Natalia Pogonina (born on March 9, 1985) is one of the best female chess players in the world, member of the Russian chess team.
Woman Grandmaster (WGM), three-times European champion (U16, twice U18), bronze prize winner at the World Championship (U18) and European Women Championship, winner of the gold medal at the 1st International Mind Sports Games,co-winner of the 2008 Student World Championship, and #1 at multiple prestigious international tournaments (2005 – Bykova Memorial, 2007 – Rudenko memorial, 2009 – Moscow Open, etc.).
Her current FIDE ratingis over 2500 – a mark that is associated with the title of a male Grandmaster.
Grandmaster Natalia Pogonina vs. the World at Chess.com
Written by Natalia Pogonina
Thursday, 01 April 2010
This is the current position of the Pogonina vs. the World game which is taking place at Chess.com (started on December, 24).
You can still join it here.
Will be happy to play against you! Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
The most difficult thing in chess it is to win a winning position
--Emmanuel Lasker, 2nd World Chess Champion
All of us have faced a situation when we had a totally winning position and didn't win it for one reason or the other. This can be quite painful and leave you with a taste of dissatisfaction with your own play. Therefore, it is crucial to work on your technique and make sure you lose as few points as possible.
I knew a master who boasted he could “win a position with an extra pawn in just one minute against anybody”. Not completely true, of course, but genuine to some extent.
Playing for the Russian Chess Team, all 2500+ FIDE
Generally speaking, there are two main ways to convert a won position: an aggressive one (employed when you have a critical advantage) and the calm one (outmaneuver the opponent, make him lose the thread of the game and blunder in time trouble). If your advantage is not large enough to win by sacrificing pieces and launching a direct attack, trading into a won endgame, etc., then you have to opt for the second way. This is what I love doing.
Continuing last week's story about the '09 Russian Superfinal, I would like to share with you my game from round 3 against the experienced 2-time vice-World Champion IM Alisa Galliamova, who also happens to be the ex-wife of GM Vassilii Ivanchuk. We have played before twice: I won one game and drew one.
This time we were leading the tournament with 2/2. The public has dubbed our game as “the duel of two chess mums”: Alisa took a 2-year break from competitive chess to look after her baby, while I have been away for 8 months due to pregnancy.
Natalia Pogonina & Nikolai Zhdanov
On a separate note: just like in an RPG, each chess player has 5 main character attributes:
1) Chess skills – also referred to as “chess class”. There is even a saying in Russia – “you can’t ruin your class through drinking”. For example, a master is supposed to remember how to play the Philidor’s position even if he’s heavily drunk, sick and almost asleep.
2) Chess shape – that is your current chess conditioning. For example, you might be a great player, but if you haven’t had practice lately, you may easily forget how to play some technical positions, have problems recalling moves in the opening, calculate slowly, or just blunder.
3) Physical shape – an essential component of success. Chess games usually last for a few hours, so it’s very important to be fit. Tiredness or illness may easily cost you the full point.
4) Mental shape – that is how well your brain is operating at the moment. Sometimes it seems that everything is great: you are feeling well, your chess preparation and skills are excellent, you have been performing well in chess – and then you just find out that today your head feels like having a holiday. It doesn’t feel like doing any calculation at all, so you have to rely on your intuition only.
5) Psychological shape – if you’re feeling down, unconfident, have no energy, are not motivated enough, tired of playing chess, etc., then chances are that you will perform much worse than you could have done otherwise.
NY Times - Natalia Pogonina Believes Chess Can Improve your Sex Life
Written by Administrator
Sunday, 24 January 2010
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
Published: January 23, 2010
Can chess be erotic? Yes, according to the movie “Joueuse,” which was released last month in France and Germany.
In “Joueuse,” the French actress Sandrine Bonnaire plays Hélène, a maid whose marriage and life are passionless. One day, while cleaning a room, she sees a couple (Jennifer Beals and Dominic Gould) playing chess. As they play, they touch each other suggestively and exchange smoldering glances. Aroused, Hélène vows to learn the game and teach it to her husband to see if she can rekindle their romance. He shows no interest, and she decides to learn more about chess. She turns to a character played by Kevin Kline, whose house she cleans, and he becomes her teacher. She eventually surpasses him as a player.
Chess as a metaphor for sex may seem far-fetched, but it has been used before, as in a tension-laden scene between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in the 1968 movie “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
What may seem even more far-fetched is the idea that there is a way to apply ideas about sex to improve chess skills, and vice versa. But Natalia Pogonina, who is No. 17 among women, and her husband are writing a book about just that. The book is titled “Chess Kamasutra.”
“We will be reviewing the most interesting openings and middlegame positions and relating them to positions from Kama Sutra,” Pogonina said in an interview last year with Chessbase.com.
Given her ideas, it is hard to know whether to read anything into Pogonina’s style as a player. She likes classical openings, but is not afraid to mix it up, as she did against Joanna Dworakowska of Poland at last year’s European Individual Women’s Championship. Pogonina ending up taking third, on tie-breakers.
Against Dworakowska, Pogonina chose the Ruy Lopez, a traditional system.
Pogonina’s 11 ... ed4 was surprising, as Black surrenders the center. But Pogonina had played the move before. Dworakowska’s reply, 12 Nd4, was a new idea, and Pogonina had to improvise. She adjusted, obtaining a queenside pawn majority.
Dworakowska blundered with 25 Bh4, but Pogonina failed to take advantage, as she could have after 25 ... Bf3 26 Be7 Bg2 27 Bd6 Qc6.
Pogonina pounced on her next chance, playing 28 ... a5 to create two connected passed pawns. Dworakowska could not play 29 ba5 because 29 ... Bc5 would win White’s queen.
Pogonina missed opportunities: She could have played 33 ... c3, as 34 Rb3 Qc4 wins a piece. And 35 ... Nf4 followed by 36 ... Ree5 would have been better than 35 ... Re5. But the result was never in doubt. Dworakowska resigned because she would have been down a rook, with no hope, after 43 Be7 Rc8.
A version of this article appeared in print on January 24, 2010, on page A18 of the New York edition.
Men tend to look down on women’s chess, joke about their level and style of play, and also discuss the female players’ looks whenever they have a chance.
Continuing my story about the Russian Superfinal-2009 (Part 1 can be found here), I would like to share with you my Round 2 game against WGM Maria Manakova. Russian-born but currently playing for Serbia, she became relatively well-known in the chess world as “the first female grandmaster to pose nude for a tabloid”.
WGM Maria Manakova
Maria gained some popularity by spreading spicy pictures of herself and giving provocative interviews, and, along with myself and Almira Skripchenko, has been recognized as one of the most beautiful women chess players in the world. I am actually very ironical about all this fuss, so it was quite entertaining for me to see some newspapers and chess fans comment on our encounter in the fashion of a “battle of the chess sex symbols.”
Today we are going to talk about the Russian Superfinal, a strong chess event which took place this past December in Moscow. Most of the top Russian players have been participating in both the Men’s and Women’s sections, which is a guarantee in itself of top-level chess. Chess.com has been posting updates on it in the News section, but I'll still rehash the details of who is playing in depth here for those who haven't read:
GM Kosintseva, Tatiana 2522 (#8 in the world women rankings)
IM Kosintseva Nadezhda 2518 (#9) WGM Pogonina Natalia 2501 (#15)
IM Galliamova Alisa 2460 (inactive)
IM Romanko Marina 2449 (#43)
WFM Gunina Valentina 2446 (#46)
IM Zaiatz Elena 2390 (#79)
WGM Stepovaia Tatiana 2384 (#82)
WGM Bodnaruk Anastasia 2372 (#90)
WGM Manakova Marina 2344 (#121)
Tatiana and Nadezhda Kosintsevas, and Natalia Pogonina at the 2005 Superfinal
As Russia is the only country in the world to have 4 female players rated 2500+, due to the absence of Alexandra Kosteniuk the Kosintseva sisters and me were considered to be the favorites. In the previous years the Russian Chess Federation has been posting polls asking “who is your favorite in the Superfinal,” and I have always been the top candidate. Ironically, the significance of the event and everyone’s attention are a burden on me, so historically I have performed relatively unsuccessfully at the Superfinal.
This time the situation was even more dramatic: I had missed 8 months of tournament play due to pregnancy. Therefore, my goal for the event was just to enjoy chess and see how good or bad my chess shape was.
This girl , Rachel, is doing pretty well, but it's clear that she's not a grandmaster, otherwise she would have given more exposure...to the subject. I should make such a video myself one day, don't you think?
P.S. "Taking a castle" and "a horse" - now that's hilarious! There are other glitches (e.g. she doesn't now where to place the queen or the castling rules), but who cares...
Natalia Pogonina: Playing for the Russian Team is an honor for me...
Written by Administrator
Sunday, 03 January 2010
A new interview with Natalia Pogonina (originally published in Polish here)
- What is in your opinion the best way to promote chess among young people
nowadays?
Most young people spend a lot of time on the web – they hardly ever visit chess clubs, and prefer to play online. Therefore, it is essential to promote chess on the Internet: publish articles, share advice, establish playing zones and chess forums, make chess videos, etc. The more exciting and unusual the activity is, the higher the chances are that it will grab people’s attention. For example, right now I’m playing a vote chess game against the World at Chess.com – a few thousand chess players from all over the Earth are participating.
The second – and even more important part – is to promote chess in the media and make it more prestigious. Young people are smart enough to understand what counts: they will never spend their time on something which they don’t consider cool or financially promising. The more we spread the “chess is an elite game for smart and cool people” message around the globe, the better. And not only spread, but work in that direction, improve the situation in the chess world.
Natalia Pogonina also promotes chess as a model
- It is not the secret, that you are the internet enthusiast... I want to
ask how important is internet, and in general - computers, in your chess
There are other glitches (e.g. she doesn't now where to place the queen or the castling rules), but who cares...
