I Have Found Tatjana Plachkinova!

Hola everyone! Ever since June, 2009, I have been looking for Tatjana, whom I fondly remembered as a young female chessplayer from Bulgaria that I "met" online through IM Ricardo Calvo (rest his soul). While my first independent website called Chessgoddesses.com was online (2001 to sometime in 2004), Tatjana periodically provided me with reports of the tournaments she was playing in and also annotated some of her games. Tatjana, along with Shira Evans reporting states-side, were two chess femmes who made my flegdling site Chessgoddesses.com very popular at the time. It is hard to remember now, because I took Chessgoddessess offline sometime in 2004, and I deleted all of my files related to that website. Really dumb - yes, I know! I deleted the photographs I had, and all of TJ's reports -- I think there were about six or seven, in all. This blogpost started my hunt for Shira Evans and Tatjana Plachkinova. I didn't write about it here, but after I located Shira and re-established contact with her, I continued to hunt for Tatjana Plachinova. The only problem was - I was not spelling her name correctly! DUH! Today, and I don't know why - during my lunch hour I once again hunted for Tatjana Plachinova, and came up with zero on Google. So, this time, I added a "k" to her last name, and - lo and behold - I found her! (Photo: From 2008 European Women's Individual Chess Championship at Plovdid, by Chessbase - TJ is on the left) Birthday 7/12/81, her first name is also sometimes spelled Tatyana and Tatiana. TJ (this is what I called her in my emails) is still playing chess, although sporadically. Now that I am spelling her name correctly, I easily located her FIDE record. She has the WIM title (earned in 2003) and a current FIDE rating of 2148, and is still playing under the Bulgarian flag. TJ's two most recent FIDE rated events: The Campeonato de Catalnya d'Equipos Primera Division G-I between March 1, 2009 and March 29, 2009. I think it must be a league because they played over too long to a period to be a tournament! She finished with 4.0/9. The Hogeschool Zeeland Chess Tournament 2009 (250 players) August 1 - 8, 2009, she finished with 4.5/9. During our last contact, I remembered that TJ was going with GM Artur Kogan, who lived in Spain. I think they got married and have a child - that would account for the drop off in TJ's playing time, as motherhood and marriage is time consuming and becomes the first priority. It is very difficult for female chessplayers who are married and mothers to pursue their chess careers as professionals. Check this out - I found this game TJ played against Magnus Carlsen in 2001 (yes, THE Magnus Carlsen, the kid born in 1990 who looks like he will break the 2800 ELO barrier this year, the same Magnus Carlsen currently under the tutledge of Kasparov). Game Site: Bergen Date: 08/10/2001 Round: 7 Score: 0-1 ECO: D10 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav defence 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 dxc4 5. a4 Bg4 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4 Bb4 8. Qb3 a5 9. Ne5 Bh5 10. O-O Qc7 11. e4 O-O 12. Bf4 Qe7 13. Rfe1 Nbd7 14. Re3 Nxe5 15. dxe5 Nd7 16. Rg3 Nc5 17. Qc2 Bg6 18. Qe2 Bxc3 19. bxc3 Bxe4 20. Rd1 Bg6 21. Bg5 Qc7 22. h4 Ne4 23. h5 Nxg3 24. fxg3 Bf5 25. g4 Bc2 26. Qxc2 Qxe5 27. Be7 Rfe8 28. Bd6 Qe3+ 29. Kh2 Rad8 30. Bg3 h6 31. Qb3 Qc5 32. Rf1 Rd7 33. Be2 Red8 34. Bf3 b5 35. Bf2 bxa4 36. Qxa4 Qxc3 37. Qxc6 Qxc6 38. Bxc6 Rd1 39. Kg1 f6 40. Bb5 Kf7 41. Be3 Rxf1+ 42. Kxf1 Rb8 43. Bc6 Rb4 44. Bd2 Rc4 45. Bf3 a4 46. Be2 Rc2 47. Bb4 Rb2 48. Bd6 Rb1+ 49. Kf2 Rb3 0-1 TJ has bragging rights against a player who is probably a future World Chess Champion!