Sculpture of Chinese Goddess Nv Wa unveiled ...

...at UN headquarters in Vienna.

(Xinhua)

10:00, November 22, 2012

VIENNA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A sculpture of the Chinese Goddess Nv Wa was unveiled Wednesday at the UN headquarters in Vienna to mark the international efforts to protect the ozone Layer.

The 4.1-meter-high sculpture, designed and donated by Chinese artist Yuan Xikun, is inspired by the old Chinese legend "Nv Wa Patches up the Sky" and symbolizes the need to protect the ozone layer.

The event was held to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the conclusion of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and the 20th anniversary of relevant programs launched by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

"As a signatory country of the Montreal Protocol, China is also actively involved in the program of the Protection of the Ozone Layer, and has created noteworthy achievements under the coordination of UNIDO," Cheng Jingye, China's permanent representative to the UN and other international organizations in Vienna, said at the unveiling ceremony.

The Montreal Protocol, adopted in 1987, is considered crucial in the efforts to restore and protect the ozone layer by phasing-out various substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion.

In 1992, UNIDO became the fourth implementing agency of the Montreal Protocol. It has been playing a positive role in international programs of ozone layer protection since then and was chosen as the best implementing agency for nine consecutive years.

China is considered to be one of the countries which have implemented the largest number of protection programs organized by UNIDO.

******************************************

 I don't know who this Goddess is --- okay, some little brief research says she's Nu Wa, Mother Creator Goddess.  She is a Goddess that is part serpent, part human, if my recollection of long-ago research serves me!  I didn't recognize the name immediately because in the West, she is also known as Nu Gua (varies from region to region such as Nu Kua, Ku Gua, Neu Kwa, Cang Jing or NYwa (the Y has an umlaut over it.)

More information on Nu Wa a/k/a Nu Gua:

Wikipedia (among other things, mentions that Nüwa is also regularly called the "Snake Goddess". Also mentions that ...[Emperor] Zhou [of Shang Dynasty] was completely overcome with lust at the very sight of the beautiful ancient goddess Nüwa (who had been sitting behind a light curtain) --

This reminded me very much of a scene from "The Golden Child" where a character played by Eddie Murphy descends into a basement to meet up with a mysterious "woman" who may provide him with some answers he has been seeking.  He goes into a room that has a section divided off by semi-sheer white curtains.  Then he hears a noise that seems to be a rattling kind of sound, similar perhaps to the noise a rattle snake would make.  And then he sees the shadow of a shapely woman cast upon the white curtain -- from behind it.  It is the woman herself, but she is undulating in a very strange way, and makes hissing noises every now and then when provoked by his questions...  A short time later the character portrayed by Eddie Murphy pulls down the curtain and lo and behold, is a "dragon woman!"  Her upper part is that of a beautiful woman; her lower half is that of a "dragon" or serpent.

Chinese Were Created By A Goddess-Nuwa 
 

Goddess Nuwa Makes the Human Being

2012 FIDE Women's World Chess Championship

Happy Thanksgiving Day, everyone.  Only Americans celebrate this iconic holiday on this particular day (the 4th Thursday in November), but there are similar holidays celebrated throughout the world, for the same reasons.  It is a combination of thanksgiving and harvest festival, a day of reflection and introspection, but also a day of overindulging in food and drink, watching NFL football on television practically non-stop until later tonight when the 7 p.m. game at last wraps up, and celebrating in one's own particular way.

About 30 minutes ago, I visited the official website to see if I could pick up information on the three different play-offs taking place in Kamksy Mansky, Russia (where?)  Okay, it's actually Khanty Masisky, no, that's not right either...  It actually Khanty Mansiysk - or something like that.  Anyway, my goal was to post a news flash here whilst in the midst of my Thanksgiving Day celebrations.

So, I had discerned that Stefanova had KNOCKED OUT GM Marie Sebag, and that one of the Chinese players had probably knocked out a different Chinese player, but it was basically undecipherable to me what the heck was actually going on - couldn't figure out how to register (not that I wanted to!), or to navigate the games properly, well, par for the course for moi. 

The Week in Chess to the rescue.  Here are the results from the Round 4 playoffs:

Name	G1	G2	R1	R2	r3	r4	B1	B2	SD	Tot
Round 4 Match 01
Sebag, Marie (FRA)	1	0	0	0						1
Stefanova, Antoaneta (BUL)	0	1	1	1						3
Round 4 Match 02
Ju, Wenjun (CHN)	½	½	½	½	½	1				3½
Huang, Qian (CHN)	½	½	½	½	½	0				2½
Round 4 Match 03
Kosintseva, Nadezhda (RUS)	½	0								½
Ushenina, Anna (UKR)	½	1								1½
Round 4 Match 04
Zhao, Xue (CHN)	½	½	0	½						1½
Harika, Dronavalli (IND)	½	½	1	½						2½

Players advancing from the play-offs to Round 5:  Antoaneta Stefanova, Ju Wenjun, and Harika Dronavalli.  Anna Ushenina had previously secured a spot for herself in the semi-final during regular play and did not have to go through a play-off.

I have to say, this is about an as unlikely group of potential female world chess champions as I could have imagined - and did not!  Holy Hathor! 

I'm just going to sit back and be entertained over the next several days, beginning with Round 5, whenever that is.  Don't the players EVER get a break in this event?  Geez! 

Chessbase Reports on WWCC Round 4

Women’s World Championship – Ushenina in the semis

21.11.2012– IM Anna Ushenina from Ukraine faced a formidable opponent in round four of this knock-out event: Russian GM Nadezhda Kosintseva, rated close to 90 points above her. In the first game Anna was on verge of defeat but managed to save the game, in the second she won nicely with a pawn sacrifice. Stefanova beat Sebag to equalise their match. There will be three tiebreak encounters on Thursday.

[Note:  You can download PGN and also play through some of the games of the final eight at Chessbase.  This is an excerpt of the full article.]

Anna Ushenina

The first game between Nadezhda Kosintseva (Russia) and Anna Ushenina (Ukraine) was extremely nervous and full of action. The players castled to the opposite sides of the board and began preparing for mutual attacks.

Kosintseva, Nadezhda–Ushenina, Anna½–½B94WWCC 201241.3Khanty-Mansiysk20.11.2012

 

1.e4c5
2.f3d6
3.d4cxd4
4.xd4f6
5.c3a6
6.g5bd7
7.e2h68
.h4g6
9.0-0-0e5
10.b3e7
11.f3b5
12.a3c7
13.b1f8
14.g4b7
15.f2g7
16.h4ab8
17.e3b6
18.c1c4
19.d3a8
20.g1b4
21.axb4b6
22.g2xb4
23.g5hxg52
4.hxg5d7
25.d1a3+
26.bxa3xc32
7.b2c7
28.c4c6
29.f4b7
30.f2b6
31.xa6xa6
32.xa6a4
33.c4xb2
34.xb2exf4
35.xf4 f6??Ushinina: "I had spent too much time in the middlegame, and made a couple of serious mistakes under time pressure, when all I had to do was calculating a couple of simple lines." 35...e8for instance would have kept Black on the offensive. 36.a2??A missed chance. "When I played 35...f6, Nadezhda began to think, and I instantly noticed that she can take on f6 twice. However, she rejected this move."
36.gxf6+xf6+
37.xf6!xf6
38.xd6+36...hf8White still has the advantage, but is now unable to turn it into a full point. 37.d4d738.e6a4
39.df1be840.d5d741.e6a442.b3d743.e6and draw by repetition. " In the final position Nadezhda still had a big advantage and could torture be for a long time," said Anna Ushinina. ½–½

In the second game Anna sacrificed a pawn and, after Nadezhda some imprecise moves by her opponent won it back with a decisive advantage. For the first time in her life the 27-year-old Ukrainian IM has advanced to the semifinals of such an event.

Sad News: Former U.S. Women's Chess Champion Elena Donaldson Has Died

It was a hugely romantic and scandalous story at the time:  A Soviet female player eloped to the USA with the captain of the United States Chess Olympiad Team!  I did a "Blast From the Past" on the story on July 7, 2007.  She was far too young to die, only 55. 

From The New York Times

Elena Donaldson, Chess Champion in U.S.S.R. and Then U.S., Dies at 55

By BRUCE WEBER

Published: November 20, 2012

Elena Akhmilovskaya
from New in Chess
1986

Elena Akhmilovskaya Donaldson, who was a chess champion in both the Soviet Union and her adopted country, the United States, and once ranked among the world’s top female players, died on Sunday in Kirkland, Wash. She was 55.

The cause was brain cancer, said her husband, Georgi Orlov.
      

Ms. Donaldson was known as Elena Akhmilovskaya when, in 1978, she helped the Soviet Union win the chess Olympiad, a biennial international team tournament, finishing with a perfect record, 10 wins in 10 games. She played on the triumphant Soviet team again in 1986, and the same year, as the second-ranked woman in the world, she lost a world championship match with another Soviet player, Maya Chiburdanidze.

      

She made her biggest headlines during the 1988 Olympiad in Salonika, Greece, when she eloped with the captain of the American team, John Donaldson. They settled in Seattle, and Ms. Donaldson, who reached the level of women’s grandmaster, went on to win three United States women’s championships, in 1990, 1993 (a shared title with Irina Levitina) and 1994.

      

Elena Bronislavovna Akhmilovskaya was born in Leningrad on March 11, 1957. Her father was an engineer, and the family moved often; young Elena spent much of her childhood in Krasnoyarsk, a river city in east central Russia, where her mother, Mr. Orlov said, was a regional chess champion before she died when Elena was a teenager.

      

She studied law and physics at the local state university (now part of Siberian Federal University), but she left school before graduation to pursue her emerging chess career.

      

Ms. Donaldson’s first marriage, in the Soviet Union, ended in divorce, as did her marriage to Mr. Donaldson.

      

Mr. Orlov, an international master (one designation below grandmaster) who had helped train Ms. Donaldson for top-flight matches in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, moved to the United States in the early 1990s; they married in 1995 and lived in Redmond, Wash. In recent years, the couple operated a chess school in Redmond and in nearby Seattle.

      

In addition to her husband, Ms. Donaldson is survived by a sister, Tatiana Resninskaya; a daughter, Donna Van Zandt; and a son, Nicholas Orlov.

2012 FIDE Women's World Chess Championship

Round 4, Game 2 results:

Name	G1	G2	R1	R2	r3	r4	B1	B2	SD	Tot
Round 4 Match 01
Sebag, Marie (FRA)	1	0								1
Stefanova, Antoaneta (BUL)	0	1								1
Round 4 Match 02
Ju, Wenjun (CHN)	½	½								1
Huang, Qian (CHN)	½	½								1
Round 4 Match 03
Kosintseva, Nadezhda (RUS)	½	0								0.5
Ushenina, Anna (UKR)	½	1								1.5
Round 4 Match 04
Zhao, Xue (CHN)	½	½								1
Harika, Dronavalli (IND)	½	½								1

Antoaneta Stefanova

Three of the four pairings going to the play-offs tomorrow, wow!  Ushenina, whose play has been uneven the past few years, knocked out Nadezhda Kosintseva -- so Russia has NO PLAYERS LEFT IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP.  I haven't looked back at the history of the knock-out events, but I'm thinking that's unprecedented at the stage of the quarter-finals. 

With three players still in it, the odds favor a Chinese champion.  But I really have no clue what may happen.  This championship has had totally unexpected results but I am also happy to see the names of players other than the favorites time after time, event after event!  I am a fan of Marie Sebag, who earned her final GM norm a few years ago playing in the European Chess Championship (Open).  Dronavalli is another player I admire because, like Sebag, she also plays in Opens on a frequent basis.  Her chess progress had seemed to stall a bit the last few years, but something sure lit a fire under here, and I'm glad to see her advance this far.  Perhaps that spark will burn even brighter in the coming years.

We'll see.  Tomorrow four players will go home, and only four will remain.  Woo woo!

2012 FIDE Women's World Chess Championship

As always, India is in the limelight with providing coverage of its chessplayers.  I can just feel the love of a billion people rooting for their "home team" players!  This is Round 4, Game 1 news.  We are now down to 8 players.  Eight players, out of 64 of the world's top female players (other than GM Judit Polgar).

Harika draws with Zhao Xue in World Women's Chess Championship

The writer has posted comments on this articlePTI | Nov 20, 2012, 09.58 PM IST

KHANTY MANSIYSK (Russia): Grandmaster D Harika started her quarterfinal campaign with an easy draw with fourth seed Zhao Xue of China in the first game of the two-game mini-match that concluded in the World Women's Chess Championship.

After drawing with black, Harika holds a little edge going in to the second game in the $450000 prize money championship as she will play with white pieces in the return game. The Indian has succeeded in the championship thus far without losing a single game.

French Marie Sebag drew the first blood in the first game against former champion Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria and took an early lead. The Bulgarian will now have to score a victory in the next game to stay in the match.

The other two matches of the quarters were drawn. The championship that started with 64 players, is now down to eight. There are two games under normal time control till the final and in the event of a tied score, games of shorter duration are played to determine the winner.

Harika went for the Queen's gambit, declined as black and found out soon that the Chinese was not expecting this opening. After an early trade of minor pieces, Harika went for the thematic central break through and succeeded in reaching a level endgame.

Zhao Xue wanted to push for victory and in her effort she gave Harika a small chance that the Indian failed to notice with her clock ticking away. It was on move 30 that Harika missed what might have been a nagging advantage. The game was drawn five moves later.

2012 FIDE Women's World Chess Championship

Round 4, Game 1 results!

Name	G1	G2	R1	R2	r3	r4	B1	B2	SD	Tot
Round 4 Match 01
Sebag, Marie (FRA)	1									1
Stefanova, Antoaneta (BUL)	0									0
Round 4 Match 02
Ju, Wenjun (CHN)	½									0.5
Huang, Qian (CHN)	½									0.5
Round 4 Match 03
Kosintseva, Nadezhda (RUS)	½									0.5
Ushenina, Anna (UKR)	½									0.5
Round 4 Match 04
Zhao, Xue (CHN)	½									0.5
Harika, Dronavalli (IND)	½									0.5

Orthodox Church Condemned to Turkey

Historic Orthodox Church to be demolished, not restored

November/08/2012

The decision to demolish a 232-year-old Orthodox Church in the Bodrum district of the western province of Muğla has surprised locals who had been expecting it to be restored, daily Radikal reported today.

Locals had applied to restore the Saint Nicolas (Aya Nikolaya) church, however the Bodrum municipality decided to demolish it instead, according to a claim by Pamukkale University that declared the church building rotten.

The decision was signed by Dursun Göktepe of the Republican People's Party (CHP), who was substituting for Mayor Mehmet Kocadon while the latter was in prison on allegations of corruption. However, Kocadon was against the demolition and has announced that he will launch an investigation into the decision.

Since 1965, the Saint Nicolas Church had been used as a storage site, cinema, theater and boat shed.

Interview with Scholar Karen L. King

Harvard divinity professor relishes adventure, research

Jesus finding put scholar in spotlight

By Lisa Wangsness | Globe Staff November 11, 2012

Once a week, Karen L. King boarded a train from West Berlin to East Berlin, her dissertation-in-progress tucked in a bag. It was the early 1980s, and written materials — even academic treatises — were regarded as contraband not to be transported across the wall.

When guards stopped her, she would surrender her work and wait in detention, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours. Once, she was strip-searched.

King, young and determined, figured it was a small sacrifice if it meant getting to study with New Testament scholar Hans-Martin Schenke. His East Berlin study group had translated many of the ancient Coptic texts discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, including writings about Jesus opposed by other Christians, and he set aside a day each week to work with King.

“What a gift. Do you know what I mean?” she said in a recent interview in her office at Harvard Divinity School. “What a gift.”

That same sense of adventure, competitive drive, and intensity about her work helped propel King into the global spotlight in September, when she introduced the world to a small swatch of papyrus that she believes to be a fourth-century fragment portraying Jesus as married. Her understated demeanor and meticulous, footnote-saturated writing belies her boldness — and readiness to follow her work wherever it leads.

“She just has a very subtle, logical, generous way of going about something. But when she is on it, she’s on it, and she won’t back down,” said Dale Wright, a professor of religion and former colleague at Occidental College in Los Angeles who has remained close to King.

But King, 58, who holds the oldest endowed chair in the country as the Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard, has never sat so squarely at the center of worldwide attention as she has the past two months.

Nor has her work ever been so roundly criticized; skeptics from every corner have dismissed the fragment, which she provocatively named “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” as a forgery. The Harvard Theological Review has postponed publication of her article until further scientific testing of the text is completed.

“It’s been pretty overwhelming,” her younger brother, Clifford King, of Gloucester, said in an interview. “I don’t think she anticipated this level of frenzy.”

King’s journey to Cambridge and academic stardom began thousands of miles away, in a town with fewer residents than Harvard has professors.

She grew up in Sheridan, Mont., a ranching community of about 600 people surrounded by breathtaking scenery — snowcapped mountains and vast stretches of national forest. She was the second of four children; her father was the town pharmacist.

“He saw that as his obligation to the community,” she said. “Nobody got turned away who needed drugs. Ever. There is just a way in which those kinds of values are so crucially important to me.”

A standout student and pianist, King was strong-willed, competitive, and adventurous, Cliff King recalls. She jumped at the chance to spend her last year of high school on a student exchange program in Norway, even though it meant missing senior year.

Though eight years apart, she and her younger brother were close. When he lost his right arm in a ranching accident at age 14, she regularly made the three-hour drive home from college to keep him company. “That was very comforting,” he recalls.

Her family went to a Methodist church, and at a Methodist summer camp in middle school, she experienced an evangelical conversion, repenting and promising to accept Jesus into her heart. Even as a teenager, King craved an intellectual component to her religious life. She went to the Episcopal church in town for its adult Bible study class. She was the only youth, and she liked how serious it was.

Perhaps inescapably — Yellowstone, with its crashing waterfalls, spouting geyers, and majestic peaks, is the local park — she also developed a deep reverence for nature. Despite her parents’ objections, just after college she biked alone down the West Coast from Portland, Ore., to the outskirts of San Francisco, camping as she went.

“I enjoy time to myself,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to spend time in the presence of God.”
She graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in religious studies, then worked in New York as a nanny for the family of writer Calvin Trillin before entering graduate school at Brown University. She met her husband, a structural engineering professor, in Rhode Island just as she was graduating.

At Occidental, where she was a religion professor 13 years before coming to Harvard, she was instrumental in establishing a women’s studies program and women’s center and received the campus-wide award for teaching.

“To be in her presence and just to listen to her think was just incredibly stimulating, and it excited students,” Wright said.

Cindy Wolf, who graduated from Occidental in 1989 and now lives in Orcas Island, Wash., recalls King, her thesis adviser, pushing her toward primary sources and insisting that she keep narrowing her scope so she could examine the material more deeply.

“She is very precise, and incisive — she says exactly what she means,” Wolf said. “And if she has chosen to say it, you know that she has really, really thought it through and has taken great pains to make sure she has good reasons for believing what she believes.”

When King, Wright, and another colleague in the religion department at Occidental had to create an introductory religion class, they rented a bus. Los Angeles, they reasoned, was one of the most religiously diverse cities in the world — why not take advantage of it? Together, they visited Pentacostal gatherings, an Eastern Orthodox cathedral, Hindu temples, a Buddhist center, the temporary synagogue of recent Russian Jewish immigrants.

The class was a turning point for King. It was the first time she had studied religion out in the world, as a living, breathing thing. The city’s vibrance and diversity dazzled the self-described “country girl.” Seeing ultra-Orthodox Jewish children wearing kippot, or caps, with Disney figures on them and hearing Buddhist kids singing “Buddha loves me” to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me ” made her think deeply about the ways in which social and cultural environments shape the practice of religion.
“You realize being Hindu in LA is not the same as being Hindu in Calcutta,” she said.

King began to consider how this insight might apply to the Nag Hammadi literature and other ancient Coptic texts discovered since the late 1800s, which included prayers, revelations, and teachings of Jesus that ultimately did not make it into the New Testament canon in later centuries. The “Gospel of Mary of Magdala,” for example, presents Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ favorite disciple and has her relating a strange vision she alone received from him.

All these texts had been lumped together as “heretical” or “Gnostic.” King began to argue that those labels were misnomers. When the texts were written, there was no such thing as orthodox Christianity — or Gnosticism, she argued. There were only tiny communities of a minority faith, scattered across the ancient Mediterranean, each caught up in their own political and cultural realities, and struggling to make sense of Jesus’ teachings and death.

“I started seeing that the lines that were being drawn between orthodox or correct Christianity and heretical Christianity couldn’t be drawn that way,” she said. “I had to step back and start sort of fresh and say, ‘What are the similarities and differences among [ancient] Christians, and how might we account for them, in terms of them belonging to this place?’ ”

King argued that these texts should be seen as part of the story of Christianity, not as distortions of a complete belief system articulated by the Gospels and handed down by the fathers of the early church. She contends that the early history of Christianity needs to be rewritten to include these previously marginalized voices, taking into account how “a limited set of perspectives has shaped what people believe.”

“She’s made her mark on the field by doing that,” said Mark Goodacre, a New Testament scholar at Duke University. “It’s a massive contribution to scholarship.”

Reconsidering these ancient texts is important to King not only as a scholar but as a Christian (she is an observant Episcopalian). “Responsible believers” who refuse to blindly accept dogma, she says, need the most accurate history of their faith possible.

In addition to presenting her work at elite scholarly conferences, she frequently gives talks to Bible study groups at churches, where the questions of people who sit in the pews help direct her research.
“If religion is as important in one’s life as it is for me, it’s important to have that capacity to think . . . both constructively and critically,” she said.

Scholars of early Christianity never know when a lost or previously unknown text — a small, badly damaged fragment or, as in the case of the Gospel of Judas , an entire book — might appear out of nowhere. They then have to figure out whether it is authentic, what it means, and how it relates to other texts.

“They are a huge detective story for all of us,” said Elaine Pagels, a renowned historian of religion at Princeton University who coauthored a book on the Gospel of Judas with King in 2007. “It’s a lot of fun, and a challenge.”

And so it is not surprising that King was the recipient of a stranger’s e-mail, asking her to have a look at the papyrus fragment that mentioned Jesus’ wife.

She dismissed it as a likely forgery at first, but consultations with one of the world’s top papyrologists and a crack Coptic linguist persuaded her otherwise.

Some of King’s colleagues point out that her assertions about what it says are quite modest. She acknowledged lingering authenticity issues from the outset and stressed that, if genuine, it merely suggested that some ancient Christians thought Jesus was married, not that he was.

“She has gone about this in a sober and careful way,” said William A. Graham, former dean of Harvard Divinity School. “I don’t think she’s been hasty about this at all.”

The Vatican newspaper and others have criticized her for giving an extended interview to three publications — including The Boston Globe — in advance of her presentation at the Coptic Congress in Rome, as if to maximize publicity. But King said that was a strategy she came up with in collaboration with the Harvard public relations team in hopes of providing context for a complicated story that she knew would be of great interest to the public. She called it “the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” because it appeared to relate a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, and the most distinctive thing about it was its mention of Jesus’ wife. She added that its closest parallel seemed to her to be other noncanonical gospels.

She brought it forward, say those who know King well, out of a conviction that the discovery may be important not only to scholars but to people outside the academy.

“What she wanted was discussion among scholars in public view,” said Hal Taussig, a Methodist minister and visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary who has been a close colleague for three decades. “She is responsible, I think, in ways that many of us in the guild of biblical studies have not been, because she is willing to think about what her work means for the larger human enterprise.”

She may have gotten more than she bargained for. Scholars all over the world raced to prove the papyrus was a forgery in the weeks following her presentation, hashing out their arguments in a handful of scholarly blogs. Some papyrologists have pointed to its mysterious origins as reason alone to doubt its authenticity.

King said she does not regret keeping the name of the fragment’s owner a secret. She has legal permission from him to disclose it, but he asked her not to because he did not want to be pestered by people wishing to buy it from him.

“I said I wouldn’t, and I keep my word,” she said. “It’s really small-town ethics.”

King is now awaiting the results of ink composition tests, which cannot establish for sure that it is authentic — but they could reveal that it is a forgery.

“I’m on the edge of my seat as much as anybody,” she said. “And we’ll see.”

2012 FIDE World Youth Chess Championships - Girls

Asian under 10 Girls Chess Champion N Priyanka Won World Youth Chess Championship
Published on: 19-NOV-2012

Asian under 10 girls chess champion Nuthaki Priyanka bagged the world youth chess championship at Maribor, Slovenia on 18 November 2012. She completed with 9.5 points of 11 rounds.

Priyanka completed her game against US-based Wang Annie in 38 moves. She is the 5th standard student of Mustabada Sports and Educational Academy. She became the second girl to win the title from Hyderabad after Koneru Humpy who bagged her title in 1997. V.R. Bobba, the noted coach provided training to Priyanka.

In the middle of the game, the Hyderabadi girl committed blunders by running into the time trouble, but despite losing there she bagged the title.

She has become the fifth one to bag the title from Andhra Pradesh in the under-10 category after P. Hari Krishna, K. Humpy, Ch. Moineesh and Sahajasree. On her victory, Global Chess Academy director, District Sports Development Officer as well as Krishna District Chess Association secretary congratulated her.

*************************************************************************

Full Final Standings.  Final Standings (Girls):

U08 Girls

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1			Asadi Motahare	IRI	0	Iran	10.5	0.0	71.0	75.0
2			Tereshechkina Taisiya	RUS	1642	Russia	9.0	0.0	70.0	73.0
3			Juhasz Judit	HUN	1710	Hungary	8.5	0.0	71.5	76.5
4			Jiang Tiantian	CHN	0	China	8.0	0.0	68.0	73.0
5			Lehaci Miruna-Daria	ROU	1445	Romania	8.0	0.0	64.0	67.5
6			Khegai Yulia	UZB	0	Uzbekistan	8.0	0.0	63.0	63.5
7			Biran Anastasiya	BLR	0	Belarus	8.0	0.0	62.0	66.0
8			Zhu Harmony	CAN	0	Canada	7.5	0.0	74.5	79.5
9		WCM	Ismayil Malak	AZE	0	Azerbaijan	7.5	0.0	74.0	78.5
10		WFM	Assaubayeva Bibissara	KAZ	1698	Kazakhstan	7.5	0.0	73.5	78.0

U10 Girls

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1			Priyanka N	IND	1576	India	9.5	0.0	70.0	74.5
2			Badelka Olga	BLR	1653	Belarus	9.0	0.0	66.0	68.0
3			Maltsevskaya Aleksandra	RUS	1954	Russia	8.5	0.0	66.5	69.5
4			Heydarova Aytaj	AZE	1628	Azerbaijan	8.5	0.0	63.5	67.5
5		WFM	Antova Gabriela	BUL	1683	Bulgaria	8.0	0.0	72.5	75.0
6			Zhu Jiner	CHN	1827	China	8.0	0.0	70.5	75.0
7		WCM	Serikbay Assel	KAZ	1679	Kazakhstan	8.0	0.0	61.5	66.0
8			Ferkova Dominika	SVK	1576	Slovakia	7.5	0.0	68.0	72.0
9		WFM	Wang Annie	USA	1809	Usa	7.5	0.0	67.5	73.0
10			Zahedifar Anahita	IRI	1763	Iran	7.5	0.0	67.5	72.0

U12 Girls

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1			Vaishali R	IND	1970	India	9.0	0.0	75.0	81.0
2		WIM	Abdumalik Zhansaya	KAZ	2173	Kazakhstan	8.5	0.0	75.5	81.5
3		WCM	Savant Riya	IND	1896	India	8.5	0.0	73.0	78.0
4			Yuan Ye	CHN	1946	China	8.5	0.0	71.5	75.5
5		WFM	Obolentseva Alexandra	RUS	1957	Russia	8.5	0.0	66.5	71.0
6		WFM	Kazarian Anna-Maja	NED	1873	Netherland	8.0	0.0	72.5	77.5
7		WCM	Bychkova Alina	RUS	1909	Russia	8.0	0.0	61.0	64.5
8			Chu Ruotong	CHN	2008	China	7.5	0.0	74.0	79.5
9			Shuvalova Polina	RUS	1866	Russia	7.5	0.0	68.5	73.5
10		WFM	Mammadzada Gunay	AZE	1927	Azerbaijan	7.5	0.0	66.5	71.5

U14 Girls

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1		WFM	Mahalakshmi M	IND	2001	India	9.0	0.5	73.5	78.5
2			Khomeriki Nino	GEO	2049	Georgia	9.0	0.5	72.5	78.5
3		WFM	Monnisha Gk	IND	2027	India	8.0	0.0	73.5	78.0
4		WIM	Ivana Maria Furtado	IND	2103	India	8.0	0.0	71.0	76.0
5			Drogovoz Irina	RUS	1921	Russia	8.0	0.0	65.5	68.5
6			Rodionova Daria	RUS	2069	Russia	8.0	0.0	64.0	69.0
7			Tohirjonova Gulruhbegim	UZB	2002	Uzbekistan	8.0	0.0	63.5	67.0
8		WFM	Haussernot Cecile	FRA	2052	France	8.0	0.0	60.5	64.0
9			Abdusattorova Bakhora	UZB	1813	Uzbekistan	7.5	0.0	71.0	74.0
10			Gal Hanna Krisztina	HUN	2027	Hungary	7.5	0.0	70.5	76.0

U16 Girls

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1		WFM	Styazhkina Anna	RUS	2113	Russia	9.0	1.0	75.5	80.5
2			Rodionova Polina	RUS	2040	Russia	9.0	0.0	69.5	73.5
3		WFM	Xiao Yiyi	CHN	2136	China	8.5	0.0	72.5	78.0
4		WIM	Saduakassova Dinara	KAZ	2297	Kazakhstan	8.5	0.0	71.5	76.5
5			Lei Tingjie	CHN	2231	China	8.0	0.0	75.0	79.0
6			Imnadze Nato	GEO	2070	Georgia	8.0	0.0	67.5	71.0
7		WIM	Khademalsharieh Sarasadat	IRI	2303	Iran	8.0	0.0	65.5	69.5
8		WFM	Osmanodja Filiz	GER	2206	Germany	8.0	0.0	64.5	69.0
9		WFM	Bivol Alina	RUS	2172	Russia	7.5	0.0	75.5	79.5
10		WIM	Nicolas Zapata Irene	ESP	2201	Spain	7.5	0.0	73.0	78.5

U18 Girls

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1		WGM	Goryachkina Aleksandra	RUS	2378	Russia	9.5	0.0	71.5	75.5
2		WIM	Schut Lisa	NED	2281	Netherland	8.5	0.0	68.5	73.0
3			Severina Maria	RUS	2196	Russia	8.0	0.0	72.0	77.0
4		WIM	Nguyen Thi Mai Hung	VIE	2269	Vietnam	8.0	0.0	65.5	70.0
5		WIM	Varga Klara	HUN	2191	Hungary	8.0	0.0	65.5	69.5
6		WIM	Brunello Marina	ITA	2248	Italia	7.5	0.0	68.0	72.5
7		WFM	Qiu Mengjie	CHN	2069	China	7.5	0.0	62.0	66.5
8		WFM	Asgarizadeh Minoo	IRI	2106	Iran	7.0	0.0	75.0	80.0
9		WFM	Chumpitaz Ann	PER	2219	Peru	7.0	0.0	73.5	77.0
10		WIM	Efroimski Marsel	ISR	2168	Israel	7.0	0.0	69.5	74.0

Women's Top Seeds Exited Early - Who Will Win?

From The New York Times

Top Seeds Make Early Exits at Women’s Title Event

By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN

Published: November 17, 2012

 

There will soon be a new women’s world champion. And after an incredible series of upsets on Thursday and Friday in the second round of the Women’s World Championship tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, it will not be one of the favorites.

 

Hou Yifan of China, a grandmaster who is ranked No. 3 in the world among women, had held the title since 2010. She was eliminated on Friday by Monika Socko, a Polish grandmaster who is ranked 39 spots behind her.

      

Hou’s challenger in last year’s title match, Humpy Koneru of India, who is No. 2, also lost, to Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine. Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia, No. 4, fell to Anna Ushenina, another Ukrainian. But the top Ukrainian grandmaster, Kateryna Lahno, No. 7, lost to Lela Javakhishvili of Georgia.

The highest-ranked remaining players are Zhao Xue of China, No. 5, and Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia, No. 6.

      

The startling series of upsets was in stark contrast to Round 1, when there was only one.

      

In an effort to bring in more women from countries that are not usually represented at such tournaments, the World Chess Federation allocated spots based on regional competitions. Some of the women who qualified were not close to being among the elite. In the first round, the highest seeds were pitted against the lowest ones, most of whom ended up losing badly.

      

Hou’s first opponent was S. D. Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka, who is ranked No. 3,174 among active women players. She was no match for the defending champion. Koneru also had little trouble dispatching Denise Frick of South Africa (No. 2,671).

      

The lack of early tests might have contributed to the poor performances of the top seeds in the second round as their opponents were in better form from their own first-round matches. In Hou’s match against Socko, she won the first game and only had to draw the second to advance. But, as sometimes happens in such situations, she was too cautious.

      

Since Socko needed to win the second regulation game, she played the Sicilian Defense, which offers Black the best chance for a counterattack against 1 e4.

      

Hou’s strategy of playing for a draw was evident early when she played 4 Qd4 instead of 4 Nd4, which is the more aggressive move.

      

Hou’s 7 Qd2 was an odd retreat for her queen; almost any other move would have been better. Her decision to fianchetto her bishop by playing 8 b3 was also peculiar. Clearly, she just wanted to trade dark-squared bishops, but Socko easily sidestepped the maneuver with 10 ... Nf6.

      

Hou also should not have postponed castling, and she made a bad decision by exchanging her light-squared bishop for Socko’s knight. Still, despite those missteps, she was fine until 21 Rc7. It was essential for her to play 21 f4 to limit the range of Socko’s dark-squared bishop.

      

Socko played well from then on. One of her nicest moves was 24 ... d4. Hou did not play 25 Bd4 because she would have lost a piece after 25 ... Bd4 26 Qd4 Ba4, when she could not recapture the bishop without being checkmated.

      

Hou resigned after 33 ... Qd4 because she would have faced checkmate in a few moves.

      

Though Hou is out of the tournament, she has the consolation of knowing that she can regain the title next year because, as the winner of the recently completed Grand Prix, she is already the designated challenger for a title match. The date and location of that match have not yet been announced.       

A version of this article appeared in print on November 18, 2012, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Top Seeds Make Early Exits At Women’s Title Event.

Will Dronavilli Prevail?

From The Times of India

D Harika to meet Zhao Xue in quarterfinals of World Women's Chess Championship

The writer has posted comments on this articlePTI | Nov 20, 2012, 01.02 AM IST

KHANTY MANSIYSK (RUSSIA): Grandmaster D Harika will have to lock horns with Zhao Xue of China in the quarterfinals of the World Women's Chess Championship now underway.

Having reached the last eighth stage, Harika meets the biggest challenge in the championship and if she wins this match she can prove to be a very tough competitor for the other opponents.

The match against Xue will test her real skills as the Chinese is also the highest rated player remaining in the championship.

Harika spent the day preparing against Zhao Xue and looked determined while the tiebreaker of the third round was played in the main hall. This is already the second time in a row that the Indian has reached the quarterfinal stage. In 2010 she had lost to Ruofan Li of China.

The heat rose on the chess board even as the mercury plummeted to minus 17 degrees celsius in the Ugra region. The most intense battle was fought by the Kosintseva sisters who were pitted against each other in the third round match.
 
After drawing two games under normal time control both Nadezhda and Tatiana shared a victory each in the rapid games. In the subsequent ten-minute tiebreaker, Nadezhda won from a difficult position in the middle game and then held on to win the match.

In other tiebreak matches, it was China all the way as Ju Wenjun ousted Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine and Huang Qian showed Irina Krush the exit door in the rapid games itself.

The USD 450000 Championship is now down to eight players from 64 in the first round. The winner here will get to play a match with Yifan Hou of China in 2013 to decide the next world champion.

Big names of the game have exited the championship already. The top three seeds -- Koneru Humpya, Yifan Hou and Anna Muzychuk -- packed their bags after the second round and fifth seed Kateryna Lahno faced a similar situation too.

Board Games Studies Association - Next Colloquium!

The 16th BGSA Colloquium will be held at the University of the Azores, Ponta Delgaa, 3‑6 April 2013.

More information.

And of course, the Board Games Studies Association website. 

Did a Mourning Dog Refuse to Leave Dead Master's Side?

The position of this dog is very much like a pooch laying down at the feet of his (or her) master, resting but watching.  I've seen photographs of dogs laying at gravesites in exactly this position.

From Past Horizons
11/2012

Cave used to bury the dead contained a mummified dog

A unique find in Mexico of a thousand year old naturally mummified dog, will be subjected to various tests, including X-rays and DNA.

A rare find

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) recovered the animal along with 2,500 other artefacts found in Cueva de la Candelaria in 1953 after they had been stored by those who had first excavated the site 60 years previously. It is one of the few examples of mummified dogs in the world, with other similar examples found in Peru and Egypt. Few dog skeletons are found in funerary contexts during the pre-Hispanic period and this mummified example which would have stood about 22cm high is the only one that has been found in Mexico so far.

INAH archaeologist, Alejandro Bautista Valdespino commented that the mummified canine lies on its right side with head and neck bent down, with back left leg flexed and front legs extended. “This finding generates expectations about the potential for new insights into the archaeology of northern Mexico, because it reinforces the idea of placing dogs as companions in the funeral traditions of the nomads of the region. “

Protecting the past

During an initiative to investigate the state of collections, archaeologists found that the organic artefacts had not undergone adequate conservation measures, so they were recovered and placed under the authority of the INAH.

Archaeologist Yuri Leopoldo de la Rosa Gutierrez, of the Coahuila INAH Centre said that the Candelaria cave where the artefacts were discovered was used by groups of hunter-gatherers as a site to deposit their dead.

Over four thousand objects and about 200 human bones had been found inside the cave, dating to the Late Prehistoric period (800-1200 AD) and this would place the age of the mummified dog at around 1,000 years old, although C14 dating will be required to confirm this.

New knowledge of the Laguna region

The mummified dog is related to a type group called “harriers“.

Isaac Aquino Toledo, a DRPMZA researcher, recalled that the 3m deep rock shelter was first investigated in 1953 by INAH specialists; their discovery marked a turning point for the country’s archaeology since they gathered more than four thousand objects, almost all organic and in excellent condition, including textiles, basketry, wood and bone artefacts and the skeletal remains of about 200 individuals.

According to the archaeologists these items will enrich our knowledge about funeral customs that developed among the hunter- gatherers from 800 AD until the arrival of the Spanish in the north in the early seventeenth century.

Preliminarily examination suggests the mummification of the animal was due to natural causes, with the low humidity and constant dry climate prevailing in the cave.

It has even been suggested that the animal died from starvation, because, apparently, no visible injuries can be seen or clues to a cause of death.

Following the completion of conservation work and analysis of recovered objects, some of the artefacts will be displayed first in the Museo Regional de la Laguna.

Source: National Institute of Anthropology and History

2012 FIDE Women's World Chess Championship

Mark Crowther (The Week in Chess) summed things up succinctly:  Only three of the top 8 players who started are left and only 50% of the players expected to reach round 3 did so. We therefore have an unusual and unexpected mix of players.  American Irina Krush was eliminated after she couldn't equalize in her 4th play-off game.

Results R3 play-offs Game 2:

Round 3 Match 01
Socko, Monika (POL)	0	0								0
Stefanova, Antoaneta (BUL)	1	1								2
Round 3 Match 02
Ju, Wenjun (CHN)	1	0	1	½						2½
Zhukova, Natalia (UKR)	0	1	0	½						1½
Round 3 Match 03
Ushenina, Anna (UKR)	1	½								1½
Pogonina, Natalija (RUS)	0	½								½
Round 3 Match 04
Muzychuk, Mariya (UKR)	½	0								½
Zhao, Xue (CHN)	½	1								1½
Round 3 Match 05
Javakhishvili, Lela (GEO)	½	0								½
Harika, Dronavalli (IND)	½	1								1½
Round 3 Match 06
Kosintseva, Tatiana (RUS)	½	½	0	1	0	½				2½
Kosintseva, Nadezhda (RUS)	½	½	1	0	1	½				3½
Round 3 Match 07
Huang, Qian (CHN)	0	1	1	½						2½
Krush, Irina (USA)	1	0	0	½						1½
Round 3 Match 08
Galliamova, Alisa (RUS)	0	0								0
Sebag, Marie (FRA)	1	1								2

2012 FIDE Women's World Chess Championship

Results from R3, Game 2.  Players moving to the next round in bold.  American players in red.  So, GM Monika  Socko, who knocked GM Hou Yifan out of the championship is, in turn, knocked out by fellow veteran player Antoaneta Stefanova!

Yet another play-off looms for IM Irina Krush.

FIDE Women's World Chess Championship 2012 (Khanty-Mansiysk RUS) Round 3 17th-19th Nov 2012
Round 3 Match 01
Socko, Monika (POL)	0	0								0
Stefanova, Antoaneta (BUL)	1	1								2
Round 3 Match 02
Ju, Wenjun (CHN)	1	0								1
Zhukova, Natalia (UKR)	0	1								1
Round 3 Match 03
Ushenina, Anna (UKR)	1	½								1.5
Pogonina, Natalija (RUS)	0	½								0.5
Round 3 Match 04
Muzychuk, Mariya (UKR)	½	0								0.5
Zhao, Xue (CHN)	½	1								1.5
Round 3 Match 05
Javakhishvili, Lela (GEO)	½	0								0.5
Harika, Dronavalli (IND)	½	1								1.5
Round 3 Match 06
Kosintseva, Tatiana (RUS)	½	½								1
Kosintseva, Nadezhda (RUS)	½	½								1
Round 3 Match 07
Huang, Qian (CHN)	0	1								1
Krush, Irina (USA)	1	0								1
Round 3 Match 08
Galliamova, Alisa (RUS)	0	0								0
Sebag, Marie (FRA)	1	1								2