Alexandra Kosteniuk's CHESSQUEEN.COM

Chess Queen® & 12th Women's World Chess Champion Grandmaster Mega-Site & Chess Blog


Archive for December, 2011

December 27th, 2011

Kosteniuk & Team win Silver at World Team Chess Championships

Hello everyone!
The last tournament of the year is over, one of the most prestigious of the year, the women’s world team chess championship, in Mardin, Turkey. It brought Silver medals to all members of my team, Nadezhda and Tatiana Kosintseva, Valentina Gunina, Natalia Pogonina and me, Alexandra Kosteniuk. In this event, the Chinese, with Hou Yifan, Ju Wenjun, Zhao Xue, Tan Zhongyi, and Zhang Xiaowen, were head above the others, and deserved the Gold. Georgia got Bronze, with Dzagnidze, Javakhishvili, Khotenashvili, Khurtsidze, and Melia, Congratulations to all!  See below for some photos of the event.
I am preparing Read more…

December 22nd, 2011

Chess Queen Kosteniuk Upgrades Logo to 3D

Hello everyone!
I just want to share with you the modernization of my “Chess Queen” logo from 2D to 3D. It’s also more in line with the Chess King logo, which is my new chess software project (site, shop, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).
Let me know if you like it this way!
Happy Holidays to everyone, and may 2012 bring you love and success in all you do!
P.S. You guessed it, purple is one of my favorite colors!

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December 20th, 2011

Chess Queen Kosteniuk introduces Chess King software

Hello everyone!
As you know, Chess King with Houdini 2 , the new affordable professional chess software, has been out for about a week and we are shipping it worldwide. My husband and I and a great team of chess programmers have been working on it for the last 2 years and we are very proud of the result, it’s powerful enough for a GM and simple enough for a kid to use, and has exclusive features not found anywhere (the random mode to prove you can win an won game is unbelievably useful). And the price of $49 (with coupon code INTROKING50) makes it an amazing value, since it includes the strongest chess engine in the world Houdini 2 and the biggest GigaKing Chess Games Database. We are continuing the deals below until the end of the year since they proved so popular. Read about Chess King (launch, tutorial) and get yourself a copy!



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December 20th, 2011

My Dad Konstantin Kosteniuk’s Robot Chess Terminator plays GM Grischuk

Hello everyone!
Maybe you know that my Dad Konstantin Kosteniuk likes to invent things, he’s invented quite a few things in his life. His most recent invention is the “Chess Terminator”, a modern day chess robot that can play up to 3 people at the same time and with incredible speed, precision, and strength.
I’d like to share with you a video of my Dad’s robot playing one of the leading Grandmasters in the world, Alexander Grischuk.
Enjoy!
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December 20th, 2011

Share Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk’s Chess Christmas Comic around


Hello everyone!
I you know any kids around you, please share with them my chess comic. Remember that giving a chess set or a chess book or a chess program for Christmas is a great idea!
Happy holidays!

P.S. See the full comic below. You can see or download for print all of my comics in several languages here.

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December 20th, 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy Chess Holidays from Alexandra Kosteniuk!

Hello everybody,

In this wonderful pre-Christmas period, I’d like to wish you all great holidays! If you have a moment free, try to play some chess! I’d like to thank you, my fans, here on my site, on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube, for supporting me all year long, I could not play chess without your support! I hope that 2012 will be a great chess year for all of you. Play some nice chess, train with Chess King, and most important, share the love of chess around you!

With chess and love, Alexandra 🙂

P.S. Check out the photos below and tell me if you like them.

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December 17th, 2011

Kosteniuk Interview at the Sport Accord Mind Sports Games

Watch the 2 minutes interview of Chess Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk at the 2011 Sport Accord Mind Sport Games. Alexandra was both the ambassador of this prestigious event and a winner of a Gold medal (in the women’s Rapid event) and a bronze medal (in the women’s Blindfold event).

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December 16th, 2011

Alexandra Kosteniuk wins Bronze Medal at Blindfold Mind Sport Games 2011

Hello everyone!
The 2011 Sport Accord Mind Sports Games are over and they were great! In the 3 events, I took Gold medal in the Rapid, 4th place in the Blitz, and Bronze in the Blindfold event. The only other player who also got 2 medals is Hou Yifan who got 2 Gold medals, in the blitz and in the blindfold, congratulations to her! The other ladies who got medals are Lahno and Dzagnidze (Silver & Bronze in the Rapid), Stefanova and Muzychuk A. (Silver and Bronze in the Blitz), and Cmilyte (Silver in the Blindfold). Thanks to Sport Accord for the kind words about me Read more…

December 15th, 2011

A. Muzychuk – Kosteniuk Blindfold Chess

Hello everyone!


I am now at the Mind Sports Games in China, playing the third event, which is blindfold chess. This is one of the games I played today against Anna Muzychuk. One often wonders how one would play chess blindfold, and actually, as you can see from the game, one can play quite well! In the position below, I was happy to find the winning move (for me, playing black), can you?



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December 11th, 2011

Queen Kosteniuk wins Gold at Mind Sport Games Chess Rapid 2011

I’m so pleased to announce that I won the first Gold medal at the 2011 Mind Sport Games women’s chess rapid event, with 6 out of 7 (wins against Zatonskih, Dzagnidze, Paehtz, Dembo, Lahno and draws againt Ju and  A. Muzychuk).  Silver went to Kateryna Lahno and Bronze to Nana Dzagnidze, congratulations to them too! The competition was very tough, read what was published on the official site: “The former World champion and Ambassador of the SportAccord World Mind Games, GM Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia crowned a successful performance and even won the last game of the rapid tourney against Yelena Dembo. She became the first female winner of this very interesting competition. Finally, she scored 6 points out of 7 – what a brilliant result!”

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December 10th, 2011

2011 RT TV Interview of Chess Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk (Spanish, 26 minutes)

Below I have embedded a YouTube 26-minute interview made by the Spanish channel RT TV this year about me and about chess. If you speak Spanish you will enjoy it. If you don’t speak Spanish, head over anyway to my YouTube news channel “ChessQueenTV“, as you will find clips there in many languages. By the way, did you recognize the famous chess champion sitting in front of me in the photo to the left?

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December 10th, 2011

RT TV News Clip from Mind Sport Games 2011

I just found this 1:13 minute clip in English from the Mind Sport Games that are taking place right now and in which I am participating, both as a player and as the official ambassador of the event. Watch the embedded YouTube clip.

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December 9th, 2011

Alexandra Kosteniuk “chessqueen” on Instagram

Hi everybody!

If you’d like to see the photos I take personally during my trips, chess tournaments, vacations, on my iPhone, you can follow me on Instagram and see them as soon as I shoot them. My nickname is “chessqueen”. The best way to see photos published on Instagram are on the iPhone & iPad (it’s a free application), but they are also automatically pushed also to my Russian Twitter account @kosteniuk and sometimes I repost them on my English Twitter account @chessqueen . Here is my most recent “self-portrait“.

December 9th, 2011

Chess Queen Kosteniuk is Ambassador of the 2011 SportAccord World Mind Games

Hello everyone!

I just arrived in Beijing, China, and am very happy to participate in the 2011 SportAccord World Mind Games, which is like the Olympics but for intellectual Games. As you may know, I was honored to win the first Gold medal of the event in 2008 (news, Chinese news, final against Stefanova [game 1, game 2, game 3]). This year, I was elected the Ambassador of this prestigious event, and I feel very honored about that appointment. I’m playing the tournaments, and you can follow the results at the official site (home page, live games, YouTube). Wish me good luck! 🙂

December 6th, 2011

5th Kosteniuk Chess Cup in Svetlogorsk

On November 26-27, 2011 in Svetlogorosk (Kaliningrad region, Russia) the 5th Alexandra Kosteniuk Chess Cup among kids U-6, U-8 and U-10 years old took place. 162 young players from 24 cities of Russia, Latvia and Lithuania took part in this event. Every single participant got prizes. The full table of the results of the tournament can be seen here. You can see photos of the event here and here. It was a great chess event and was strongly supported by the local authorities.

The 6th Alexandra Kosteniuk’s Cup is announced and scheduled to take place again in Svetlogorsk from October 5 to October 7, 2012. I will post the regulations of this event here as soon as they are ready.

December 2nd, 2011

Chess Queen Kosteniuk featured in Chess Life Dress Like a Grandmaster

Hello everyone!
Nice surprise to see I was featured in the brand new December 2011 Chess Life Magazine, in a feature article called “Dress Like a Grandmaster” (click on the title to read it). Do you think chess players should dress nicely when they play a public tournament, or do you think it does not matter how they are dressed?
Press (Facebook) LIKE if you think the 2 photos were well chosen by the editor of Chess Life, and write your comments to this post below.

Alexandra
P.S. Check out my ARTICLES page (200+ articles) and my PHOTOS page (12,000+ photos).

🙂