Chess Ladies : Anna Ushenina

Anna Ushenina (born August 30, 1985 in Kharkov) is a Ukrainian chess player with the titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM).

Biography

Born in Kharkov, she still lives there with her family. It was her mother who introduced her to chess at the age of seven, along with painting and music, being determined that the young Ushenina would develop intellectual and creative talents.[1]Her earliest chess results were remarkable; consistently winning events in her age group and beyond, culminating in becoming the Ukrainian Girls' (under 20) champion at just 15 years. Many of her chess skills have been self-taught, although there was some coaching at a specialist facility in Kramatorsk. Even today she often works without a trainer but is, at the same time, critical of the lack of support for chess in the Ukraine. Other countries such as China offer concessions and generous stipends to their top players.

[edit] National success

At the national Ukrainian Women's Championship, her progress and achievements have been noteworthy. In 2003 (Nikolaev) and 2004 (Alushta), she finished in fourth and sixth places respectively, thereafter becoming the champion at Alushta in 2005, and outperforming top seed Tatjana Vasilevich along the way. She almost repeated the success at Odessa in 2006, finishing second, but ahead of the higher rated Natalia Zhukova and Inna Gaponenko.[2]At these combined (men and women) events, she has defeated male grandmasters of the calibre of Anton Korobov and Oleg Romanishin and in the Ukraine was endowed with the title Honored Master of Sports.

[edit] Exceptional team performances

Her many successes in team chess reached an early pinnacle in 2006. At the Turin Women's Olympiad she was a part of the victorious Ukrainian team and remained undefeated throughout the contest. Ushenina and her compatriots Natalia Zhukova (also undefeated), Kateryna Lahno and Inna Gaponenko each scored between 70-80%, in what was a commanding performance, earning them team gold medals and much adulation in chess circles.[3]

For Ushenina, her earliest major medal-winning performance occurred in Balatonlelle, at the European Team Championship for Girls (under 18) in 2002, where she took team gold and individual silver on board 1. On another occasion at the 2007 Women's World Team Chess Championship in Yekaterinburg, she helped Ukraine to a bronze medal finish and added an individual bronze to her tally. She has also played twice at the European Team Championship, in 2005 and 2007. The team finished outside of the medal places each time, but for her personal performance, Ushenina took individual gold at the latter event, held in Heraklion, with 5/7.[4]

A very active league chess player, she regularly plays in the national leagues of France, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia.

Tournaments and titles

Tournament successes at Kiev in 2001 and Odessa in 2003, earned her the WGM title, awarded in 2003. Her Olympiad performance and subsequent results in Pardubice and Abu Dhabi (both 2006) then qualified her for the IM title, awarded in January 2007.

In the 'A2' section of the prestigious Aeroflot Open in Moscow 2007, she scored 5 points from the first 7 rounds, defeating three male grandmasters for a part performance rating of 2672. At the Women's European Individual Chess Championship, held 2008 in Plovdiv, she took the bronze medal, losing out 1-2 to Viktorija Cmilyte in a tie-break for silver. Playing at the Wijk aan Zee Corus 'C' (mixed) event of 2008, she found the standard very tough and finished towards the bottom of the Group, equal with Peng Zhaoqin on 4½/13. At the 2008 Moscow Open Women's event, run alongside the Aeroflot tournament, she took second place (after Anna Muzychuk, but ahead of Natalia Zhukova and Kateryna Lahno).[5]

In her spare time, she enjoys reading detective novels and listening to classical and pop music.

As of July 2008, Anna Ushenina had an Elo rating of 2476, placing her third behind Kateryna Lahno and Natalia Zhukova in the national listings and number 22 in the world among women.

Courtesy : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Ushenina

know about chess boxing rules

The chess boxing rules:

1.A chess boxing match starts at the chessboard. In this version of speed chess, each player has a total of 12 minutes in which to beat his opponent. During a player's turn, the clock is running. When he completes a move he stops his clock, and his opponent's clock starts ticking.

2.When the contestants have played four minutes of chess between them, the board game is suspended and they put on their gloves. The boxing is in three-minute rounds. After each boxing round, contestants have a one-minute rest before returning to the chessboard. The contest can last as long as five boxing rounds and six chess rounds.

3.If you knock your opponent out, the chess is over, too, and you win the match. If you beat your opponent at chess, then the boxing is over, and you win. In the case of a draw at the chessboard, the boxer with more points in the ring is declared the winner.

Chess Videos : Jeff Klinger Effinfunny Stand Up - Sexy Chess Moves

Funny Chess Video

Fide Rankings July 2008 : Anand on Top and big suprise Carlsen on sixth !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Despite sliding five points, World Champion Viswanathan Anand continued to reign supreme in the latest world rankings issued by the International Chess Federation (FIDE).
Magnus Carlsen is only sixth on the official FIDE list, although up-to-date rating calculations put him on a history-making second place. The media (and chess fans) assumed that would be his place on the FIDE list, but a missed deadline thwarted that. Alexander Morozevich is second Vassily Ivanchuk third. Here are the FIDE and the Live Rating lists.

Anand is followed by Russian Alexander Morozevich and his upcoming world championship match contender compatriot Vladimir Kramnik, both just 10 ELO points adrift of the Indian at ELO 2788.

Another up-and-comer is roller coaster Vassily Ivanchuk, who gained 41 points (in words: forty would you believe it one) from 25 games to jump from place 11 to place 4, four points ahead of number five, Veselin Topalov, who gained ten points from ten games.

Next in line is Magnus Carlsen, who just turned 17½ and, as everyone knows, is de facto number two in the world. Magnus won the Aerosvit tournament in Foros with a stunning 2877 performance, but the tournament ended four days after a deadline set by FIDE for submission of tournaments for the rating list (the 15th of the previous month). So Magnus has landed on place six, two points behind Topalov. Fortunately we now have a "Live List" which give accurate, up-to-the-minute ratings for players over 2700.

Links :

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4738

http://ratings.fide.com/toplist.phtml

http://chess.liverating.org/

Notable Changes

The list above includes all relevant events played. In the top of the list, we see that Morozevich has caught up with Kramnik, who hasn't played any games in this rating period. The reason for Morozevich being ranked ahead of Kramnik despite them having the exact same rating, is FIDE's tie-break criteria, which is number of games played. Moro won the big majority of his 14 point gain by winning Bosna Sarajevo in style, while snatching the final points needed in the Bosnia Herzegovina league competition. Ivanchuk has made a huge leap upwards after several strong events, mainly his break-out win in MTel, with a TPR of 2977 after an undefeated 8/10. The same event was miserable for Aronian, who ended up dropping out of top 10 for the first since time since April 2005. Topalov and Carlsen gained around 10 points each, but both were pushed one place down due to Ivanchuk's big leap.

In the lower half of the list, we can welcome several players to the 2700 club, most of them for the first time: Since the April list, Movsesian (2723), Gashimov (2717), Eljanov (2716), Dominguez (2708), Milov (2705) and Wang Yue (2704) have crossed the somewhat less magical 2700-border - the lesser magic explained by a record-breaking 29 players above 2700.

Chess Ladies : Anna Zatonskih

Anna Zatonskih (born Mariupol, Ukraine, June 17, 1978) is a chess player from the United States, where as of April 1, 2007, she has the 23rd highest Elo rating on the FIDE list among women (2462). She is a Woman Grandmaster, as well as an International Master. She is a chess professional, who coaches players and competes in tournaments. She is the 2006 and 2008 U.S. Women's Chess Champion.

Zatonskih learned chess at age five from her parents, who are both strong players. Her father Vitaly is rated about 2300, while her mother is a Candidate Master. Anna won against her mother for the first time at age 14.

Anna won many Ukrainian Girls' titles in several age categories. She was awarded the WGM title in 1999. She twice won the Ukrainian Women's Chess Championship, in 2001 and 2002. She represented Ukraine in two Chess Olympiads: in 2000 at Istanbul, she scored 7/11 (+5 =4 -2) on board two; and in 2002 at Bled, she scored 3.5/7 (+2 =3 -2) on board three.

She represented the U.S. in the Chess Olympiads of 2004 and 2006. The Americans won the team silver in 2004, their highest finish ever. Zatonskih won the United States Women's Championship in 2006 and 2008.

Chess Ladies : Zehra Topel

WIM Zehra Topel won the 2007 Turkey Women Championship after already being three-times Turkish U18 champion. This talented and perspective player was born on April 1987 in Shumen, Bulgaria and at the age of 8 she started visiting local chess club in Shumen after her mother taught her how to move pieces.

The family moved to Istanbul, Turkey on 1997 and on 2000 they were granted Turkish citizenship. Currently, Zehra is studying 2nd year of English Philology at the Istanbul University and she is member of the Istanbul Technical University chess club.