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Written by MonRoi Support on
Thu, Sep 18 2008 (23:24)
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GM Alexandra Kosteniuk drew in the fourth game of the 2008 World Chess Championship finals with WGM Yifan Hao of China to win the coveted diamond studded crown and a prize money of $60,000. Number one world ranked women’s chess player GM Judith Polgar of Hungary, number three GM Jun Xie of China, and number seven IM Marie Sebag of France did not participate, while number two world ranked women’s chess player GM Koneru Humpy of India and number six GM Pia Cramling of Sweden lost in semi-finals.
Kosteniuk became the first Russian to win the title in almost 45 years after Elisabeth Bykova held it from 1958 to 1962. Alexandra is a chess Grandmaster with a FIDE rating of 2510, presently ranked tenth in the women chess world, according to FIDE’s July rating list. 
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Written by Stewart Reuben on
Sun, Jan 20 2008 (15:37)
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Female chess used to be regarded as something of a curiosity. A good Trivial Pursuits quiz is, ‘We know the first World Junior Chess Championship was held in Birmingham in 1951. When was the first World Girls Championship held?’ The answer is in 1927 and, of course, in England . Vera Menchik won it the same year as she went on to win the First Women’s World Championship. Presumably there was considerable interest in female chess in this era because Vera came to live in England . In truth, nearly all the entrants were British. The event died with the advent of the Second World War and was only revived in the 1970s. We had to wait for Harriet Hunt to win the World Girls Under 20 Championship 50 year after Rowena Drew (later Bruce). Elaine Saunders (now Pritchard) is one of the girls who gained the title before the Second World War and she is still very much alive, though not now playing chess competitively. |
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Women in Chess
