Women's Grand Prix: Ataturk Tournament

It's confirmed! There was a press release from FIDE yesterday that the Ataturk Tournament is the first stop on the Women's Grand Prix that will take place over 2009 and 2010. Will it hold up - who knows? The Men's Grand Prix did not! What chance does the Women's Grand Prix have under current economic conditions? I'm just glad to see the Women's Ataturk Tournament back again - it was a fantastic event last year, won by Hou Yifan with 7 of 9. Turkey is serious about encouraging its people to take up chess and emerging as a chess power in the world, and it has many very promising players rising in the ranks on the international competitive circuit. To see a chess federation putting forward such effort, commitment and putting substantial funds on the line from supporters, members, sponsors and the government to promote chess - it warms my heart. If only USCF would get the hint (hint hint). You can find the full press release here. Here are the participants in the 2009 Ataturk Women Masters Tournament: GM Humpy Koneru 2621 GM Yifan Hou 2571 GM Antoaneta Stefanova 2557 GM Pia Cramling 2548 GM Marie Sebag 2529 GM Maia Chiburdanidze 2516 GM Zhao Xue 2508 GM Zhu Chen 2496 IM Elina Danielian 2496 WGM Shen Yang 2448 WGM Zeinab Mamedjarova 2362 WIM Betül Cemre Yıldız 2214 Average ELO: 2488 The action begins March 6, 2009. The sponsor of the event is Türkiye İş Bankası. The event will be held in Is Sanat Gallery (Is Bankası Art Gallery) on the entrance floor of İş Bank Towers in Istanbul. Opening Ceremony will be held on the 41st floor of Is Bank Towers which is the highest place of Istanbul and Southern Europe. İş Bankası is the corporate sponsor of the Turkish Chess Federation and supports the Turkish Chess in School Curriculum for the last four years.

2008 Ataturk International Women Masters Chess Tournament

Coverage at Chessbase. Final standings after Round 9: No. Name FED Rtg Pts Rtg+/- 1 WGM Hou Yifan CHN 2527 7.0 17 2 GM Pia Cramling SWE 2524 6.0 7 3 WGM Zhao Xue CHN 2517 5.5 3 4 IM Ekaterina Atalik TUR 2408 5.0 13 5 IM Lela Javakhishvili GEO 2470 4.5 -1 6 IM Harika Dronavalli IND 2455 4.0 -4 7 GM Zhu Chen QAT 2548 4.0 -16 8 IM Anna Ushenina UKR 2484 3.0 -18 9 IM Irina Krush USA 2473 3.5 -11 10 WIM Betul Cemre Yildiz TUR 2207 2.5 15 Hmmm, not a good event for Harika (-4), Zhu Chen (-16!), Ushenina (-18! - a nasty fall from her excellent play at Aeroflot) and Krush (-11 - maybe she needs to put back some of the weight she lost, I think she looks a bit too thin to be comfortable sitting on a chair for long periods of time). Contrats to Hou Yifan, and to Atalik, who gave a very good performance on her adopted home turf.

2008 Ataturk International Women Masters Chess Tournament

Standings after Round 8: Rank SNo. Name Rtg FED Pts Res. SB. vict 1 7 WGM YIFAN Hou 2527 CHN 6½ 0 22,75 5 2 6 GM CRAMLING Pia 2524 SWE 5½ 0 21,00 4 3 2 IM ATALIK Ekaterina 2408 TUR 5 0 15,00 4 4 8 WGM XUE Zhao 2517 CHN 4½ 0 15,75 3 5 3 IM JAVAKHISHVILI Lela 2470 GEO 4 0 16,75 2 6 9 IM DRONAVALLI Harika 2455 IND 3½ 0 13,25 2 7 1 IM KRUSH Irina 2473 USA 3 1 11,50 1 8 10 GM CHEN Zhu 2548 QAT 3 0 11,25 2 9 4 IM USHENINA Anna 2484 UKR 2½ 1 7,50 1 10 5 WIM YILDIZ Betul Cemre 2207 TUR 2½ 0 8,75 2

2008 Ataturk International Women Masters Chess Tournament

Sponsored by Isbank Standings after Round 7: Rank SNo. Name Rtg FED Pts Res. SB. vict 1 6 GM CRAMLING Pia 2524 SWE 5½ ½ 19,00 4 2 7 WGM YIFAN Hou 2527 CHN 5½ ½ 15,25 4 3 2 IM ATALIK Ekaterina 2408 TUR 5 0 12,50 4 4 8 WGM XUE Zhao 2517 CHN 3½ ½ 11,25 2 5 9 IM DRONAVALLI Harika 2455 IND 3½ ½ 10,25 2 6 1 IM KRUSH Irina 2473 USA 3 ½ 9,50 1 7 3 IM JAVAKHISHVILI Lela 2470 GEO 3 ½ 9,25 1 8 5 WIM YILDIZ Betul Cemre 2207 TUR 2½ 0 7,75 2 9 10 GM CHEN Zhu 2548 QAT 2 0 5,75 1 10 4 IM USHENINA Anna 2484 UKR 1½ 0 4,00 0

Atatürk International Women Masters Chess Tournament

Although this article is dated March 18th, it seems to be a bit dated, since the event has already begun! However, it contains lots of good information about the Ataturk International Women Masters as well as women's chess in Turkey. Enjoy! New women’s chess tournament seeks to get girls into the game The Turkish Chess Federation and İş Bank are organizing the first of what is hoped to be a tradition of major international women's events in İstanbul, aiming in the long run to become one of the most renowned tournaments in women's chess and also help promote women's chess in Turkey and raise more talented females to win medals in the Chess Olympiads. Some of the world's best chess players were in İstanbul to compete in the first Türkiye İş Bank Atatürk International Women Masters Chess Tournament on Tuesday. Ten female players with ELO ratings -- the system of grading in chess -- above 2460 will be competing for 10 days in İstanbul. İş Bank, one of Turkey's oldest banks, and the Turkish Chess Federation believe that the tournament will become one of the world's most esteemed in no time. Two players in the tournament are Grand Masters (GM), three have Women Grand Master (WGM) titles, one holds a WGM and an International Master (IM), three hold the title of International Master and one holds Women's International Master (WIM). Some of the world's best female chess players, including GM Pia Cramling of Sweden and GM Zhu Chen of China, are competing in the tournament. İş Bank has been sponsoring the Turkish Chess Federation's activities since 2005 and is now very proud to be hosting this particular tournament, said Suat Sözen, İş Bank's public relations manager, in a speech made to the press on opening day. "The tournament title bears Atatürk's name, and it is important for us. We think of it as an important opportunity to remember one more time the value he gave him to women," he said. But is it not humiliating for women to have these separate chess championships? "I think there is absolutely no difference between men and women in chess," says Cramling, who was also the first woman ever to qualify for the ("Men's") World Championship cycle. "However, the problem is there are so few women chess players. Only 5 percent of the world's [registered] players are women," told Cramling who regularly plays on the Swedish ("Men's") team in the World Chess Olympiads, told Today's Zaman. She started playing chess at the age of 10 after she saw her brother play and says these women-only tournaments bring together female players, who are grossly outnumbered by their male counterparts, giving them the opportunity to meet each other and also making for good practice, giving women twice as many changes to play in tournaments. Cramling said that for now, there are benefits to these women's tournaments. However when there are more women chess players, such tournaments will no longer be necessary, she said. Cramling ties the recent success of Chinese women in chess to the increasing popularity of the sport to Xie Jun, a Chinese GM who became the Women's World Chess Champion in 1991 and repeated the achievement in 1996, making her only the second woman to hold this title twice. Her success worked wonders in popularizing chess in China. Ten players from eight countries are competing in the tournament being held on the 41st floor of İş Towers in İstanbul. The players in the tournament are Sweden's (GM) Cramling, China's (GM) Zhu Chen, (WGM) Xue Zhao, (WGM) Hou Yifan, Georgia's (WGM-IM) Lela Javakhisvili, Ukraine's (IM) Anna Ushenina and (IM) Irina Krush, India's (WGM) Harika Dronovalli and Turkey's (IM) Ekatarina Atalık, who holds the 2006 Europe Championship title and (WIM) Betül Cemre Yıldız, who placed third at the 2007 World Youth Chess Championship. On Tuesday, the players played the first round after drawing lots. The games can be viewed online on the Chess Federation's Web site at www.tsf.org.tr. The federation certainly hopes that the İş Bank Atatürk tournament will work to popularize chess in Turkey. Federation head Ali Nihat Yazıcı said at a press conference on the tournament's opening day that Turkey, with 137,000 licensed chess players, was doing increasingly well in the younger age categories. "One-third of the licensed players are girls and women, something that is very pleasing," he said. Turkey's women chess players Women have been doing increasingly well in international tournaments in the past few years. In fact, Turkey's two best chess masters are currently two young women. These stars are WIM Betül Cemre Yıldız and WFM (Women's FIDE Master, FIDE is the World Chess Federation) Kübra Öztürk. Betül is now 18 years old and has been playing chess since she was eight. She has three elder brothers, all of whom play chess, and together they run a chess center in İzmir. Betül is studying both law and management at two different universities, thanks to chess scholarships. Once a prodigy in Turkey, she won the Turkish title in her age group just one year after she started playing chess. Betül won five Turkish Women's championship titles in a row, between 2001 and 2006. Kübra, who is only 16, has already become one of the sports celebrities of Turkey. She won two consecutive European titles in the Under 16 section, which attracted great attention in the media. She started playing chess at the age of seven. She says that it was a very instructive experience to go abroad for the first time in 1999 for the World Youth Championship in Under 10. Kübra's story makes her very popular in Turkey. Born and raised in an Ankara shantytown, Kübra is now a rising star of the chess world and has already won scholarships to US universities due to her success in the game.

2008 Ataturk International Women Masters Chess Tournament

I'm too tired to report on this tonight, darlings. Susan Polgar has a report on the current results and standings after Round 3: 1-3. GM CRAMLING Pia 2524 SWE 2½ WGM YIFAN Hou 2527 CHN 2½ IM ATALIK Ekaterina 2408 TUR 2½ 4-6 IM KRUSH Irina 2473 USA 2 IM DRONAVALLI Harika 2455 IND 2 WGM XUE Zhao 2517 CHN 2 7 IM JAVAKHISHVILI Lela 2470 GEO 1½ 8-10 IM USHENINA Anna 2484 UKR 0 WIM YILDIZ Betul Cemre 2207 TUR 0 GM CHEN Zhu 2548 QAT 0 Whoa! After the great chess Ushenina played at Aeroflot in the Women's section (finished 2nd place women's) it's a shock to see her with zero points after 3 rounds. What's going on? On the other hand, I feel somewhat prescient (ahem) when I pointed out in my Chessville column (posted March, 2008) that Ekaterina Atalik could not be counted out of a good showing at this event. Hey - not so smart on my part (despite flashes of brilliance by Atalik) - she's playing on home turf for a home (adopted home) crowd!

Chess News Update

Hola darlings! The İş Bankası - Atatürk International Women Masters Chess Tournament featuring a super-star line-up of chess femmes from around the world starts tomorrow (Game 1): 1 Cramling, Pia G SWE 2531 2 Zhu Chen GM QAT 2531 3 Zhao Xue WGM CHN 2530 4 Hou Yifan WGM CHN 2502 5 Ushenina, Anna IM UKR 2486 6 Harika, Dronavalli WGM IND 2480 7 Krush, Irina IM USA 2475 8 Javakhishvili, Lela IM GEO 2474 9 Atalık, Katerina IM TUR 2404 10 Betul Cemre Yildiz WIM TUR 2220 So! I don't know whom to root for! I like equally Cramling, Hou, Ushenina, Dronavalli, Krush and Atalik. Well - maybe a multi-way tie for first!!! Chessbase has a lovely article on the event (lots of great photos) featuring several young Turkish chess femmes - they are all so beautiful, they just make me smile. There are some chess hommes too :) * * * * * GM Susan Polgar was one of six women who received a special Commendation from the City of New York Comptroller: Each woman was chosen for her expertise in her field; the respect accorded her by her peers and colleagues; her commitment to serving others; and her demonstrated commitment to making New York City a more vibrant, inclusive and healthy place to live. Congratulations to GM Susan Polgar and the other recipients of this special award! * * * * * Photo of Beyonce as Etta James in the upcoming film (Chess Records in the old days). I recently saw Etta perform on Austin City Limits on PBS - 70 years old and the voice is a bit more gravelly, and she sits down during some of her performance, but the soul that reaches out and grabs you by the throat is stronger than ever. She put on a fabulous show. And looks great! Sorry Beyonce, I don't think you have the voice and no where near the presence that Miss Etta has. * * * * * My March, 2008 column is now up and running at Chessville!