to get the power restored - a calm, clear day and not a drop of rain or lightning in sight! Anyway, tomorrow IS THE BIG DAY! Chris Bird, the official webmaster for the 2007 U.S. Women's Chess Championship website, posted the pairings for the entire tournament some time ago, and so I expect the women will be primed and ready for each other. But a grueling schedule - two games a day for four days, and the final game on Friday. Several of the players have not faced each other before, and there is just no substitute for facing each other OTB. Krush and Zatonskih, the highest-rated players in the event, are favored, but personally I'm rooting for WFM Elizabeth Vicary. As I've reported on the chess femme news over the years, I am familiar with her name, but really didn't know anything much about her and - guilty of discrimination, as she is not one of the higher-rated U.S. female players, I did not pay much attention to her other than reporting her final standings in the tournaments in which she has participated over the years. Mea culpa! Well, darlings, ever since Mig was such a dear and did a really great post about the Women's Championship at his Daily Dirt chessblog on July 4th, there's been this ongoing discussion about women's chess taking place, fueled in great part by the views of one poster in particular who, to put it politely, has a bee in his bonnet about women's chess. I don't know if it is just the thought of a separate "women's championship" that set him off, or the fact that Goddesschess put up some money for a Brilliancy Prize for the event set him off, but man oh man, he sure has been ranting and raving. Liz Vicary and others to the rescue. I've done a total of 2 posts under the topic - a degree of restraint which, I think you'll agree, should put me on the short list for an award of sainthood in the near future :) The other posters at DD, with comments here and there by WFM Vicary, have kept the discussion sane. But then, you must read it and judge for yourselves. Not so good news - as far as I can tell, my email blitz to all and sundry in an attempt to drum up publicity and press coverage for the Women's Championship has not yielded many positive results. Of course, on the PLUS SIDE is the fact that Susan Polgar's and Mig's very popular blogs are spreading the word among chessplayers and chess fans, but I had hoped to reach a wider audience. Well, - there's no better day than today to start to build buzz for NEXT YEAR'S championship (assuming one takes place). And with Isis arriving here soon we'll be brainstorming over my list of potential sponsors/advertisers to come up with what we hope are the outlines of absolutely brilliant marketing campaigns. Hey, it never hurts to dream, and dream BIG. July 7, 2007: Hola Darlings! Whew - it's so nice to be back in my nice cool house, wiped down after working up an icky sweat cutting the front lawn. I did it in record time, in 45 minutes (usually it takes an hour). It cannot be natural for a female to sweat so much simply by pushing a lawnmower around - the next one I buy will have the self-propelled feature! After I got the sweat taken care and treated a minor case of heat stroke, here I am writing away! I swear I'm not taking another step outdoors until I have to go back to the office on Monday, by then it is supposed to be cooler and less humid. One would think I was living in the tropics - but this is Wisconsin! Anyway, there is news to report. First off - please forgive me if I repeat things here that I may have written at the blog, or vice versa - I forget what I write where (old age creeping in, darlings, and it ain't a pretty thing, no sirree). I was contacted by Chris Bird who is the webmaster of the official 2007 Women's Championship website and he asked me for the particulars on the Goddesschess Brilliancy Prize, which of course I was happy to give him on behalf of the Goddesschess Partnership. We're just tickled pink and blue to be able to do this and have plans to fund brilliancy prizes for future women's championships or - in the event the championships are merged as they were when AF4C was sponsor of the championships - a brilliancy prize for the best game by a female player. And we hope to increase the amount, too. In the first batch of emails I sent out last week, one was to Michael Greengard (Mig) at Chess Ninja's chess blog The Daily Dirt. I mean, darlings, EVERYONE reads Mig's blog - even Susan Polgar says she reads Mig's blog! I thought he might do a blog entry about the Championship after the event - which wouldn't help drum up interest in the event beforehand! So I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask him to give the event a nice pitch before it takes place and maybe some of his legions of fans who might otherwise ignore the event would take a peek or two while the women are battling it out for that $7,000 first prize. And he did do a splendid blog entry about the U.S. Women's Championship - on July 4th! We Goddesschess folks were absolutely thrilled! Susan Polgar has also given the U.S. Women's Championship much continuing publicity at her popular chess blog, but I knew I wouldn't have to ask her to do so! At Chessville's forum Chris Bird reported news about the reason Iryna Zenyuk, who participated in the 2007 U.S. Championship in May, is unable to attend the Women's Championship. He posted this at Chessville's forum: She emailed me personally to say she only had limited time off during the summer and chose to play in the World Open and then the Continental Championship down in Argentina in August some time and so couldn't accept the invitation to participate in this particular tournament. Pretty sad as she might have wrapped up another WIM norm, but it gives someone else the chance to participate and Liz Vicary was "last woman in" so to speak. (See message 4448.91 under the topic "Women in Chess/Women and Chess." So, I'm happy for Vicary but sad for Zenyuk, and sure as hell wish our top chessplayers (female and male) didn't have to make these kinds of choices. Sigh. Chris Bird also reported that the pairings for the ENTIRE Championship have now been posted at the official website - so not only can we spectators know what's coming, the players will be able to prepare for their games against each other, knowing whom they will be facing with some advance warning. This is going to be particularly crucial given the grueling schedule they will be playing under - 2 games a day except for the final day. Nine intense games in five days. Whew! Oh yeah - Chris Bird says to keep an eye on www.uswcc2007.com for regular updates throughout the runup to the Championship and especially during the tournament, July 16-20. He will also be onsite running the MonRoi system to ensure live coverage of all the games. All right! I've been writing emails, darlings, all kinds of emails - to everyone I can think of. I've written to the four major t.v. stations in my area, in addition to politicians and I wrote the local major newspaper sports page too, in addition to what I previously reported about writing to The View and Oprah, trying to drum up publicity for the Championship. Haven't heard anything back from anyone (maybe they think I'm a crank? I mean - writing to them about women's chess???) but it doesn't hurt my fingers a bit and who knows - it might result in some positive publicity somewhere, or at least raising the event on people's radar screens. Thursday night Isis and I chewed over some of the issues on the telephone and we came up with some ideas - we'll be hashing out some of the details and what not when she and Michelle visit at the end of July for our annual Goddesschess Partnership Convention. I don't know why we didn't come up with these ideas before; well, actually, we never got this personally involved in such an event before (putting our money where our mouths are, that is). In the past we just reported on the news of such events and concentrated on other things. Anyway - we came up with some good ideas (if I do say so myself), but I don't want to disclose anything because we need to develop some outlines and some presentations, and then take the next step, which will probably be contacting Susan Polgar and Paul Truong and passing our work-ups to them, if they are interested, as they are the experts and have the profiles necessary to make serious pitches for what Isis and I cooked up. We're aiming to (we hope) get some buzz and money sponsorship for the U.S. Women's Championship in 2008 and beyond. Okay, I think that's it for now. June 30, 2007: Hola Darlings! Well, much water has passed under the bridge since I made my initial post here - and I see I didn't include a date on that post, geez! I believe it was some time in May. We now have a definite players' list AND a dedicated website to the 2007 U.S. Women's Chess Championship, yippee!
So, as we see, of the three women who participated in the "Men's" U.S. Championship in May of this year (Krush, Zenyuk and Airapetian), Krush and Airapetian will be competing for those zonal spots. (Yes, I know, I've been taken to task by Mark Weeks for calling it the "Men's" Championship but, let's face it, that's what it is, at least right now. Maybe in the future when we have lots of women competing toe to toe with the chess hommes I'll call it something else). I don't know why Zenyuk is not competing. It's good to see that Zatonskih has decided to defend her 2006 title. I believe this is going to be one of the most competitive and combative U.S. Women's Chess Championship ever - WGM and WIM norms are on the line. I can hardly wait for the action to begin! In order to drum up some publicity for this event, which is seriously under-reported by the U.S. press corps, I emailed "Oprah" and "The View" with information about the event, with requests for a plug for the event and requests for shows on the topic of women chessplayers in the United States. Hell, it can't hurt. I posted information at Chessville and, of course, at our Goddesschess blog, about the event, and will continue to do so as events unfold. I'm going to email some more newspapers and whoever else I can think of too, trying to drum up some nation-wide publicity and support for our wonderful women chessplayers. Thanks are due to Frank Berry and Jim Berry for their unrelenting and cheerful support of women's chess in the United States. Without them, the 2007 Women's Championship would not have taken place this year. Indeed, they put up the money for both U.S. Chess Championships this year, $100,000 and more when all is tolled, when one considers the prize money for both events and their other services in providing a playing venue, TD and arbiter services rendered all free of charge, just for love of the game. Oh how I wish I could afford to fund these events, too. It breaks my heart that our U.S. players have to struggle so to try and make a living playing chess in the richest country in the world. Argggh! It makes me so mad! Hola Darlings! After much kvetching and moaning on my part (I posted on the Goddesschess blog about this and sent out some emails to friends, trying to hunt up information), sometime in the wee hours before midnight an announcement appeared at the USCF website about the 2007 Frank Berry U.S. Women's Chess Championship! Yay! It will be held in Stillwater, Oklahoma July 16-20, 2007. Total prizes are $25,000. The top ten rated women from the May list will be invited for a round robin. Here is the schedule: Rounds 1+2- Monday at Noon and 6 PM Here are the prizes: 1st - $7,000; 2nd - $5,000; 3rd - $3,000; 4th - $2,500; 5th - $2,000; 6th - $1,500; 7th - 10th: $1,000. There are three women's zonal qualifying spots for US players this year. If the top woman in the regular US Championship makes at least an even score (4.5), she will obtain one spot and the other two spots will be determined in the Women's Championship. If all women in the US Championship make minus scores, all three zonal spots will be determined in the Women's Championship. Here are the top 15 women on the April, 2007 list. At this point I don't know how much the May list will change:
We know that Susan Polgar won't be playing. Will Krush, Zenyuk and Airapetian get a second kick at the cat and be allowed to play in the women's event, after having competed in the - well, they're not calling it the "men's" event but essentially that's what it is, otherwise the women would NOT be having a separate event! At stake are those three places in the zonal for the Women's World Chess Championship. Now I understand what Zatonskih was talking about in the letter Susan Polgar posted at her website. What is fair under the circumstances? My first inclination is that it's not fair these three women would have a chance to play in the women's championship. On the other hand, if the rules were not announced prior to these women accepting the invitation to the "men's" championship, it's also not fair that they might be foreclosed altogether from earning one or more spots in the zonal if they cannot compete in the women's championship. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do. It seems that USCF decided to allow the three women the opportunity to play in the women's championship, if they accept their invitations. Nothing like adding a layer of drama to the championships. It's REALLY going to be interesting to see how the women do in the "men's" event with that zonal spot at stake. Unfortunately, the odds for winning a zonal spot for the 10 women who play in the Women's Championship have been reduced from 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 with one zonal spot up for grabs among the three woman playing in the U.S. Championship. Assuming Krush gets 4.5 in the Championship, she has a zonal spot locked up. She would therefore have no reason to play in the Women's Championship, unless she wants to go for the title and/or more prize money. So, #1 and #2 players are out of the picture; the top 10 now drops down through player #12, assuming Zatonskih does not play.
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