IM/WGM Rusudan Goletiani - USA

In case you haven't heard the news by now, at the Dresden Chess Olympiad (November, 2008) the USA Women's Chess Team won a Team Bronze Medal. Adding icing to the beautiful cake, an individual Gold Medal was won by Anna Zatonskih (current U.S. Women's Chess Champion) and an individual Silver Medal by Rusudan Goletiani for their respective board performances. Hooray for USA! (BTW, the USA Men's Chess Team also won a Team Bronze Medal.) This was the second Women's Team Medal EVER won by a U.S. team. GM Susan Polgar led the way for the U.S. Women's Team at the 2004 Chess Olympiad to win the FIRST EVER Team Silver Medal, and GM Polgar earned yet another individual Gold Medal for her performance at that Olympiad. In 2006 the U.S. Women's Team had to settle for 4th place overall, losing a Team Medal by a hair. The U.S. Women's Team came back with a vengence this year! You can read all about it at Chess Femme News. The USCF's print magazine, Chess Life, for February 2009 features Goletiani on the cover, as part of a feature story at its website (you must be a member to access). Now, Jennifer Shahade, one of the ground-breaking chess femmes on that 2004 U.S. Women's Chess Olympiad Team, has a sit-down interview with Goletiani also online at the USCF website that everyone can read (no membership required). Please check out both articles, and learn more about women chessplayers in the United States.

Article on Rusudan Goletiani

A great article on one of the Bronze Medal winners for the U.S. Women's Chess Olympiad Team (Dresden 2008). Yaaahhhhh! (Photo: Goletiani at the 2008 Scandanavian Womens Open). From LoHud.com (Lower Hudson Valley, New York) Master resumes classes in Westchester By Stacy A. Anderson • The Journal News • January 11, 2009 HARTSDALE - Rusudan "Rusa" Goletiani, 28, has defeated some of the best chess players in the world. Just back from her most recent accomplishment - taking a silver individual medal and sharing the bronze with the U.S. Women's Chess Team at the World Chess Olympics in Germany, she resumes teaching the game to students from age 5 to senior citizens at the Westchester Chess Academy today. Goletiani said competing as a team member was more challenging than playing for herself, since she didn't want to let others down. "It puts more pressure on you because you are not only playing for yourself, but playing for the team," she said. "But Russia and China are very strong, so it was a big accomplishment for us." The Hartsdale resident, co-director of the Westchester academy, grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, where her father taught her chess when she was 6 (the Georgia team took the gold medal in Germany). By age 9, Goletiani had won the Soviet Junior Championship for girls and was the Soviet representative in the 1990 World Youth Chess Tournament for Peace in Wisconsin. As a teen, she won two Russian championships and three world junior championships. For the love of chess and to seek a better life, she moved to the United States in 2000 when she was 19. She lived in Brooklyn and began learning English before working as an instructor at a chess camp in Pennsylvania. Goletiani then moved to Yonkers and began giving private lessons while working as a baby sitter and housekeeper for a Scarsdale family. A chance meeting with the children's chess teacher landed her a job as an instructor in public school programs through the National Scholastic Chess Foundation. "He said, 'What are you doing here,' " Goletiani said with a laugh, as she recalled defeating the teacher in two games. She continued teaching at local schools while competing professionally. She won the North and South American Continental Chess Championship in Venezuela in 2003. The same year, she married Mancho Surguladze and moved to Hartsdale. In 2005, Goletiani won the U.S. Women's Championship in San Diego. She placed second the following year. After three years of teaching through the foundation, Goletiani and a colleague, Mike Amori, started the Westchester Chess Academy in Rye. The school teaches about 50 students each semester from Westchester, Connecticut and the Bronx. "We share the same philosophies," said Amori, who has taught chess for 12 years. "It's hard work, and you have to train and get past what's available at the surface. You have to make a commitment and push it." "In chess," Goletiani added, "You need to be pushed to the next level. We both love chess a lot, and we both love working with kids. "As long as they are interested, the age doesn't matter," she said. Goletiani took a break from competition to have her daughter, Sophie, in 2007. She returned to open tournament competing last year and placed third in the country, qualifying to compete in the World Chess Olympics a second time. Goletiani said winning two medals in Germany was a worthwhile achievement. She played 11 rounds, about five hours each, during the world games. "At the end, when you win, you feel content because the hard work has paid off," she said. Her students, including Scarsdale resident Fred Wang, also appreciate her talent and hard work. He played chess as child and took it up again after a 40-year hiatus. Wang, who has taken lessons with Goletiani for two years, referred to her as a hidden treasure. "She brings tremendous vibrancy and calculating abilities," he said. "She makes the game exciting."

2008 Chess Olympiad: Some Final Thoughts

It's all over for another two years, thank Goddess! I am now wracking my brain trying to figure out how I can possibly report on all of the news on the chess femmes in this Olympiad in my final column for Chessville. Well, I guess I'll have to make it the biggest (and hopefully the best) column yet, with a special section devoted entirely to the Olympiad. I still have a few days, it's not due to be published until the beginning of December. I foresee a four-day weekend of sleepless nights... There are now a wide variety of websites that provide first-class information on chess events - some more timely than others (but for those less "timely", always worth the wait, darlings). Here are those I am most familiar with - by no means all of the sites that provide news and insight into the happenings in the world of chess. Special thanks and unending admiration for the following - how the hell do they do what they do day after day after day...

• Kudos to GM Susan Polgar who did triple-duty - not only reporting information at her blog, but also serving as Chess Ambassador and English-Language Press Liason, as well as holding great interviews daily with players and personalities from the Olympiad. Thanks also to Paul Truong, the official photographer for this Olympiad, for his fantastic and candid photographs, round after round, from off days, the official opening, the official close, and everything in-between. I am appreciative of the great job that both Polgar and Truong did.
• I was very happy that Chessdom went back to its "live" blog for coverage of Round 11. I did not like the "live chat" experiment - most of the comments were boring, common, and disjointed. It was hard to follow what was going on. In the "live" blog, on the other hand, it was easy to follow the action as the time counted down toward the end of the games.
• The Week in Chess has set the standard ever since I've been online (December, 1998) and no doubt from before! Mark Crowthers lets nothing stand in his way of going the extra mile, whether it be going over games move by move to create and/or correct PGN notations or correctly identifying otherwise sometimes obscure players.
• I was very impressed with Chess Vibes - very current reports, great photographs and a slamming lay-out. How'd you do that?
• Europe E'checs provided much-needed information - in French (but they have English translation on some pages).
• Mig Greengard has such a wicked sense of humor! His Daily Dirt blog (part of Chess Ninja) provides much-needed insight and lots of laughs, but be warned: all types hang out there, compensated for with a collection of wits and sparkling commentators, most of whose commentary probably whizzes over the ignoramus heads of the thankfully relatively few a-holes. I believe (but have no proof) that a lot of chess femmes read the commentary there but generally refrain from commenting themselves - only a brave few every now and then wade in.
• Daaim Shabazz's The Chess Drum is a must-read for keen insights into the chess world in general and, in particular, for news about chess players that generally aren't covered elsewhere.

A few final thoughts: I'm still absolutely amazed that the American men were able to repeat their miracle Bronze performance from 2006 in 2008 Dresden! More incredible, at least to me, is the US Women's Team performance. I honestly did not think they had a prayer of winning a medal. I'm quite happy to say I was SO SO WRONG. And I will eat my wool beret tonight for supper. Hell, I need a new one anyway, this one was looking rather ratty...

I am absolutely convinced that what happened to the Russian Teams (Men - oh, I mean "Open" - and Women) was Divine Justice being meted out to Miniputin, the ass! LOL - do you hear laughter, Pharaoh er, Miniputin? That's the sound of millions of chess fans falling off their chairs and rolling on the floor busting a gut in hilarity at the performances of the oh-so-vaunted #1 ranked teams entering the Olympiad: Russian Men and Russian Women. Bwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaa!

The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal The Georgian Women won the Gold Medal

They're the only team other than USA and India I would care to see win the Gold. Sweet! Particularly Sweet since the Russian mobsters who put together the Women's World Chess Championship INSISTED that the female chessplayers of the world assemble in Nalchik, Russia, mere miles away from the GEORGIAN WAR ZONE after Russian invaded Georgia in August, 2008 a few weeks before the Championship was to convene. Those Russians particularly pooh-poohed the Georgian Women chessplayers' concerns - and the concerns of other Federations on behalf of their players - about sending their players to Nalchik.

Ha ha, Miniputin. The best is yet to come. Just watch what happens to your "vaunted" Ruble (Rubble?) in the coming months. Nothing personal against the players on the Russian chess teams - I suggest you emmigrate to Manhattan before President-Elect Obama takes office on January 20, 2009...