Thursday, March 12, 2009

41st International Women Chess Tournament

Full report at Chessdom.com Thank you, Chessdom, for reporting this event. 41st International Women Chess Tournament 3-11th March in Belgrade, Serbia The 41st International Women Chess Tournament took place on 3-11th March in Belgrade. One of the longest running chess tournaments in the world, established back in 1963, is celebrating 8th March - International Women's Day. Following the last decade's decline in sponsorship, the event is slowly losing on significance, and the calendar is already seized by the Ataturk Tournament, now even raised to Grand Prix level by FIDE. In addition, the ECU has scheduled European Women Chess Championship in the same time frame. [Way to go, FIDE - IRONY INTENDED] Thus, even Serbian Champion WGM Andjelija Stojanovic decided to play in St. Petersburg [at the European Women's Chess Championship], in the tournament which is a qualifier in the world championship cycle. Final standings: 1-2. WGM Benderac Ana 2304 SRB and WGM Chelushkina Irina 2359 SRB - 6.0 3-5. WGM Maksimovic Suzana 2284 SRB, IM Petrenko Svetlana 2251 MDA and Rakic Marija 2284 SRB - 5.5 6. WGM Cosma Elena-Luminita 2343 ROU - 4.5 7. WGM Voiska Margarita 2339 BUL - 4.0 8. WGM Meenakshi Subbaraman 2327 IND - 3.5 9. Djukic Sandra 2196 SRB - 2.5 10. WFM Eric Jovana 2126 SRB - 2.0

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pleasure :)

There is another nice event in Rijeka, Croatia - "Mediterranean Flowers" women chess tournament

http://sah.posluh.hr/draga/rijeka/rijeka.htm

Goran
Chessdom

John Stratford said...

Why do women need to have a separate chess tournament? Why don't they play with the men?

Jan said...

Hi John Stratford,

Why don't the women play with the men? Well, many more women do play in the "open" events now than ever before, and as more and more females take to the chessboards in an attempt to make a living (like men do), you'll see even more of them. But as long as women are such a minority - some 7% of ALL chessplayers - and since many of them are, for one reason or another, in the lower ELO ranks, it behooves them to play in women only events where at least they are assured of earning SOME prize money. Consider it a form of affirmative action.

I've mixed feelings about it. When I first started following chess some 10 years ago, I was aghast that women felt it incumbent to play in women-only events - ghettoes, I called them, where women with low ELOs played other women with low ELOs and no matter how excellent their play was, they were locked into a cycle of low ELOs.

But my views have mellowed some since then, because of what I've read from the experiences of so many female players - some stars, some not - sexual harrassment and discrimination. Oh, I'm not going to cry the blues about it, and there are plenty of tough chess femmes out there who can dish out as much as they receive, and even better. But for the average chess femme, a lot of them just feel more comfortable playing against other women players, and they know in such a setting they won't have to put up with the baloney and crap that some male players feel incumbent upon themselves to dish out to anyone who doesn't have a penis. Until that changes (will it ever???), women-only events will continue to be funded and held.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...