US Women's Chess Championship 2009

report from chessdom

Alisa Melekhina holds Irina Krush at the start

The US Women Chess Championship 2009 started in style with IM Anna Zatonskih breaking a simul record. She took on five opponents, including CCSCSL founder and board member Rex Sinquefield — who was the last competitor standing. Zatonskih’s perfect five wins set a record for female blindfold chess.

Sabina-Francesca Foisor, Anna Zatonskih, Rusudan Goletiani, and Camilla Baginskaite won their round 1 games, while Irina Krush was held to a draw by Alisa Melekhina. Scroll down for full report of the round.

* Yun Fan (0) vs Sabina-Francesca Foisor (1)
* Iryna Zenyuk (0) vs Anna Zatonskih (1)
* Battsetseg Tsagaan (0) vs Rusudan Goletiani (1)
* Irina Krush (½) vs Alisa Melekhina (½)
* Camilla Baginskaite (1) vs Tatev Abrahamyan (0)

Round two sees some pretty good match-ups as the players all try to get into that groove and make sure they don’t fall back too far. The pick of the day is probably IM Rusudan Goletiani vs IM Irina Krush. Krush will not want to fall too far behind the leaders having drawn with the white pieces in round one. IM Anna Zatonskih gets her first white pieces against WIM Battsetseg Tsagaan and will possibly see this as a chance to put some early pressure on her main rivals. The other games see WGM Sabina Foisor vs WFM Tatev Abrahamyan, WIM Alisa Melekhina vs WGM Camilla Baginskaite and Yun Fan vs WIM Iryna Zenyuk. Foisor, Baginskaite and Melekhina will all be looking to build on their good start on day one.

Round 1 results

The opening round of the 2009 U.S. Women's Chess Championship gave a taste of the combative play that will come over the next 11 days. The championship will take place at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, from Oct. 3, 2009. The first day's action gathered 10 of the highest-rated women in the country as they faced off in five duels, with four ending in victories.

The lone draw, and biggest surprise of the round, came at the hands of 18-year-old Alisa Melekhina of Philadelphia, the tournament's youngest participant. She played solidly in her battle with second-seeded former champion Irina Krush of Brooklyn, N.Y. Melekhina holds the second-highest female title, women international master. She is riding a hot streak, coming off an individual gold medal at the World Team Championships last month in China.

Krush, an international master and woman grandmaster, eschewed the sharpest opening lines on the white side of a King's Indian Defense (a black systemfavored by former World Champion Garry Kasparov), but later tried to drum up complications with a pawn sacrifice. Melekhina accepted the pawn, but shortly after the game came to an impasse and the two players split the point by repeating moves three times.

The tournament's most seasoned participant jumped out to a fast start as well. Fifth-seeded Women Grandmaster Camilla Baginskaite, 42, of Sioux Falls, S.D., used the advantage of the white pieces to orchestrate active pieces against sixth-seeded Woman FIDE Master Tatev Abrahamyan, of Glendale, Calif. With Abrahamyan down to only seconds on her clock, she overlooked a devastating sacrificial knight fork and was forced to resign. Baginskaite also won the event, in 2000.

The other three matches were all won by the players with the black pieces. Fourth-seeded Woman Grandmaster Sabina Foisor, 20, of Baltimore, played 71 moves over six hours before narrowly getting by tenth-seeded National Master Yun Fan of Greencastle, Ind. Fan is only one year younger. The two women are the only rookies of the event.

The title defense of 2008 champion Anna Zatonskih, of Long Island, N.Y., began as she would have liked. She used an unorthodox opening system to stymie any pre-match preparations of eighth-seeded Woman International Master Iryna Zenyuk of Pittsburgh, Pa. The top-seeded woman grandmaster used a malleable pawn structure to avoid modern theory, and cleared the middlegame complications with an advantageous knight against two pawns imbalance.

In the final game, third-seeded Woman Grandmaster Rusudan Goletiani. of Hartsdale, N.Y., squared off with ninth-seeded Woman International Master Battsetseg Tsagaan, of Ellicott City, Md. Goletiani, also a past U.S. Women's Champion, pirouetted her queen around the board before finally corralling her opponent's king.

The participants in the 2009 US Women’s Chess Championship. Back row (left to right): Rusudan Goletiani, Alisa Melekhina, Camilla Baginskaite, Anna Zatonskih and Irina Krush. Front row (left to right): Sabina Foisor, Tatev Abrahamyan, Iryna Zenyuk, Yun Fan and Battsetseg Tsagaan. (Photo Betsy Dynako)

Facts about US Women Chess

* The first unoffcial U.S. women's champion was crowned in 1857. Though her name was never listed, a description of the chess queen secured her legacy: "This lady is believed to be the strongest amateur of her sex in the country, and would certainly be ranked as a first-rate in any club." * The first published game by an U.S. woman player appeared in an 8-page brochure in 1830
* A Texas man in 1885 publicly offered a $100 bet that his wife could beat any man in chess
* Mona May Karff won seven titles, topped only by Gisela Kahn Gresser’s nine wins
* Irina Krush holds the record as the youngest player to win the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship. She won it in 1998 at age 14
* In 1909 Eliza Foot “placed on the market a series of chess puzzles”, making her the first female U.S. chess author.

For this and much more information visit the very informative official website.