2007 U.S. Women's Chess Championship - Day 1

Round 1 is finished, Round 2 is underway: Results Round 1: 1. Anna Zatonskih 1-0 Alisa Melekhina 2. Tsagaan Battsetseg 1-0 Elizabeth Vicary 3. Chouchanik Airapetian 0-1 Camilla Baginskaite 4. Irina Krush ½-½ Batchimeg Tuvshintugs 5. Katerina Rohonyan 1-0 Abrahamyan I caught snatches of the game at the office but - for obvious reasons - I couldn't spend ALL afternoon glued to the computer screen trying to scry out what was going on. I'm a patzer wannabe and I make no bones that when it comes to chess I know very little - I can play the game, that's about it! So, based on my powers of limited observation and actually no knowledge whatsoever of opening theory, middle game or end game, I can say that it appeared to my eyes that Melekhina and Vicary fought long and hard, especially Vicary - she had the longest game behind the black pieces by far but in the end she succumbed to what appeared to me to be an amazing mating attack Battsetseg. Four decisive results and one draw - and I see already that in Round 2 that Krush has another draw, this time with Baginskaite - a short draw, after 16 1/2 moves. These two are some of the "veterans," with lots of experience from prior Championships. My guess is that they're conserving energy for the new rounds tomorrow, and they'll figure the younger players will bash each other's brains out for the first few days and then collapse from exhaustion and be easier pickings. We'll see if I'm right... Results from Round 2: 1. Alisa Melekhina ½-½ Tatev Abrahamyan 2. Batchimeg Tuvshintugs ½-½ Katerina Rohonyan 3. Camilla Baginskaite ½-½ Irina Krush 4. Elizabeth Vicary 1-0 Chouchanik Airapetian 5. Anna Zatonskih ½-½ Tsagaan Battsetseg Update added July 17th: Check out Jen Shahade's commentary and coverage at Chesslife Online, including several photographs of the chess femmes.