Chess Femme News!

Armenian press continues to write about their Open and Women's Chess Olympiad Teams even though, with only 1 round to go, neither team  has a chance for a medal, despite going in with high hopes (particularly Armenia's Open Team). A great show of support for the home teams:

At Panarmenian.net
World Chess Olympiad last round scheduled for October 3


October 2, 2010 - 14:08 AMT 09:08 GMTPanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian men and women’s teams will rival France and Slovenia respectively in the last round of the World Chess Olympiad on October 3.

Men pairs are: Levon Aronian – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vladimir Akopian – Fressinet Laurent, Gabriel Sargissian – Vladislav Tkachiev, Arman Pashikian – Romain Edouard.

Women: Elina Danielyan – Anna Muzychuk, Lilit Mkrtchyan – Jana Krivec, Lilit Galoyan – Darja Kaps, Nelly Aghinyan - Vesna Rozic.

Currently, Armenian men’s team is 6th; women are in the 15th place.


Big news in Uganda as the Ugandan Women's Team defeats the Ethiopean Women:
CHESS: Uganda outwits Ethiopia
Friday, 1st October, 2010 E-mail article Print article
By Phillip Corry


Chessbase's report on Round 10 Action: Ukraine Crushes France; Russian Women are Gold
01 10 2010


Chessdom's report on Russian Women Win Gold with One Round to Go, including interesting information on how the tie-breaks are calculated


Chessvibe's report on Round 10 and the Russian Women's Victory.  Kudos to Chessvibes for putting up a selection of women's games, even though they are at the very bottom of the scroll-down list - see the list near bottom of article linked.  I believe that if the games were stripped of identification markers so that we were not able to readily pick out "Grandmaster so and so's game v. Grandmaster so and so" the ranking of these games in terms of interesting play would be a lot different! Some folks might be able to pick out a few games that exhibit tell-tale markers of the play of certain GMs, but overall, the average (and even above-average) player would not be able to discern a gender turn in the moves.  The bias against "women's chess" is so silly. 




IM Dronavalli Harika of India,
contemplative before a game

 Mainstream press coverage of the Indian Women's Team loss to China, which put them out of medal contention:
Indian eves out of medal contention
PTI, Oct 2, 2010, 11.30am IST
The Times of India

Indian Women played without the presence of the second highest rated female player in the world:  GM Koneru Humpy.  Certainly Humpy is good enough to play on the Open Team, and may have aided in that team's quest for a medal. I don't doubt that she would have been a valuable addition to the Indian Women's Team.  I don't know or care who is "right" or "wrong" in the dispute between Koneru and the official chess federation of India (the official federation at the moment - there is another organization contending for that role) - I just find it very sad because, ultimately, the game of chess itself and chess fans everywhere are the losers.  Frankly, in a game that is struggling for financial support and where all except the top few players in the world cannot make a living doing what they love and are best at, no one (that includes organizations) can afford to offend the game and its audience these days!  Like - duh!

Press coverage of the Vietnamese Women's Team:
Vietnamese girls shine at World Chess Olympics
Nhan Dan (not dated)