“I’m so glad that 9 Queens and Goddesschess are promoting and celebrating fighting spirit among female chess players, and look forward to enjoying the beautiful and skillful display of chess mastery at the US Women’s Chess Championships,” said Grandmaster Kosteniuk.

Both 9 Queens and Goddesschess are organizations dedicated to encouraging more women and girls to play chess. Since 2007, Goddesschess has been awarding prizes to players in the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship. Last year Anna Zatonskih won the Fighting Chess Award for her commitment to keep fighting even after she clinched the tournament with her astounding 8.5/9 score.

“As part of Goddesschess’ commitment to encouraging more girls and women to play chess, we are extremely pleased in 2010 to partner with 9 Queens to sponsor a Fighting Chess Award of $1,000, the largest award yet, in keeping with the prestige of this event,” explained Jan Newton official spokesperson from Goddesschess.

In addition to the Fighting Chess Award, 9 Queens will also award a $400 scholarship to the best performing student under 25 in the tournament. The US Women’s Chess Championship is taking place July 9-19 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. Visit uschesschamps.com for more details, and to listen daily to live commentary by GM Ben Finegold and 9 Queens co-founder Jen Shahade.

Lucky us! 9 Queens was selected as one of three nonprofits to benefit from this year’s Battle of the Ads contest hosted by the American Ad Federation of Tucson. We had the privilege of working with a talented team of designers and writers from Madden Media to create the brand new Chess Fest poster for 2010. The poster was presented at a luncheon on January 19 where Madden was honored with the Bull’s Eye Award for Targeted Marketing.

The poster and accompanying postcard are two of my all-time favorite chess posters. The folks at Madden did an amazing job not only capturing the spirit of Chess Fest, but also coming up with creative, fun, and kid-friendly descriptions of event.

Thank you so much to everyone at Madden for the amazing work and to the American AD Federation for this fantastic opportunity!

All photos courtesy Jeff Smith www.jeffsmithusa.com

On Sunday, December 20, 9 Queens was thrilled to host reigning Women’s World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk at our December Queens Academy. Grandmaster Kosteniuk selected 9 Queens as the only chess program in the country to honor as part of her holiday goodwill tour. After  flying to Tucson on an early morning flight from Miami, Ms. Kosteniuk answered questions, signed autographs and gave a free simultaneous chess exhibit for 34 lucky chess enthusiasts. The event attracted close to 200 Tucsonans of all ages to meet the chess champion and celebrate empowerment through chess. The simul lasted 2 and a half hours; although Alexandra didn’t lose a single game, four talented participants were able to draw the World Champion (visit Alexandra’s blog post to see her take on a game with Bryan Hu or Chess Life Online for another game with Ann Price).
Organized in less than week, the event was a huge success thanks to all the tremendous support from local businesses, volunteers and sponsors. First and foremost,we are incredibly grateful to Alexandra, the brainchild of this amazing and innovative charitable act. Given how stressful the holidays are in general, it was inspiring to witness someone dedicate so much of their time towards promoting chess. Special thanks to our sponsors including Alan Anderson of Checkm8Chess and Dr. Norm Saba for generously paying for Alexandra’s airfare, the Arizona Inn for donated her hotel room, Maynard’s Market for the gift basket, Bline Restaurant for the delicious cupcakes, and Cafe A La Cart for the ever popular mushroom pizza. We also want to thank BPM Solutions, Trisa and Andy Schorr, Paul Gold and Sam Ireland for helping underwrite all additional costs.

I also want to personally thank all the 9 Queens board members and volunteers for all the hours spent planning for the event including: Lorelei Francis-Anderson, Leo Martinez, Jeff Smith (our talented 9 Queens photographer responsible for beautiful images from the event), David Correa, Minette Burges, Vicki Lazaro (who designed all of the placards and posters on a short timeline), Ann Price, Sean Higgins, Vaishnav Arudyhula, Amanda Mateer (who came down on her birthday!), Jenelle Wallace, Quinta Peterson, Tom Michaud,  Michelle Hotchkiss, Margo Burwell, James Grip, Eli Alster, Jacqui De Sa, Sam Hoffman, Bitty Rosenberg, Rick Hoffman and Christopher Rosenberg.

Group shot by Betsy Dynako. Front row: Sabina Foisor, Rusudan Goletiani, Tatev Abrahamyan, Iryna Zenyuk, Yun Fan, Batseetseg Tsagaan. Back row: Alisa Melekhina, Camila Baginsakite, Anna Zatonskih and Irina Krush

The fight for 9 Queens Best Game Prizes at the US Women’s Championship (Saint Louis, October 3-14) was fierce!  A panel of four judges, including GM Ben Finegold, IM Greg Shahade, 9 Queens instructor Amanda Mateer and Author & WIM Dr.Alexey Root, ranked their top five games. The grand prize winner was Zatonskih-Melekhina ($300), and there was a tie for 2nd ($100 each) between Baginskaite- Abrahamyan, Abrahamyan-Melekhina and Abrahamyan-Krush. You can see all the judges’ comments and play through the contending games on the Chess Life Online story.

Choosing my own picks was very tough. This tournament saw a record-breaking twenty decisive games in a row and there were so many exciting battles. I went with my gut picks as a live commentator for the event. The links below take you to the play through games on the website of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, where you can also see final results, photos and some videos I hosted with Macauley Peterson of the ICC.

Zatonskih-Melekhina (round six)

Zatonskih’s fiercest battle of the event. Melekhina is a great fighter, so this was a battle between two equally determined players, but Zatonskih’s careful balancing of aggression and patience set her apart. In a post-tournament interview, Zatonskih mentioned the Karpovian restrictive move a4 as her favorite move of the event.

After 41.a4

Foisor-Goletiani  (round six)

Foisor ruthlessly exploited Goletiani’s mistakes in this game with 14.Ng5! (threatening 15.Bxf6 xf6 16.Qh7++)

after 14.Ng5

After 14…g6, Foisor followed it up with 15.Bxb7 Nxb7 16.Ne4! after which she quickly gained a winning position. Very well-played.

Krush-Zatonskih (round three)

This was the most anticipated game of the tournament due to last year’s controversial Armageddon playoff and also because of Krush and Zatonskih’s close ratings. They are often only a point or two away from each other (though Zatonskih will probably lead by a nice margin after the US Women’s) 22…b5 was in my eyes the decisive move of the tournament, signifying that it might not be a battle between Zatonskih and Krush after all.

After 22...b5

22…b5 is an anti-positional move, permanently ceding the c5 square. However, it also happens to be winning! Now Black is threatening the crushing Nb7!, when White’s queen only retreat square a3 is inadequate due to …b4. Instead Krush tried 23.Rb3 Nb7 24.Qa3 b4 25.Qa4 but fell quickly after 25…c5! (threatening …c4) 26.dxc5 Nxc5 27.Qb5 Rab8 28.Qe2 a4 and White resigned.

In this game Zatonskih chose her opening well, equalized and managed to get her tricks in early.

Krush-Baginskaite (round eight)

Krush has a take no-prisoners attitude and she is the most vocal and confident of the players in the tournament. People expect her to play well, so when she does, it doesn’t cause many shock waves. But I was surprised that this pretty game, marked by the nice 0-0, didn’t get any votes by the Best Game Judges.

After 16.0-0!

Now if Baginskaite grabs the pawn 16…exf3 the simple 17.Bxf3 and the triple skewer on the a3-f8 diagonal is impossible to defend (for instance the simple 18. dxc6 is a crushing threat). If Black plays 16…cxd5 17.Nxe4! wins instantly–A pretty demonstration of a double pin.

Variation after 17.Nxe4!

Black played 16…Bf5 instead but got a terrible position, which Krush exploited smoothly.

Fan-Goletiani(round eight)

Part of the reason I chose this game is for its mass audience appeal. The lowest rated player in the tournament (who is also a rock star!) beats an experienced IM. This is a straightforward game you can show students as an example of both opposite side castling positions and to reinforce skewers and pins.

After 22...Rg8

Here Fan played 23.Nxe4, exploiting a current pin and a potential pin. 23…Nxe4 loses to 24.Qxe7 while 23…Qxe4 loses to 24.Bd3. A few moves later, we find ourselves another instructive tactical moment.

After 27...Bg2

Fan played 28.h7 Rg7 and 29.Rxg2! and now if 29…Rxg2 30.Be4 snags a full rook. Normally, Black would be able to restore material equality by connecting rooks with Rg8, but here that square is guarded by the h7 pawn.

Many other master-level games have more complex tactics that are hard to show to beginner or intermediate students. Fan-Goletiani  is a great game for 9queens Academies across the country!

9 Queens was proud to sponsor this Best Game Prize Contest. Winning beautifully is different than just winning.