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Chess Femme
News by Goddesschess |
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| I only report on tournaments where at least one female played. If it's men only playing, it doesn't get reported here. If I'm not sure a named player is male or female, I leave the name out, so on occasion I may omit a chess femme. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tournoi
International du Pays de Charleroi Open Tournament, 129 players: From Correspondent Wayne Mendryk: Chess talent Jessie Gilbert
dies at 19 The BBC and Times are reporting that the 19-year-old English chess player Jessie Gilbert from Croydon, Surrey, has died. On Wednesday morning at 3:15 a.m. she fell from an eighth floor window of a hotel in Pardubice, Czech Republic, where she was taking part in a tournament. Nobody knows precisely what happened. The Czech police investigating her death say that they have been told by her friends that she was a sleepwalker and had tried to harm herself twice before, once with a knife. Inspector David Kakrda said that that Ms Gilbert was alone at the time of her death. He told Times Online that the police could not exclude the possibility that she fell out of the window, but that would require a certain energy to climb over the sill. He said investigators had found a lot of medication, some of which turned out to be anti-depressants which had been prescribed in her name. "We think she may have had psychological problems," said Inspector Kakrda. Organiser Jiri Petruzalek said that it appeared Ms Gilbert had committed suicide, but could not confirm this until the post-mortem had been carried out. "But everything points to it being suicide," said Petruzalek. There are no signs of anyone else being involved or an accident. She was playing quite well, certainly up to her usual standards, and there was no hint that something like this was about to happen. No one noticed anything strange in her behaviour or manner while she was here." Fellow British players in the tournament abandoned their games as a mark of respect for Jessie, who was much loved and an exceptionally talented chess player. Andrew Martin's Chess Academy website recently carried a portrait of Jessie, who in 1999 made the headlines, when she played in and won the Women’s World Amateur Championship at Hastings. At eleven she became possibly the youngest person to win a senior world championship in any competitive arena. Against opposition from 13 countries, she acquired the Women’s World Chess Federation Master title and an automatic rating of 2050, both age records for a British female chess player. To recognise her achievement the Brain Trust charity, in concert with the Swedish health care and education giant Bure, awarded Jessie a £4,000 chess scholarship to America, where she studied with Edmar Mednis, the New York grandmaster, for a week. Jessie talked to Andrew about her love of chess: "I started playing chess at the age of 8 and quickly became hooked on the game. Since then I have always played as much as I can alongside school studies. I have played in a wide variety of events including having been given many opportunities to represent the country abroad. I have also always enjoyed coaching chess, both in group and individual contexts. I am currently taking a year out to play and study chess and am particularly working towards attaining a Women’s International Master title. I will be starting medical school at Oxford in October 2006 but plan to continue actively participating in the chess world!" Recently Jessie played eleven games on board two for England at the Turin Olympiad, scoring a creditable 5.5 points. Fide
July, 2006 Ratings
Republica
Argentina Chess Festival Correspondent Wayne Mendryk submits this report on the event: The Republica Argentina Chess Festival
2006 took place July 24th - August 39th
Biel International Festival Northern
Urals Cup Women's Supertournament 17th
Jozef Kochan Memorial All The Following Reports Furnished by Wayne Mendryk The Dutch Open took place in Dieren 24th July - 3rd August 2006. Friso Nijboer took clear first with 7.5/9 half a point clear of Alon Greenfeld. The top scoring woman in the event was Desiree who finished in 34th place (after tiebreaks) with 5 points. Petra Schuurman ended the event with 4.5 points (47th place after tiebreaks). Laura Bensdorp finished in 66th place (after tiebreaks) with 3.5 points. Arlette van Weersel finished in 68th place (after tie-breaks) with 3.5 points.Caroline Slingerland scored 3 points (good for 74th place). The Czech Open took place from July 21st- July 29 2006. There were a number of sectional tournaments which comprise the Czech Open. In the open GM Tournament many women played. The starting list can be viewed here. The tournament was won by GM Stanislav Novikov with a score of 7.5 points. The top scoring woman was WGM Anna Ushenina with a score of 5.5 points. The Canadian Open took place July 15th-23rd 2006 in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Walter Arencibia and Abhijit Kunte took first place in the "open" section with 7/9. WFM Dina Kagramanov 2076 of Canada finished in 23rd place with 5.5 points. WGM Swati Ghate 2379 of India scored 5 points (26th place). Alexandra Botez won the under 1600 section of the tournament with a score of 7.5 points. Bianca Lawson finished in 20th place with a score of 4 points. Garry Kasparov will play his first serious chess event since his retirement after the Linares 2005 tournament in Zurich on August 22nd 2006. Kasparov always left open the door to play rapid events and he will take on Anatoly Karpov, Viktor Korchnoi and Judit Polgar on the occasion of the Lichthof Chess Champions Day. More information concerning this event is available here and here. The Copenhagen Chess Festival, including the Politiken Cup will take place from July 22nd-30th July 2006. WGM (IM) Anna Zozulia (elo 2366) of the Ukraine is playing in the Politiken Cup. The official website for this event is at http://www.politikencup.dk/ Judit Polgar turns 30 on July 23. Chessbase.com has a special report on Judit entitled "Congratulations and happy birthday, Judit!". The report includes a photo of her with her new baby Hanna . A direct link to the article is http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3247 The Curaçao Chess Festival 2006 begins on Saturday and runs until July 30th. . Among those playing in the event are WGM R. Goletiani (USA), WGM A. Zatonskih (USA), WGM J. Shahade (USA), WFM H. Itkis (USA), and WFM Olga Sagalchik (USA). A report about the event is at: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3243
The 39th Biel International Festival takes place 22nd July - 4th August 2006. Almira Skripchenko, Ekaterina Atalik, Monika Socko, Yelena Dembo, Anna Muzychuk and Pia Cramling compete. July 18, 2006: Special Report from Wayne Mendryk Susan Polgar: Little Known Feminist Icon
BY ALICIA COLON The woman I met two years ago at the Congress of Racial Equality's annual Martin Luther King gala certainly deserves to be a feminist icon. Yet when I checked the Web site of the National Organization for Women for anything on Susan Polgar, I found nothing. Instead, the Web site promptly spit back, "Do you mean Susan Pleasure?" Surely a woman who had broken the gender barrier time and time again and had developed a foundation for young girls that would improve their self-esteem and assuredness deserved some notice by this women's group. Alas, Ms. Polgar's achievements are in the male dominated world of chess — that great game of cerebral excellence and strategy — not politically correct issues. On June 25 the city hosted the highest-rated round robin chess competition in America's history — the Mayor's Cup. In spite of Ms. Polgar's stellar record of four World Women's Championships, five Olympic gold medals, and Grandmaster status, the Hungarian-American mother from Queens went into this event under low expectations. I asked her about the difficulty of the event. She said, "Before the event, I was unsure of my performance because it is incredibly hard to combine being the organizer of the event, a devoted chess mom, and being one of the players at the same time. This is a very big handicap. In addition, there was a lot of pressure being the only woman in the highest rated ever chess tournament in U.S. history. If I do well, it is a big boost for women's chess in America. However, there are many critics who were just waiting for me to fail so they can say that a woman has no business competing against top-level male players." What little I know about the world of chess has been derived from headlines about the eccentricity of Bobby Fischer and feature films of other child prodigies. Historically, chess champions are also predominantly male Europeans. I also know that Ms. Polgar competed in other events playing simultaneous opponents and scored a spectacular win record (see www.susanpolgar.com). How did she do, I asked? She told me, "I was the lowest rated player in this tournament. Many people said the odds of me winning this tournament is like the odds of winning the lottery. Many believed that I would finish in last place by a significant margin. I gave it my best shot and I was one half point away from winning the strongest tournament in U.S. history." Ms. Polgar competed against Grandmaster
Ildar Ibragimov and the reigning U.S.Champion Grandmaster Alexander
Onischuk for the first time. She beat them both. Gata Kamsky, now ranked
no. 1 U.S. male, won the competition. Speaking of her battles, she said, "One of the most painful experiences was in 1986. I was the first woman in history to qualify for the 'Men's' World Chess Championship but I wasn't allowed to compete. The official reason was I am a woman and no woman is allowed. Luckily by the end of that same year, because of my case, the International Chess Federation changed the rule by deleting the word 'Men's' from the name of the event. Since then women, if they qualify, can compete for the overall world title. I have stood up for the rights of women chess players around the world in the past three decades and I will not give up until we have the same rights and conditions as our male counterparts." Ms. Polgar started playing when she was just 4 years old and soon won the championship of Budapest in her native Hungary with a perfect score (10–0). She was a hyperactive child who discovered that chess enabled her to focus for hours. Why not chess instead of Ritalin, I asked? Susan agreed that chess is certainly more fun than medication and added, "I strongly believe that chess can help all children educationally and chess will give them many incredible benefits throughout their lives. This is even more important for girls as it can help enhance their self-confidence and self-esteem." The women I truly admire are those who face enormous wrath for telling the truth, as Phyllis Chesler did when she spoke of the feminist hypocrisy ignoring the plight of battered Islamic women; and women like Susan Polgar who break down gender barriers without demanding that they be altered or lowered. July 6, 2006: Judit Polgar had her baby. Susan Polgar reported on her chess blog that "The Polgar family has just added a Chess Princess earlier today in Budapest. Both baby Hanna and Mommy Judit are doing well." The Swedish Chess Championships were played in Gothenburg from July 1st-14th July 2006. Pia Cramling is playing and after eight rounds of play she has 5 points. Here is a crosstable of the event after eight rounds. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- In other news, According to Mark Crowther of The Week in Chess, Batchimeg Tuvshintugs, who now plays for USA, gained a WGM norm at the World Open which took place in Philadelphia from June 28th-July 4th. Batchimeg Tuvshintugs was born in 1986 in Mongolia. Batchimeg scored several upsets in the 2006 U.S. Chess Championship held March 2-11 in San Diego, California, defeating three grandmasters and drawing another grandmaster in the first five rounds of the event. The tournament bulletin after round 5 called her result so far a "sensation"; however, she lost her remaining four games, ultimately tying for 27th-30th place out of 32 in her tournament group. Batchimeg started the tournament rated 2208 by FIDE. In the first round, she defeated GM Alexander Fishbein (rated 2519) who ultimately finished fourth in group B (the tournament was a double Swiss). She then lost to Grandmaster Yury Shulman (2581) in round two. In round three, she defeated Grandmaster Boris Kreiman (2478); the tournament bulletin reported "Kreiman might not have been taking her seriously as he banged out his moves in record time. At the end of the game Kreiman had used less than 15 minutes on his clock compared to over 90 for 'Chimi,' as her friends call her. In round 4, she drew well-known GM Boris Gulko (2585) and and in round 5, she defeated Grandmaster Julio Becerra (2556). She lost all her remaining games of the tournament, so her final score was 3.5 points out of 9, placing 27th (out of 32) in Group B on tiebreaks but scoring a norm for the Woman Grandmaster title due to the strong opposition she faced. Here is a photo of her with Susan Polgar: http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2006/04/meeting-wfm-batchimeg-tuvshintugs-for.html The III Open Internacional Municipio de Sanxenxo took place from the 26th of June to the 3rd of July 2006. WGM Adina-Maria Bogza of Romania finished in tenth place (after tie-breaks) with 6 points. Here is a photo of her: http://www.kosteniuk.com/albums/goteborg/pictures/img_3882bogza.jpg The Villa de Benasque Tournament took place from July 6th-15th 2006. GM Oleg Korneev won the event with 8.5/10.WGM Tatiana Kononenko of the Ukraine scored 7 points (32nd place) and WFM Dafnae Trujillo Delgado of Spain also scored 7 points (39th place). The 56th Russian Championship for women (Top League) took place from the 28th of June - to the 7th of July 2006 in Orel. The top 5 finishers qualified for the superfinal of the women's championship of Russia. WFM Valentina won the event with a score of 7/9. The Women's Chess Cup took place in Dresden July 7th-8th 2006. The event was themed around the FIFA World Cup with the Group stages mirroring the football group stages. Several German players represented countries where they couldn't find players and a couple of teams in groups G and H didn't have players. After the group stages there were quarter finals, semi-finals and a final. Zsuzsa Polgar won the event for the USA beating Elisabeth Pähtz of Germany." Final 3rd-4th Playoff Semi-Final Quarter Final Pia Cramling, Monica Socko, Jana Jackova and Marie Sebag (among others) were also participants in this event. |
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