2012 U.S. Women's Chess Championship

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis is hosting the 2012 U.S. Chess Championships.  The women's event (invitational) will be a round robin:
The 2012 U.S. Women’s Championship will feature a guaranteed prize fund of $64,000 and 10 players, including:

• IM Anna Zatonskih (2563)
• IM Irina Krush (2500)
• WGM Camilla Baginskaite (2419)
• WGM Sabina Foisor (2413)
• WGM Tatev Abrahamyan (2350)
• WIM Viktorija Ni (2349)
• IM Rusudan Goletiani (2337)
• FM Alisa Melekhina (2321)
• WIM Iryna Zenyuk (2298)
• NM Alena Kats (2233)

WIM Viktorija Ni and NM Alena Kats make their first trip to the Championship. 

Play will begin May 8th and conclude on May 19th, with play-offs on May 20th if necessary. 

Anna Zatonskih and Irina Krush have been trading the title back and forth between themselves at least since the CCSC of St. Louis has taken over hosting the U.S. Championships.  Zatonskih will be defending her 2011 title.  Players bios and pics from CCSC of St. Louis:

IM Anna Zatonskih

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  33
• Residence:
  Germany
• Birthplace:
  Ukraine
• Rating:
  2563
• Title:
  International Master

Chess Highlights:

Four-Time U.S. Women’s Champion (2011, 2009, 2008, 2006); Gold Individual Medal in 2008 Chess Olympiad

Bio: Anna Zatonskih is a three-time U.S. Women's Champion. She came to Saint Louis to defend her title at last year's U.S. Women's Championship, but ran into stiff competition against IM Irina Krush who equaled Zatonskih with her third title. Two years ago, Zatonskih won the U.S. Women's Championship with a dominating score of 8.5/9 and took home $15,000. She'll have to bring another dominating performance to snatch the title away from Krush at this year's event. Zatonskih is described in a U.S. Chess Federation biography as an intense competitor who has trouble sleeping at night during tournaments because she ponders the next day’s games.

Anna said her chess highlights include the 2004 silver medal and the 2008 bronze she helped the U.S. team win at the Chess Olympics.

Outside of the chess, Anna has a variety of interests from bicycling to ping pong to scuba diving. She even played an underwater match while in scuba gear on a giant board. The game couldn’t go longer than 50 minutes, but she played to a draw. Coached by her husband, German Grandmaster Daniel Fridman, Anna comes into the tournament in the hopes of securing her fourth title.

IM Irina Krush

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  28
• Residence:
  Brooklyn, NY
• Birthplace:
  Ukraine
• Rating:
  2500
• Title:
  International Master

Chess Highlights:

Three-time U.S. Women’s Champion: 2010, 2007, 1998 (youngest winner ever at age 14); Member of 2004 Silver Medal U.S. Olympiad Team and 2008 Bronze Medal Team

Bio: Irina Krush looks forward to chess matches, but doesn’t spend much time contemplating her chess success or failures. “I’m more attached to my future accomplishments.” She said she enjoys the challenge of playing grandmasters most. “When you beat a strong GM, that's when you feel like you can play chess.” Krush was the only female player to compete in the 2010 U.S. Championship, and turned in an impressive 12th-place finish, narrowly missing another GM norm.

Her performance at last year's U.S. Women's Championship just a few months later delivered her third title and further cemented her as one the top players in the nation.

While Irina has a degree in international relations from NYU, she is currently concentrating on chess. In 2008 she received a Samford Chess Fellowship, allowing her to pursue chess full time. Eventually, she figures she will make a career out of chess by playing, teaching and writing about it. Becoming a top-flight chess player takes a lot of time.

But Irina is far from one-dimensional. On top of tennis, reading, writing and yoga, Irina has also immersed herself in the hip-hop scene.

Coming into the tourney second by rating, Krush looks to defend her U.S. Women's Championship title against IM Anna Zatonskih and six other strong competitors.

WGM Camilla Baginskaite

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  44
• Residence:
  Sioux Falls, SD
• Birthplace:
  Lithuania
• Rating:
  2419
• Title:
  Woman Grandmaster

Chess Highlights:

1987 World Under-20 Champion; 2000 U.S. Women’s Chess Champion; Six Chess Olympiads

Bio: Camilla's deep understanding of chess and years of experience at elite competitions like the Olympiad and the Women's World Championships makes her capable of major surprises despite being less active than many of her rivals. For instance, in the 2009 U.S. Women's Championship, Camilla took clear second place, winning some brilliant games in the process, and earning herself an IM norm.

These days, Camilla’s energies go largely toward her family. She is married to grandmaster Alex Yermolinsky, and has two children. Camilla has a master’s degree in art history and is studying to become an art teacher.

She is blunt when asked how she balances chess and the rest of her life: “There is no such thing as a good balance. You either do chess professionally or not.” But Camilla quickly adds that she’s not giving up on winning another championship, and vows to become a more aggressive player. Camilla is not about to let age get in the way of continuing to be a top player. She’s hopeful that 10 to 15 years from now, her name will still be on the list of U.S. Women’s Chess Championship invitees. “When the kids are out of the house,” Camilla figures, she will have more time to devote to chess.

WGM Sabina Foisor

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  22
• Residence:
  Baltimore, MD
• Birthplace:
  Romania
• Rating:
  2413
• Title:
  Woman Grandmaster

Chess Highlights:

Multiple Romania girls youth champion; 2004 Multiple Romanian and European champion in blitz and rapid; finished in top 20 at European Chess Championship in 2007, qualifying her for the World Chess Championship

Bio: Sabina Foisor has been a chess dynamo since starting around age 4. While her parents have been her biggest chess influence, she says her favorite players are Gary Kasparov and the late Bobby Fischer. Like many players, she has traveled the globe playing in tournaments, and she has participated in each of the past two U.S. Women's Championships (2010 and 2009). 2011 will mark her third appearance. Her main goal in chess is to become one of the top 20 women players in the world.
When not playing or training for chess, she likes to travel, read books, watch movies and hang out with friends. “Of course I can manage to balance chess with other things,” she says. She has many heroes outside of chess, including her family, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Sigmund Freud. After listing those three she added, “I will stop here because the list would be too large.”

One of her biggest challenges was moving to the U.S. to study at University of Maryland at Baltimore County, which has a strong chess program. Indeed, UMBC won the 2009 U.S. national collegiate title. At UMBC Foisor studies psychology, modern language and linguistics.

WGM Tatev Abrahamyan

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  24
• Residence:
  Glendale, CA
• Birthplace:
  Armenia
• Rating:
  2350
• Title:
  Woman Grandmaster

Chess Highlights:

2004 U.S. Women’s Championship Runner-Up; 2008 and 2005 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship Third Place; 2006 Pan-Am U18 (Perfect Score)

Bio: Tatev Abrahamyan started playing chess at 8 after her father took her to the Chess Olympiad games in 1996. There she met Grandmaster Judit Polgar, arguably the greatest woman player of all time and the only woman in the tournament. “I was in complete awe,” Tatev said. “My first thought was, ‘I want to be just like her.’” She was soon playing competitively among the top players her age in Europe and has played in the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship eight times.

But becoming a top chess player has not been easy. “The main problem is balancing school with chess. Even though college is the number one priority for me, I usually take time off to play in major events, like this one.” When she is not studying or playing chess, she likes to read, play tennis, travel, watch movies and hang out with friends.
Another big challege for Tatev was moving to the U.S. In fact, she said: “It was the biggest change in my life, and it happened in a very short period of time. Everything in my life changed in a matter of few months. I had to give up everything I knew and start a new life. Even though I have lived here for some time now, it was a very big adjustment, and I think a continuous one."

Tatev is a formidable competitor. At the 2010 U.S. Women's Championship she played her heart out to a fantastic 7/9 score, which would usually be enough to net first place, but actually put her in a tie for second place, half a point behind Irina Krush. Tatev's strong play and fighting qualities in 2010 earned her the 9 Queens/goddess chess fighting spirit award, which was selected by former Women's World Champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk."

WIM Viktorija Ni

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  20
• Residence:
  Chicago
• Birthplace:
  Latvia
• Rating:
  2349
• Title:
  Woman International Master

Chess Highlights:

2010 Chicago Open, WGM norm 2009 Czech Open, 1st Latvian Rapid Women's Championship (2004, 2005), 2009 Latvian Youth Champion, 1st European Rapid Championship Girls Under 18

Bio: Viktorija Ni learned chess at the age of 7 from her mother, Polina, who is an Expert. She earned the title of Woman FIDE Master (WFM) in 2007 and the Woman International Master (WIM) title in 2010, earning her final norm at the 19th Chicago Open. Viktorija represented Latvia twice at the Chess Olympiad (2008, 2010) on the women's team. She recently switched her federation form Latvia to the United States, and will be competing in her first-ever U.S. Women's Championship. Viktorija is a formidable competitor, coming into the tournament ranked 5th in the country by rating for Women. She is the spouse of 2012 U.S. Championship competitor GM Yury Shulman, and they both live just outside of Chicago with their son Gabriel. Their son was born during last year's U.S. Championship, in which Yury finished second.

IM Rusudan Goletiani

• Status:
  Invited
• Age:
  31
• Residence:
  Hartsdale, NY
• Birthplace:
  Georgia
• Rating:
  2337
• Title:
  International Master

Chess Highlights:

2005 U.S. Women's Champion, Soviet Union champion under age of 12; Georgian and Russian champion under 14; World Junior Champion under 14, 16, 18

Bio: For about as long as Rusudan Goletiani has been playing chess, she has been among the elite players, and that includes the ten years she has spent in the United States. The winner of the 2005 U.S. Women’s Championship says she can’t pick out one or two highlights that stand out. “Every accomplishment means a lot,” she says, adding that her ultimate chess goal is to become a grandmaster.

Rusudan considers the late, great Russian grandmaster Alexander Alekhine as her biggest chess influence and adds that outside of chess she admires “every person that works hard to achieve his or her goal.”

Outside of chess, Rusudan enjoys ping pong, reading and cooking. She is married with two children, but Rusudan says she doesn’t have much difficult fitting the rigors of chess into her daily life. “I wish I had more time for everything, but somehow I manage it all,” she says. Indeed, her most difficult challenge was moving – from her native country of Georgia to the New York when she was 19. “I did not have a family in New York, and did not know much English,” she says.

Two years ago, she took a break from the 2010 U.S. Women's Championship to have her second child, and she came back with a strong performance in 2011. She is hoping the 2012 event will bring her her second title.

WIM Iryna Zenyuk

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  25
• Residence:
  Pittsburgh, PA
• Birthplace:
  Ukraine
• Rating:
  2329
• Title:
  Woman International Master

Chess Highlights:

First Woman to Win Jerry Simon Memorial (2006); 2007 MVP of NY Knights Chess Team and Best 4th Board; 2450 Tournament Performance Rating in 2008 Berkeley International

Bio: Iryna Zenyuk has two huge goals in life: To be a chess champion and to help the environment. She has a good start on her chess goal, ranking as one of the top 10 women players in the U.S. And she is active with her second goal too, currently pursuing a master’s and eventually a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She plans to use the degree to develop ways to make renewable energy more prevalent. Iryna defines her interests this way: Chess is her love, it’s fun. But mechanical engineering will give her the means to give back to society.
Iryna will undoubtably fight hard for her passions, as she is used to that overcoming long odds and adversity. Iryna’s father died when she was 8 and her mother moved to the U.S., leaving her and her brother in the Ukraine alone until Iryna could join her 6 years later. “It taught me to be independent,” she says without a trace of bitterness.

Other interests play a big role in Iryna’s life too. Although only 5 feet 4, she was able to play volleyball in college. And these days dancing, particularly Latin and cha-cha, has become a main pursuit. Furthermore, she is friends with many of her chess competitors. “I have a lot of chess friends. We do the normal stuff: hang out, go to restaurants ... I don’t call myself solitary.”

FM Alisa Melekhina

• Status:
  Accepted
• Age:
  20
• Residence:
  Philadelphia, PA
• Birthplace:
  Ukraine
• Rating:
  2321
• Title:
  FIDE Master

Chess Highlights:

Represented the U.S. in Eight Consecutive World Youth Tournaments and Three Pan-American

 

Bio: Alisa Melekhina started playing at age 5 and entered her first tournament at age 7. In less than three years, she was winning prestigious international tournaments. the 2012 U.S. Women's Championship marks her fourth time competing for this sought-after title.

Alisa has already earned an International Master norm, which she considers her top chess accomplishment so far, but her ultimate goal is to become a grandmaster.

Alisa learned chess from her father, who was her first coach and remains a strong influence today.
Outside of chess, she is a ballerina, having studied dance for 12 years. But Alisa knows where her priorities lie: squarely with chess. “I try to maintain a flexible schedule, but chess always takes precedence, though I will have to concentrate more on school now that I am in college,” she said.
Alisa has had a remarkable year, picking up more than 50 USCF rating points since last year's U.S. Women's Championship. She will be a formidable opponent at this year's event.