2013 Women's Grandmaster Tournament (Chennai)

November 6 - 14, 2013.

Final Standings - from Chess-Results dot com (some comments below):

Final Ranking after 11 Rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	3	WGM	Gomes Mary Ann	IND	2414	AAI	8.5	74.0	67.5	60.25
2	2	WGM	Batsiashvili Nino	GEO	2425		8.5	72.5	66.5	60.00
3	4	IM	Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman	IND	2399	TN	8.5	72.5	66.5	57.75
4	11	WGM	Tsatsalashvili Keti	GEO	2266		8.0	71.0	65.5	53.50
5	6	WGM	Soumya Swaminathan	IND	2348	MAH	8.0	66.5	61.5	51.25
6	13	WGM	Swathi Ghate	IND	2242	MAH	7.5	70.5	65.5	47.25
7	7	WGM	Ivakhinova Inna	RUS	2315		7.5	70.5	64.5	50.50
8	14	WGM	Meenakshi Subbaraman	IND	2240	TN	7.5	70.0	64.5	47.75
9	20	WFM	Gevorgyan Maria	ARM	2147		7.5	68.0	63.0	47.25
10	1	IM	Guramishvili Sopiko	GEO	2441		7.5	67.5	62.0	46.00
11	12	IM	Mohota Nisha	IND	2260	WB	7.5	65.5	60.0	47.00
12	8	WGM	Ambartsumova Karina	RUS	2310		7.0	71.0	65.5	43.75
13	10	WGM	Muminova Nafisa	UZB	2280		7.0	70.0	64.0	45.75
14	9	WGM	Kulkarni Bhakti	IND	2288	GOA	7.0	66.5	61.0	43.25
15	23		Azimova Karina	RUS	2094		7.0	63.0	58.0	40.25
16	17		Pratyusha Bodda	IND	2159	AP	7.0	63.0	57.5	40.50
17	16	WIM	Drljevic Ljilja	SRB	2181		7.0	63.0	57.5	40.25
18	45		Meghna C H	IND	1847	KER	7.0	61.0	56.5	38.50
19	27		Harini S.	IND	2023	TN	6.5	72.5	67.5	42.25
20	15	WGM	Kiran Manisha Mohanty	IND	2237	ODI	6.5	71.0	65.0	42.25
21	5	IM	Purtseladze Maka	GEO	2374		6.5	68.0	62.5	41.75
22	25	WFM	Swati Mohota	IND	2067	WB	6.5	66.5	61.5	38.00
23	22	WFM	Mahalakshmi M	IND	2107	TN	6.5	65.5	60.5	38.00
24	18	WIM	Kharmunova Nadezhda	RUS	2152		6.5	64.5	59.0	36.75
25	21	WFM	Tokhirjonova Gulrukhbegim	UZB	2111		6.5	64.0	59.0	37.50
26	28	WFM	Vaishali R	IND	2019	TN	6.5	63.5	58.5	36.00
27	39	WCM	Tejaswini Sagar	IND	1898	MAH	6.5	58.5	54.0	33.75
28	37		Ashwini U	IND	1918	TN	6.5	58.0	54.0	32.50
29	24	WFM	Saranya J	IND	2081	TN	6.5	57.5	53.5	32.00
30	40		Anjana Krishna S	IND	1897	KER	6.5	55.0	50.5	32.25
31	19	WFM	Monnisha Gk	IND	2150	TN	6.0	67.0	62.0	36.75
32	26		Lasya.G	IND	2065	AP	6.0	66.5	61.5	35.50
33	34		Tan Li Ting	MAS	1936		6.0	65.0	60.5	34.00
34	31	WFM	Sultana Zakia	BAN	1976		6.0	63.0	58.0	34.25
35	47		Aparajita Gochhikar	IND	1801	ODI	6.0	63.0	58.0	33.25
36	52	WFM	Bidhar Rutumbara	IND	1749	ODI	6.0	61.0	56.0	32.00
37	29	WIM	Hamid Rani	BAN	1994		6.0	60.0	55.0	32.75
38	33	WIM	Jennitha Anto K.	IND	1961	TN	6.0	59.5	54.5	31.00
39	57		Priyanka K	IND	1717	TN	6.0	58.5	54.0	30.25
40	30	WFM	Srija Seshadri	IND	1991	TN	6.0	58.0	54.0	29.50
41	42		Supriya Joshi	IND	1888	MAH	6.0	58.0	53.5	30.25
42	59	WFM	Lakshmi C	IND	1697	TN	6.0	57.0	53.0	29.50
43	53		Potluri Saye Srreezza	IND	1746	AP	6.0	54.5	50.0	28.75
44	65		Saughanthika As	IND	1639	TN	6.0	53.5	49.5	26.75
45	61		Harivardhini I	IND	1678	TN	6.0	53.0	49.0	26.75
46	41		Sunyasakta Satpathy	IND	1893	ODI	5.5	65.0	60.0	31.25
47	54		Priyanka Nutakki	IND	1736	AP	5.5	61.5	57.0	27.75
48	46		Anigani Kavya	IND	1836	AP	5.5	60.0	55.5	29.75
49	56		Harshita Guddanti	IND	1723	AP	5.5	57.5	53.0	28.25
50	55		Vantika Agrawal	IND	1728	DEL	5.5	57.0	54.0	26.25
51	36		Parnali S Dharia	IND	1924	MAH	5.5	57.0	53.0	25.50
52	38		Shweta Gole	IND	1907	MAH	5.5	57.0	52.5	28.25
53	49		Sandhya G	IND	1774	AP	5.5	56.0	52.0	22.25
54	79		Raga Jyothsna R	IND	1378	AP	5.5	55.0	51.5	25.00
55	67		Tulsi M	IND	1549	KAR	5.5	55.0	51.0	25.25
56	62		Sunyuktha C M N	IND	1677	TN	5.5	55.0	51.0	25.00
57	60		Toshali V	IND	1683	AP	5.5	48.0	45.0	22.00
58	48		Divya Garg	IND	1774	MAH	5.0	60.0	56.0	23.25
59	50		Pushpalata Mangal	IND	1767	MAH	5.0	56.5	52.5	21.75
60	43		Begum Masuda	BAN	1862		5.0	55.0	51.5	22.75
61	88		Khandelwal Khushi	IND	1218	MAH	5.0	55.0	50.5	24.00
62	78		Sneha G P S	IND	1384	TN	5.0	54.0	50.5	22.00
63	66		Harshini A	IND	1635	TN	5.0	53.5	50.0	20.00
64	73		Tejasvi M	IND	1490	TN	5.0	51.0	47.5	20.50
65	75		Kavya Srishti K	IND	1456	AP	5.0	47.5	44.0	18.75
66	71	WCM	Fernandes Krystal	IND	1509	GOA	5.0	47.0	44.0	17.75
67	44	WCM	Ananya Suresh	IND	1860	KAR	4.5	57.5	53.5	20.00
68	70		Kavya. S	IND	1516	TN	4.5	54.5	51.5	20.25
69	64		Sowmia A	IND	1650	TN	4.5	53.5	50.0	19.75
70	74		Jasper Jothi P	IND	1468	TN	4.5	52.5	49.0	21.00
71	63		Jahanara Haque	BAN	1669		4.5	52.5	48.5	21.00
72	68		Akshita D	IND	1546	TN	4.5	51.5	48.0	17.00
73	77		Thorat Aishwarya	IND	1431	GOA	4.5	50.5	47.5	13.50
74	90		Lasani H Kothari	IND	1211	GUJ	4.5	50.5	47.0	17.75
75	72		Ahmed Simran	IND	1509	ASSM	4.5	50.0	46.5	18.00
76	83		Kowshika S	IND	1321	TN	4.5	49.5	46.0	15.75
77	85		Pooja S (2002)	IND	1306	TN	4.5	49.0	45.5	16.50
78	97		Ngangom Nongleima Chanu	IND	0	MANI	4.5	40.0	37.0	14.00
79	96		Krishnaa Jahagirdar Sudhakar	IND	0	TN	4.0	56.0	51.5	18.75
80	51		Chowdhury Mahmuda Hoque	BAN	1766		4.0	54.0	50.0	13.25
81	69		Srinidhi Sridharan	IND	1522	TN	4.0	52.0	48.0	14.50
82	82		Supriya Shanbhaga	IND	1328	GOA	4.0	50.5	46.5	15.75
83	92		Vinotha S	IND	1111	TN	4.0	47.0	44.0	14.50
84	87		Priyadarshini B	IND	1254	TN	4.0	44.0	42.5	9.25
85	84		Abirami B S	IND	1315	TN	4.0	44.0	41.0	13.50
86	89		Malleswari P	IND	1217	TN	4.0	42.0	40.5	8.00
87	91		Yuti Mayur Patel	IND	1193	MAH	4.0	41.0	39.5	9.25
88	93		Shivani S	IND	1012	TN	4.0	35.5	34.0	8.00
89	86		Akshayaa M	IND	1303	TN	3.5	47.0	44.0	9.50
90	100		Swathi Priyadharshini S	IND	0	TN	3.5	46.5	42.5	13.50
91	95		Devi Shree	BRN	0		3.5	44.5	41.5	11.25
92	94		Arivukkarasi Loganathan	IND	0	TN	3.0	38.5	37.0	4.50
93	32		Varshini V	IND	1966	TN	2.5	52.5	48.5	11.75
94	80		Srimathi R	IND	1349	TN	2.5	46.0	42.5	9.25
95	58		Meera D	IND	1710	TN	2.0	49.5	46.0	9.00
96	98		Panjammal N	IND	0	TN	2.0	37.5	35.0	2.00
97	99		Smrithika S	IND	0	TN	1.0	40.0	37.5	0.50
98	35		Radha S. R.	IND	1929	TN	0.0	37.5	36.0	0.00
	76		Niveditha K	IND	1439	TN	0.0	37.5	36.0	0.00
	81		Adishree Krishnan	IND	1345	MAH	0.0	37.5	36.0	0.00

Annotation:
Tie Break1: Buchholz Tie-Breaks (variabel with parameter)
Tie Break2: Buchholz Tie-Breaks (variabel with parameter)
Tie Break3: Sonneborn-Berger-Tie-Break variable

Holy Lakshmi!  I don't know why it didn't register with me when I posted the R9 results earlier -- Vijay Subbaraman played in this tournament!  Maybe she has been playing all along and I just haven't been paying attention, but I have to tell you, this is the first time in quite a while that I have seen her name come up in a tournament, and she finished in a tie for first place!  Whoop whoop!  Evidently she was in great form.  Her sister, Meenakshi Subbaraman, also played and finished in a tie for third place with six other players.  I have great admiration for both ladies.

Unfortunately, the official website (Tamil Nadu State Chess Association) was silent as to whether any players earned WGM or other norms in this event.  Arggghhhh!

New "Archaic" Mystery Humans Uncovered in Latest DNA Genome Sequencing

Heh heh heh :)  I love this!

From Nature Magazine Online:

Mystery humans spiced up ancients’ rampant sex lives

Genome analysis suggests interbreeding between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and a mysterious archaic population.

• Ewen Callaway

19 November 2013

 

New genome sequences from two extinct human relatives suggest that these ‘archaic’ groups bred with humans and with each other more extensively than was previously known.

 

The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a different archaic human group, the Denisovans, were presented on 18 November at a meeting at the Royal Society in London. They suggest that interbreeding went on between the members of several ancient human-like groups living in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago, including an as-yet unknown human ancestor from Asia.

“What it begins to suggest is that we’re looking at a ‘Lord of the Rings’-type world — that there were many hominid populations,” says Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London who was at the meeting but was not involved in the work.

The first Neanderthal¹ and the Denisovan² genome sequences revolutionized the study of ancient human history, not least because they showed that these groups interbred with anatomically modern humans, contributing to the genetic diversity of many people alive today. [If their DNA is still extent in modern populations, can it truly be said that Neanderthan and Denisovan are extinct?]

All humans whose ancestry originates outside of Africa owe about 2% of their genome to Neanderthals; and certain populations living in Oceania, such as Papua New Guineans and Australian Aboriginals, got about 4% of their DNA from interbreeding between their ancestors and Denisovans, who are named after the cave in Siberia’s Altai Mountains where they were discovered. The cave contains remains deposited there between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Those conclusions however were based on low-quality genome sequences, riddled with errors and full of gaps, David Reich, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts said at the meeting. His team, in collaboration with Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now produced much more complete versions of the Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes — matching the quality of contemporary human genomes. The high-quality Denisovan genome data and new Neanderthal genome both come from bones recovered from Denisova Cave.

The new Denisovan genome indicates that this enigmatic population got around: Reich said at the meeting that they interbred with Neanderthals and with the ancestors of human populations that now live in China and other parts of East Asia, in addition to Oceanic populations, as his team previously reported. Most surprisingly, Reich said, the new genomes indicate that Denisovans interbred with another extinct population of archaic humans that lived in Asia more than 30,000 years ago, which is neither human nor Neanderthal.

The meeting was abuzz with conjecture about the identity of this potentially new population of humans. “We don’t have the faintest idea,” says Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the London Natural History Museum, who was not involved in the work. He speculates that the population could be related to Homo heidelbergensis, a species that left Africa around half a million years ago and later gave rise to Neanderthals in Europe. “Perhaps it lived on in Asia as well,” Stringer says.

My question:  If their DNA still exists and can be measured in modern populations, can it truly be said that Neanderthal, Denisovan and the "unknown archaic humans" are extinct?

Oldest Evidence of Domestication of Dogs is from Europe

More or less simultaneous "domestication" of canines can well have happened in many different part of the world.  However our current canine companions cam to be, I am so happy they did.  I have had the most amazing relationships with my doggies, and I still mourn the passing of each and every one over these forty plus years.  They were the most faithful, unjudgmental and loyal companions, and they loved me no matter what.  Dogs can teach us much about being decent "people."

Dog saves life of owner paralyzed in skiing accident
Posted: Nov 13, 2013 4:13 AM CSTUpdated: Nov 13, 2013 4:19 AM CST

Des Moines, Iowa, man returns, rescues dog who woke him amid house fire
By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS  
Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 5:51 PM

Dog saves new owner from house fire
Posted on: 8:44 pm, November 15, 2013, by Joe Borlik,
updated on: 08:45pm, November 15, 2013(Florida dog wakes woman who rescued him from dog shelter less than two weeks earlier)

I saw this at Yahoo news on Friday:

Where did dogs first appear? DNA points to Europe

By MALCOLM RITTER
November 14, 2013 3:00 PM

NEW YORK (AP) — For years, scientists have been dogged by this evolution question: Just where did man's best friend first appear?

  

The earliest known doglike fossils come from Europe. But DNA studies have implicated east Asia and the Middle East. Now a large DNA study is lining up with the fossils, suggesting dogs originated in Europe some 19,000 to 32,000 years ago.

Experts praised the new work but said it won't end the debate.

Scientists generally agree that dogs emerged from wolves to become the first domesticated animal. Their wolf ancestors began to associate with people, maybe drawn by food in garbage dumps and carcasses left by human hunters. In the process they became tamer, and scientists believe people found them useful for things like hunting and guard duty. Over a very long time in this human environment, wolves gradually turned into the first dogs.

The latest attempt to figure out where this happened was published online Thursday by the journal Science.

Researchers gathered DNA from fossils of 18 ancient wolflike and doglike creatures that lived up to 36,000 years ago in Argentina, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Switzerland and the United States. They compared the genetic material to modern samples from 49 wolves from North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, 77 dogs of a wide variety of breeds including cocker spaniel, basenji and golden retriever, and four coyotes.

The DNA of modern dogs showed similarities to the genetic material from the ancient European specimens and modern-day European wolves, the researchers reported.

The first dogs evolved by associating with hunter-gatherers rather than farmers, since dogs evidently appeared before agriculture did, they said.

"There are now, based on genetic evidence, three alternative hypotheses for the origin of dogs," said Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, a study author.

He said his results suggest a better case for Europe than for east Asia or the Middle East. He also said the kind of wolf that gave rise to dogs is now extinct.

Olaf Thalmann of the University of Turku in Finland, another author, said the work doesn't mean that Europe is the only place where dogs emerged.
"We conclude that Europe played a major role in the domestication process," he said in an email.

The work makes a strong argument for an origin in Europe, although it might not be the only place, said Greger Larson of Durham University in England, who did not participate in the research. "I think it's a real step in the right direction."

Nobel Prize Winning Author, Doris Lessing, Has Died at 94

I'm a big fan of her Canopus in Argos:Archives series.  Lessing lived a long and eventful life, and I do hope her writing will continue to inpire and provoke future generations.  I remember very little at this time, 30 plus years later, after reading "The Marriages Between Zones, Three, Four and Five," but I do remember crying my eyes out, sobbing and having to stop reading, at various points as I read the book.  She didn't age well; she didn't care.  I think of her always as looking like she does in this 1962 photo by Stuart Heydinger-Hulton (oh geez, I LUV that name, LOL!), Getty/Stone:

Report by the Associated Press from the online version of The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel

LONDON (AP) Doris Lessing, the Nobel prize-winning, free-thinking, world-traveling and often-polarizing author of "The Golden Notebook" and dozens of other novels that reflected her own improbable journey across the former British empire, died Sunday. She was 94.

Her publisher, HarperCollins, said the author of more than 55 works of fiction, opera, nonfiction and poetry, died peacefully at her home in London. Her family requested privacy, and the exact cause of death was not immediately clear.

Lessing explored topics ranging from colonial Africa to dystopian Britain, from the mystery of being female to the unknown worlds of science fiction.

She won the Nobel Literature prize in 2007. The Swedish Academy praised Lessing for her "skepticism, fire and visionary power." When informed about winning the prize outside her home she responded: "Oh Christ! ... I couldn't care less."

That was typical of the irascible, independent Lessing, who never saved her fire for the page. The targets of her vocal ire in recent years included former President George W. Bush "a world calamity" and modern women "smug, self-righteous." She also raised hackles by deeming the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States "not that terrible."

She remains best known for "The Golden Notebook," in which heroine Anna Wulf uses four notebooks to bring together the separate parts of her disintegrating life. The novel covers a range of previously unmentionable female conditions menstruation, orgasms and frigidity and made Lessing an icon for women's liberation. But it became so widely talked about and dissected that she later referred to it as a "failure" and "an albatross."

Published in Britain in 1962, the book did not make it to France or Germany for 14 years because it was considered too inflammatory. When it was republished in China in 1993, 80,000 copies sold out in two days.

"It took realism apart from the inside," said Lorna Sage, an academic who knew Lessing since the 1970s. "Lessing threw over the conventions she grew up in to stage a kind of breakdown to celebrate disintegration as the representative experience of a generation when what you should have been doing is getting the act together."

For some readers and critics, however, the book was an unwelcome exposure of female failings.

The criticism of Lessing's work continued throughout her life. Although she continued to publish at least every other year, she received little attention for her later works and was often criticized as didactic and impenetrable.

"This is pure political correctness," American literary critic Harold Bloom said in 2007 after Lessing won the Nobel Prize. "Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable ... fourth-rate science fiction."

While Lessing defended her turn to science fiction as a way to explore "social fiction," she, too, was dismissive of the Nobel honor. After emerging from a London black cab, groceries in hand, she was asked repeatedly whether she was excited about the award.

"I can't say I'm overwhelmed with surprise," Lessing said. "I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off."

As the international media surrounded her in her garden, she brightened when a reporter asked whether the Nobel would generate interest in her work.

"I'm very pleased if I get some new readers," she said. "Yes, that's very nice, I hadn't thought of that."
Born Doris May Tayler on Oct. 22, 1919, in Persia (now Iran) where her father was a bank manager, Lessing moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) aged 5 and lived there until she was 29.
Strong-willed from the start, she read works by Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling by age 10 and lived by the motto "I will not." Educated at a Roman Catholic girls school in Salisbury (now Harare), she left before finishing high school.

At 19, she married her first husband, Frank Wisdom, with whom she had a son and a daughter. She abandoned that family in her early 20s and became drawn into the Left Book Club, a group of literary communists and socialists headed by Gottfried Lessing, the man who would become her second husband and father her third child.

But Lessing became disillusioned with the communist movement and in 1949, aged 30, left her second husband to move to Britain. Along with her young son, Peter, she packed the manuscript of her first novel, "The Grass is Singing." The novel, which used the story of a woman trapped in a loveless marriage to portray poverty and racism in Southern Rhodesia, was published in 1950 to great success in Europe and the United States.

Lessing then embarked on the first of five deeply autobiographical novels from "Martha Quest" to "The Four-Gated City" works that became her "Children of Violence" series.

Her nonfiction work ranged from "Going Home" in 1957 about her return to Southern Rhodesia to a book about her pets, "Particularly Cats," in 1967.

In the 1950s, Lessing became an honorary member of a writers' group known as the Angry Young Men who were seen as injecting a radical new energy into British culture. Her home in London became a center not only for novelists, playwrights and critics but also for drifters and loners.

Lessing herself always denied being a feminist and said she was not conscious of writing anything particularly inflammatory when she produced "The Golden Notebook."

"I had been listening to women talk about women's issues and about men. Suddenly when I wrote down these private conversations, people were astounded. It was as though what women said didn't exist until it was written," she said.

Lessing's early novels decried the dispossession of black Africans by white colonials and criticized South Africa's apartheid system, prompting the governments of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa to bar her in 1956. Later governments overturned that order. In June 1995, the same year that she received an honorary degree from Harvard University, she returned to South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren.

In Britain, Lessing won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1954 and was made a Companion of Honor in 1999. That honor came after she turned down the chance to become a Dame of the British Empire on the grounds that there was no such thing as the British Empire at the time.

Lessing often presented women herself included as vain and territorial and insisted in the introduction for a 1993 reissue that "The Golden Notebook" was not a "trumpet for women's liberation."

"I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement," she told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. "Whatever type of behavior women are coming up with, it's claimed as a victory for feminism doesn't matter how bad it is. We don't seem to go in very much for self-criticism."

In 2001, she told the Edinburgh book festival that modern men were "cowed" by women.

"They can't fight back," she said. "And it's time they did."

She is survived by her daughter Jean and granddaughters Anna and Susannah.

2013 Univ Open

Hola Darlings!

It's a drab, dark, dreary day here in Milwaukee, WI and I HATE this time of year.  Each year the dark and gloom seems to affect me more and more, and I soooo fully appreciate why ancient cultures devoted so much time to feasting and spending time around massive fires and/or hearths and burning lots of torches, candles and oil lamps when they were each invented in their turn.  I've followed suit and done much the same as the ancients.  I've been cooking cooking cooking incredible foods since the third week of October. I pulled out all the stops, so to speak, in this room fully decorated for the Autumnal Equinox and the harvest, Hallo'een and Thankgiving days that follow, all leading up to the darkest, dreariest time of year, the Winter Solstice!  I've been burning candles and using battery-operated candles and running my gas-powered fireplace, and turning on "accent" lights in every nook and cranny of this house during the dreary days!

The photo above makes the room look brighter than it actually was and it's a bit blurry because of the time auto time delay when I use it on "scene" setting.  Now it's 4:32p.m. and if I didn't have this computer monitor on and Mr. Don's votive candle going (I have a photo of him on this desk and when I'm working here I keep a votive candle lit before his image in his Goddesschess memory) I would not be able to see my hand before my face, ach, as I turned off battery-operated or blew out fire-lit candles until it got a little darker!  BTW, that's my view of this front room when I turn my head to the right while at my desk working.  I love this room and spend most of autumn and winter evenings here (or days like this, when it never gets brighter outside than evening). 

I was disappointed that the Unive (Hoogeveen) invitational tournament did not have a female player this year, so I'm not paying any attention to it.  There was a large Open event run concurrently, and some female players took part.  I've tried to pick out the top finishers among a very large field!

17th Unive Chess Tournament 2013 (Hoogeveen NED) Fri 18th Oct 2013 - Sat 26th Oct 2013

It was a 9 round Swiss.  The official site no longer gives the option of an English translation, alas, and my Dutch is non-existent.  I figured out enough (well, actually no, I didn't, I just clicked on every single fricking link until I got to the place I wanted to go!) to be able to give you these results from the Open -- winner and the female players -- not even a hand-full! -- who played in a field of 77 players:

1:    GM Maim Rodshtein, ISR 2664, 7.5 TPR 2740 (winner of Open)
13:  IM Tania Sachdev, IND 2438, 5.5 TPR 2428
20:  WIM Lorena Sepada, ESA 2156, 5.5 TPR 2374 (well done!)
45:  WIM Ilena Krasenkova, RUS 2133, 4.0 TPR 2213
72:  WFM Caroline Slingerland, NED 2084, 2.5 TPR 1987 (oops!  Methinks she may have fallen prey to "males are superior" syndrome)

And that's it, darlings!  Four females out of a field of 77 players. That is sad.

Official website (it stinks, BTW).  I could not find what the prize list was.  WTF?  Is it a state secret or something?

2013 Women Grandmaster Tournament (Chennai)

This is a great event, and I'm so happy to see it.

Here are the standings after R9, two more rounds to go!  Results from Chess-Results.com.  Official website. 

Rank after Round 9

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	3	WGM	Gomes Mary Ann	IND	2414	AAI	7.5	49.0	43.5	43.25
2	2	WGM	Batsiashvili Nino	GEO	2425		7.0	48.0	43.5	39.75
3	11	WGM	Tsatsalashvili Keti	GEO	2266		7.0	45.0	40.5	36.75
4	13	WGM	Swathi Ghate	IND	2242	MAH	7.0	43.0	39.0	35.00
5	4	IM	Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman	IND	2399	TN	6.5	48.0	42.5	36.75
6	7	WGM	Ivakhinova Inna	RUS	2315		6.5	47.0	42.0	36.00
7	14	WGM	Meenakshi Subbaraman	IND	2240	TN	6.5	43.5	39.0	31.25
8	12	IM	Mohota Nisha	IND	2260	WB	6.5	43.5	38.5	34.50
9	9	WGM	Kulkarni Bhakti	IND	2288	GOA	6.5	41.0	36.5	31.50
10	8	WGM	Ambartsumova Karina	RUS	2310		6.0	48.5	44.0	31.50
11	5	IM	Purtseladze Maka	GEO	2374		6.0	46.5	41.5	32.75
	10	WGM	Muminova Nafisa	UZB	2280		6.0	46.5	41.5	32.75
13	6	WGM	Soumya Swaminathan	IND	2348	MAH	6.0	46.0	41.5	33.25
14	1	IM	Guramishvili Sopiko	GEO	2441		6.0	46.0	41.5	30.00
15	15	WGM	Kiran Manisha Mohanty	IND	2237	ODI	6.0	45.5	41.0	29.75
16	26		Lasya.G	IND	2065	AP	6.0	43.5	39.5	29.25
17	27		Harini S.	IND	2023	TN	5.5	48.5	44.0	29.75
18	20	WFM	Gevorgyan Maria	ARM	2147		5.5	47.5	43.5	29.50
19	19	WFM	Monnisha Gk	IND	2150	TN	5.5	44.5	40.0	27.50
20	25	WFM	Swati Mohota	IND	2067	WB	5.5	44.0	40.0	26.25
21	17		Pratyusha Bodda	IND	2159	AP	5.5	44.0	39.5	27.25
22	21	WFM	Tokhirjonova Gulrukhbegim	UZB	2111		5.5	44.0	39.5	26.75
23	28	WFM	Vaishali R	IND	2019	TN	5.5	44.0	39.5	25.75
24	23		Azimova Karina	RUS	2094		5.5	43.0	39.0	24.75
25	34		Tan Li Ting	MAS	1936		5.5	42.5	39.0	23.50
26	18	WIM	Kharmunova Nadezhda	RUS	2152		5.5	42.5	38.0	24.25
27	16	WIM	Drljevic Ljilja	SRB	2181		5.5	42.0	37.5	25.75
28	31	WFM	Sultana Zakia	BAN	1976		5.5	40.5	36.5	25.75
29	54		Priyanka Nutakki	IND	1736	AP	5.5	39.5	36.0	23.00
30	47		Aparajita Gochhikar	IND	1801	ODI	5.5	37.5	34.0	22.50
31	42		Supriya Joshi	IND	1888	MAH	5.5	37.0	33.5	22.50
32	22	WFM	Mahalakshmi M	IND	2107	TN	5.0	44.5	40.5	24.75
33	39	WCM	Tejaswini Sagar	IND	1898	MAH	5.0	41.0	37.5	21.75
34	45		Meghna C H	IND	1847	KER	5.0	41.0	37.0	20.25
35	57		Priyanka K	IND	1717	TN	5.0	39.0	35.0	21.25
36	29	WIM	Hamid Rani	BAN	1994		5.0	38.5	34.5	21.75
37	37		Ashwini U	IND	1918	TN	5.0	38.0	35.5	19.00
38	55		Vantika Agrawal	IND	1728	DEL	5.0	37.5	35.0	18.75
39	40		Anjana Krishna S	IND	1897	KER	5.0	37.0	33.5	19.25
40	56		Harshita Guddanti	IND	1723	AP	5.0	36.0	32.5	20.75
41	79		Raga Jyothsna R	IND	1378	AP	5.0	34.0	31.5	17.00
42	78		Sneha G P S	IND	1384	PUD	5.0	32.5	29.5	17.00
43	41		Sunyasakta Satpathy	IND	1893	ODI	4.5	44.0	40.0	20.25
44	24	WFM	Saranya J	IND	2081	TN	4.5	41.5	38.5	18.75
45	46		Anigani Kavya	IND	1836	AP	4.5	40.5	36.5	19.25
46	33	WIM	Jennitha Anto K.	IND	1961	TN	4.5	40.5	36.5	19.00
47	30	WFM	Srija Seshadri	IND	1991	TN	4.5	39.5	35.5	18.75
48	59	WFM	Lakshmi C	IND	1697	TN	4.5	39.0	36.0	17.75
49	48		Divya Garg	IND	1774	MAH	4.5	39.0	36.0	16.50
50	44	WCM	Ananya Suresh	IND	1860	KAR	4.5	39.0	36.0	15.50
51	52	WFM	Bidhar Rutumbara	IND	1749		4.5	39.0	35.0	18.25
52	62		Sunyuktha C M N	IND	1677	TN	4.5	36.0	33.5	14.75
53	49		Sandhya G	IND	1774	AP	4.5	35.5	32.0	14.00
54	66		Harshini A	IND	1635	TN	4.5	35.0	32.5	14.00
55	50		Pushpalata Mangal	IND	1767	MAH	4.5	35.0	32.0	15.00
56	60		Toshali V	IND	1683	AP	4.5	31.5	29.0	13.50
57	74		Jasper Jothi P	IND	1468	TN	4.5	31.0	28.5	14.75
58	38		Shweta Gole	IND	1907		4.0	42.5	38.5	17.50
59	36		Parnali S Dharia	IND	1924	MAH	4.0	41.5	38.5	15.50
60	53		Potluri Saye Srreezza	IND	1746	AP	4.0	38.5	35.0	14.50
61	65		Saughanthika As	IND	1639	TN	4.0	38.0	34.5	15.25
62	67		Tulsi M	IND	1549	KAR	4.0	37.0	33.0	14.25
63	61		Harivardhini I	IND	1678	TN	4.0	36.5	33.5	14.00
64	96		Krishnaa Jahagirdar Sudhakar	IND	0	TN	4.0	35.0	31.5	14.00
65	77		Thorat Aishwarya	IND	1431	GOA	4.0	34.5	32.0	9.50
66	88		Khandelwal Khushi	IND	1218	MAH	4.0	34.5	31.0	15.00
67	43		Begum Masuda	BAN	1862		4.0	34.0	31.5	13.25
68	70		Kavya. S	IND	1516	TN	4.0	34.0	31.5	12.50
69	72		Ahmed Simran	IND	1509	ASSM	4.0	30.5	28.0	11.50
70	90		Lasani H Kothari	IND	1211	GUJ	4.0	30.0	27.5	11.50
71	63		Jahanara Haque	BAN	1669		3.5	38.0	34.5	14.25
72	51		Chowdhury Mahmuda Hoque	BAN	1766		3.5	38.0	34.0	10.50
73	64		Sowmia A	IND	1650	TN	3.5	35.0	32.5	10.75
74	71	WCM	Fernandes Krystal	IND	1509	GOA	3.5	35.0	32.5	10.00
75	68		Akshita D	IND	1546	TN	3.5	33.5	31.5	9.25
76	69		Srinidhi Sridharan	IND	1522	TN	3.5	33.5	31.0	9.00
77	82		Supriya Shanbhaga	IND	1328	GOA	3.5	33.5	31.0	8.75
78	83		Kowshika S	IND	1321	TN	3.5	32.0	29.5	8.75
79	85		Pooja S (2002)	IND	1306	TN	3.5	31.5	29.0	8.75
80	75		Kavya Srishti K	IND	1456	KAR	3.5	30.5	28.0	8.50
81	73		Tejasvi M	IND	1490	TN	3.0	37.0	33.0	11.50
82	100		Swathi Priyadharshini S	IND	0	NGM	3.0	32.5	29.5	9.50
83	89		Malleswari P	IND	1217	TN	3.0	30.0	28.5	5.50
84	92		Vinotha S	IND	1111	TN	3.0	29.5	27.0	7.50
85	84		Abirami B S	IND	1315	TN	3.0	27.0	25.0	6.50
86	97		Ngangom Nongleima Chanu	IND	0	MANI	3.0	26.5	24.5	6.00
87	32		Varshini V	IND	1966	TN	2.5	37.0	33.5	10.00
88	87		Priyadarshini B	IND	1254	TN	2.5	31.5	30.0	3.75
89	95		Devishree	IND	0	TN	2.5	31.0	28.0	7.00
90	80		Srimathi R	IND	1349	TN	2.5	30.5	28.0	5.75
91	86		Akshayaa M	IND	1303	TN	2.5	30.5	28.0	5.25
92	91		Yuti Mayur Patel	IND	1193	MAH	2.5	29.0	26.5	5.50
93	58		Meera D	IND	1710	TN	2.0	34.5	31.5	7.50
94	94		Arivukkarasi Loganathan	IND	0	TN	2.0	25.5	24.0	2.00
95	93		Shivani S	IND	1012	TN	2.0	25.0	23.5	2.00
96	98		Panjammal N	IND	0	TN	2.0	23.0	21.0	2.00
97	99		Smrithika S	IND	0	TN	1.0	24.5	23.0	0.50
98	35		Radha S. R.	IND	1929	TN	0.0	26.0	24.5	0.00
	76		Niveditha K	IND	1439	TN	0.0	26.0	24.5	0.00
	81		Adishree Krishnan	IND	1345	MAH	0.0	26.0	24.5	0.00

Annotation:
Tie Break1: Buchholz Tie-Breaks (variabel with parameter)
Tie Break2: Buchholz Tie-Breaks (variabel with parameter)
Tie Break3: Sonneborn-Berger-Tie-Break variable

This article is dated September 11, 2013, three days before the Indian court that held the rape trials of men accused of the horrific rape of a female college student on a bus, the injuries from which caused her death, handed down death penalties for the defendants (death by hanging).

I've written about the Indian (and Chinese) practice of aborting female fetuses.  A culture that refuses to change is a culture that WILL die, and it cannot happen soon enough as far as I'm concerned.  I hope it will happen before I die, sometime in the next 30 years or so. 

At CNN.com

Where have India's females gone?

By Carl Gierstorfer, Special to CNN

updated 5:01 PM EDT, Wed September 11, 2013

 

(CNN) -- The New Delhi rape case left the whole world wondering why India is treating its women so badly. In fact, discrimination against women already starts in the womb: India has some of the most distorted sex-ratios in the world. There are regions where fewer than 800 girls are born for every 1,000 boys. For many reasons Indian culture prefers sons. An expensive bride-price, or dowry, is only one of them.

 

So day-by-day, thousands of parents circumvent rarely enforced laws and have their baby daughters aborted after an ultrasound scan has revealed the sex of the fetus. It is estimated that India has been losing [aborted] up to 12 million baby girls over the last three decades.

 

I wanted to find out what it means for a society if such a significant number of women are missing.

In one village just two hours drive outside Delhi, I met Narinder, a schoolteacher, and his family. He had three brothers and only one of them got married. There weren't enough brides, because the village has been aborting their daughters for decades.

 

Narinder told me that he had already reached out to an agent who would find him a bride from afar. In fact, he planned to share this bride with his brothers.

 

I felt sorry for Narinder, because he totally understood that his misery was due to the fact that his village has been actively selecting for sons. Still, in a quiet moment, he confided to me, that if his purchased wife would be pregnant, he'd make sure it was a son. I was perplexed. Everyone in this village knew it was wrong to prefer sons over girls, everyone experienced the problems firsthand.

 

And still, like sleepwalkers, they continued their way, because culture dictates that sons are a blessing and daughters a curse. [Let them die off! Narinder, looking for a wife, plans to "share" his wife with his brothers? Get bent, dude! Go find a goat or a sheep and "share" it with your brothers. It's better for the perpetuators of this culture to die once and for all, and with it this sick culture - from Mother Earth once and for all. They will be the cause of their own demise.]

 

After the Delhi rape case, the whole world looked at India in disbelief, its urban middle class took to the streets. I returned to India to meet Shafiq Khan, a former Maoist rebel, who realized that violence is not the way forward. Shafiq now uses his wit and bravery to make inroads into rural India's patriarchal societies. 

 

We hit the dusty streets, down to Haryana where Shafiq introduced me to women who do not have a voice, women for whom nobody demonstrates. They are abused and raped and sold like cattle and nobody cares. They are called Paro, or strangers. They are the sort of women Narinder will buy -- those who make up for the scores who are never born.

 

Akhleema and Tasleema, two sisters from Kolkata, were born into a poor family, before her aunt sold them via an agent to two brothers in Haryana, who could not find a bride. Within weeks, Akhleema was beaten so hard by her husband, that she lost hearing in her left ear. Both spend their time cooking, cleaning and tending the fields. They have no rights, no voice and, most shockingly: there is no way back. They have children with their men and it is culturally unacceptable to leave them behind.

 

But where are all these trafficked women coming from? In a cruel paradox, it's the poor northeastern states of India, like West Bengal or Assam, where sex-ratios aren't that skewed, that make up for large parts of all the missing women.

 

Assam is beautiful, even during the dry season. The Brahmaputra winds its way through the plains, quietly and peacefully.

 

"But don't be mistaken", Shafiq says. Because during the rainy season, the river erupts over its banks, destroys fields and villages. In these already poverty-stricken regions, flooding takes away the little people have. Thousands of families are pushed into poverty and helplessness. They end up in flood shelters, vulnerable and easy prey for traffickers, like Saleha and her husband Husain. Their daughter Jaida went missing two years ago. They saw a man entering the hamlet and talking to Jaida. She vanished without a trace.

 

In a remote village on the dusty floodplains we meet Halida. She had just turned 14, when a man kidnapped her while fetching water. For two days he raped Halida, told her that he would bring her to Delhi in order to sell her. Halida could escape, but now she cannot go to school anymore, because all the children know of the rape and tease her. The parents, day-laborers, cannot find work anymore, because they are ostracized by the whole village. The rape destroyed the family.

 

While the trafficker may have lost his prey, it's unlikely that he will ever be punished. The police are corrupt and the more destruction there is, the easier it will be for him to find new victims.

 

Thus closes a vicious circle in which millions of India's women are trapped. The prejudices against women are so deeply engrained in the cultural fabric, that only a combined effort, old and young, urban and rural, will be able to break it once and for all.