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Women Russian Chess Championship-09: Higher League
Written by Natalia Pogonina
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Gunina Valentina ("bronze"), Tairova Elena ("gold"), Zaiatz Elena ("silver")
Photo: russiachess.org
The Women Russian Championship 2009-Higher League has been held at Voronezh in June, 1-9. The participants were rather strong players who were aiming at qualifying for the Russian Women Chess Superfinal. A lot of players and only 5 to succeed - that guaranteed exciting chess struggles.
Elena Tairova won first 5 games in a row, and has spared only three draws in the remaining rounds. 1st place and 7,5 out of 9.
While Tairova convincingly occupied the top spot, other players have been battling for the other 4 qualifying places. Only the last two rounds have put an end to the fight: the silver medal went to Elena Zaiatz (7 out of 9), who, just like Tairova, hasn't lost a single game. Places 3-5 went to players who scored 6 points: Gunina (3rd), Stepovaia (4th), Manakova (5th). Gunina and Manakova had been especially fierce ladies - they hadn't made any draws!
So, now we know the names of 10 participants of the Russian Women Chess Superfinal (it's usually a 12-player round robin). Five people who qualified from the Higher League (see above), 3 winners of Superfinal-2008 - Kosintzeva Nadezhda, Kosintzeva Tatiana and Anastasia Bodnaruk. Also top-3 Russian women players by FIDE rating: Alexandra Kosteniuk, Natalia Pogonina (Tatiana Kosintseva has already been mentioned, so someone else will take part). Therefore, the organizers will have to find 2 more players, or opt for a 10-player event. The Superfinal will be held from 16 to 30 of December, 2009. Press "Read more" for chess episodes of the tournament
Play like Pogonina: Pogonina (2462) - Middelveld (2009)
Written by Natalia Pogonina
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Thank you for voting in the Polls (see the left panel of the website) - now I know that 1.e4 is by far the most popular move among the readers of Pogonina.com (52.1%), d4 is #2 with 27.8% and #3-4 are Nf3 and c4 with 5.6%. It's also clear from the results that my home video (36%) would even be a bit more popular than annotated games (28.1%). Wow, what a surprise. Ok, back to chess then!
This position occurred in one of my games at the EuroCup-2007 in Turkey where I have been playing for my favorite team AVS. The winning continuation is pretty easy to see (can you calculate it in 10 seconds?), but still nice enough.
White to move and win. Press "More" for the solution and actual game move list.
P.S. Thank you for the warm congratulations that you keep sending to me and Peter! Please visit our Gallery for more wedding pictures if you liked the first part of the report!
If only they were married: GMKasparovG (2851) GMPolgarJ (2735) = 5586
Natalia and I decided to compile a list of the strongest chess couples in the world who could become members of the honorary "5000+ Club".
The requirements for becoming a member are the following:
1)Two chess players should be officially married (no girlfriend & boyfriend stuff)
2)The sum of their peak FIDE ratings should be 5000 (!) or more
So, as of this day, we have the following list of of "5000+ Club" members:
Many people don't consider chess to be a team sport. And this opinion has its reasons. Chess is a game between two people. There are no assistants, only you and your opponent. So a team match can also be viewed as a few separate confrontations. What is so special about team play then? Each for him/herself, so will the individualists say.
But there is also a different point of view, which is supported by many people, including me. Chess has its own team play specifics. My opinion is based on other people's experience, as well as on my own. I have been playing in team events since I was a kid (and participated in the famous "White Rook" tournaments). Nowadays I play for the Russian chess team and various clubs. So I would like to tell you a bit about my take on team play and team spirit.
64 Chess Review features Natalia Pogonina on cover
Written by Peter Zhdanov
Wednesday, 03 June 2009
64 Chess Review, one of the most respectable and popular chess magazines in the world (yes, Chess Oscar is their project, remember?), features winners of the Women European Chess Championship-2009 on its May edition's cover.
From left to right: Lilit Mkrtchian, Tatiana Kosintseva, Natalia Pogonina.
We aren't persuading you to buy this magazine, but if you want more information on Natalia's performance in the tournament, then you had better read it!
When I was a kid, PCs werent that widespread yet, so books were our #1 choice when it came to chess studies. Of course, innovative technologies speed up the process of learning chess, but the old methods shouldnt be totally neglected too. Thats why some of the books that I liked during my childhood are admired by me now not less than contemporary chess software.
The saying a man is what he eats can be applied to chess literature too swallow a second-rate scribble written for the sake of earning easy money, and you may not only waste a lot of time, but form wrong perceptions of the game, its principles and players. On the contrary, some writers put soul into their books and try to do their best to help the readers increase their chess level and (importantly) gain pleasure during the process.
Thanks to the Internet and my home library, I have access to a few hundred chess volumes. Based on the popularity of such discussion topics as what chess book should I read? or is this one any good?, I decided to present toyou a short list of my favorite chess books. Here it goes:
Play like Pogonina: Bronnikova (2297) - Pogonina (2501)
Written by Natalia Pogonina
Friday, 29 May 2009
As a "casual Friday" gift let me present to you a tactical shot from one of the games I played at the Russian Women Team Championship this year. Please try to solve this little problem without using any chess engines or viewers.
Natalia has just thrown one of her fans off the bridge for not solving a chess problem.
Who's next? 08/18/06 Lately we've been adding lots of my pics (see the new albums as well as the new photos in the old albums at the Gallery) - hope you'll like them. Contributors - your pics would be very much appreciated, just send them to
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The photo above features me in a park at her home city Saratov. The trivia will have two questions:
1) Create a caption for the pic
2) Guess when the photo was taken (at least the year)
The winner's response will become the actual caption of the photo in 3 days from the post's "published on" time.
Good luck!
And the winner is Gennady with his caption "Natalia has just thrown one of her fans off the bridge for not solving a chess problem. Who's next?". Unforunately, nobody guessed the correct date right, it was August, 18, 2006.
