2008 European Individual Chess Championships

Hola! I'm too tired to do the update to Chess Femme News tonight so I'm posting the info on Round 4 Women here - top 20 finishers: Rank Name IRtg FED Pts BH. BH. vict Fide Rtg+/- 1 IM Kovalevskaya Ekaterina 2421 RUS 4,0 4,0 9,0 4 10,0 13 2 IM Cmilyte Viktorija 2466 LTU 3,5 5,5 10,0 3 9,5 9 3 Kazimova Narmin 2071 AZE 3,5 5,0 10,5 3 9,0 73 4 GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2538 BUL 3,5 5,0 9,5 3 8,5 5 5 IM Peptan Corina-Isabela 2415 ROU 3,5 4,5 10,0 3 9,5 9 6 IM Muzychuk Anna 2486 SLO 3,5 4,5 9,0 3 8,5 8 7 GM Lahno Kateryna 2479 UKR 3,5 4,5 8,5 3 9,0 8 IM Dzagnidze Nana 2443 GEO 3,5 4,5 8,5 3 9,0 9 9 GM Cramling Pia 2539 SWE 3,0 5,5 11,0 2 7,5 -2 10 WGM Stepovaia Tatiana 2378 RUS 3,0 5,5 10,5 2 8,5 6 11 IM Gvetadze Sopio 2350 GEO 3,0 5,5 10,5 2 8,0 18 12 IM Mkrtchian Lilit 2413 ARM 3,0 5,5 10,0 2 8,5 7 13 WIM Nemcova Katerina 2344 CZE 3,0 5,5 9,5 3 9,0 18 14 IM Ushenina Anna 2474 UKR 3,0 5,0 10,0 2 8,5 1 15 IM Matveeva Svetlana 2420 RUS 3,0 5,0 10,0 2 8,0 4 16 WGM Zhukova Natalia 2450 UKR 3,0 4,5 9,5 2 8,5 4 17 IM Danielian Elina 2479 ARM 3,0 4,5 9,0 3 7,0 1 18 IM Paehtz Elisabeth 2449 GER 3,0 4,5 9,0 2 8,0 3 IM Lomineishvili Maia 2400 GEO 3,0 4,5 9,0 2 8,0 6 20 IM Vasilevich Tatjana 2360 UKR 3,0 4,0 8,5 3 9,0 6 As you can see, the "usual suspects" are in the top rankings after Round 4 - but the big story is Narmin Kazimova. Who? I'd never heard of her - nor recall seeing her name crop up in tournament reports. So who the heck is she and how is she managing to stay on par with the top players given her vastly inferior ELO??? There must be a story there, darlings! Ohmygoddess, she's a baby! According to the official FIDE website, she was born in 1993! Her first FIDE-rated games showed up in January, 2006 - from the 2004 World Youth Chess Championships U-12! There was no reported activity before or after, until 3 events for all of 2007. She played in the World Youth Chess Championships in Turkey in November, 2007 where she scored 5.5/9; and four tournaments in Azerbaijan in late 2007 (2) and early 2008 (2). In this event, in Round 4, Kazimova (W) defeated WGM Salome Melia (GEO 2413) (B); in Round 3, Kazimova (B) drew with GM Pia Cramling (W); in Round 2 she defeated WGM Baira Kovanova Baira (RUS 2372) (B); in Round 1 she (B) defeated WFM Ekaterina Akatova (RUS 2320)(W). Can she keep it up?