World Women's Chess Championship

Who will win!?

I think the Russians look strong, especially with their recent form.

rd 1 sees top vs bottom pairings. long trips for some underdogs for just a couple of games;

http://wwcc2010.tsf.org.tr/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&kid=133

The top seed is Humpy Koneru, which is a fabulous name. Here is a nice game from her.

Also there is this! Chess puzzles from her games!! Awesome

http://www.wtharvey.com/kone.html

Originally posted by Exuma
Also there is this! Chess puzzles from her games!! Awesome

http://www.wtharvey.com/kone.html

Thanks for posting this gem of a game and your second post as well. Excellent player we should all aspire to emulate!

"The biggest sensation of the first round came from the match Pia Cramling against Betul Yildiz. In comfortable position Swedish chess player forgot to make 40th move and lost by time."

fishy !

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Thanks for posting this gem of a game and your second post as well. Excellent player we should all aspire to emulate!

Our GM blogger Natalia Pogonina has lost a Ruy Lopez game to Baira Kovanova.

Perhaps someone a bit more up on Ruy theory can say whether Kovanova's 8...b4 an attempt to get out of book, but my inner GP was starting to freak out, there are pieces waiting to be developed!

Poganina responds to the flank attack with movement in the center 9. d4, but she too has all her queenside bits still at home, having moved her white bishop 4 times and her kings knight twice! (I'm being a bit tongue in cheek here, that bishop moves a lot in the closed Ruy I know)

Even here though



Black looks much more active with the c8 bishop having some open lines to move to and a lead in development.

Pogonina goes down a pawn at move 23 and is still cramped on the queen side, and the "two bishops advantage" is pretty hard to see if you are white in this position




On move 27 she has a choice to take back the bishop with the e pawn or the rook, I was leaning heavily to the rook, keeping the e4 pawn connected to the kingside ones, and leaving a backwards target on d6 for Kovanova to defend. Wrong I guessed, she went with the pawn, not sure why at all.

Then heartbreak. After Kovanova plays 27...Qb8 here there is a missed shot for NP - see if you can spot it.



Bh6!! threatens mate and forces a few things - like so



Here is the whole game

Kostniuk with a lovely bishop sac and rooks and knights locking up the white king

Poor Pogonina's other loss. Spot the Kovanova move here - white to move:




The answer is in the full game here:

we want another puzzle for move number 22 🙂

Originally posted by vipiu
we want another puzzle for move number 22 🙂

You aren't kidding! What a great way to shut down the sneaky Pogonina mate threat...

Here is a nice Sicilian, with an instructive Rook v 3 pawns endgame. Black sacs pawn after pawn to threaten queening, winning whites last piece, but must then stop three connected pawns from making it a draw.

Well the Russians didn't do too well. Kosteniuk doing the best.

Originally posted by Ratburgers
Well the Russians didn't do too well. Kosteniuk doing the best.

Remarkable to see four Asians left standing in the semi-finals.

Originally posted by tonytiger41
Remarkable to see four Asians left standing in the semi-finals.

Not particularly. It's for the same reasons that they're starting to appear in snooker: there are a lot of them and enough of them are getting sufficiently wealthy to be able to afford to take a serious interest.

Richard