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Alexandra Kosteniuk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexandra Kosteniuk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk (Russian:

; born April 23,
1984 in Perm) is a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former
Women's World Chess Champion.

Alexandra Kosteniuk

Contents
1 Chess career
2 Personal life
3 Notable games
4 Bibliography by Kosteniuk
5 References

Full name

6 External links

Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk

(
)

Chess career
Kosteniuk learned to play chess at the age of five after being
taught by her father. She has a younger sister named Oxana,
who is a Woman FIDE Master level chess player.

Kosteniuk at the 35th Chess Olympiad,

Bled 2002

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kosteniuk

Country

Russia

Born

April 23, 1984

Perm, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

Title

Grandmaster

Women's
World
Champion

200810

In 2001, at the
age of 17, she
reached the final
FIDE rating 2529
of the World
(http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?
Women's Chess
event=4128125) (March 2015)
Championship,
(No. 16 ranked woman in the November
but was defeated
2012 FIDE World Rankings)
by Zhu Chen.
Three years later, Peak rating 2543 (September 2014)
she became
European
women's champion by winning the tournament in Dresden, Germany.
She also won the 2005 Russian Women's Championship, held in
Samara, Russia, finishing with a score of +7 0 =4 . In August 2006,
she became the first Chess960 women's world champion after beating
Germany's top female player Elisabeth Phtz 52. She defended

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that title successfully in 2008 by beating Kateryna Lahno 21.[1] However, her greatest success so far has been
to win the Women's World Chess Championship 2008, beating in the final the young Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan,
with a score of 21.
In November 2004, she was awarded the International Grandmaster title, becoming the tenth woman to receive the
highest title of the World Chess Federation, FIDE. Before that, she had also obtained the titles of Woman
Grandmaster and International Master. She is 44th on the November 2011 FIDE women's Elo rating list with a
rating of 2439.
In the Women's World Chess Championship, 2010 she was eliminated in the third round by Ruan Lufei and thus
lost her title.
In 2013 she became the first woman to win the mens Swiss [Chess] Championship. [2] That year she also won the
women's Swiss Championship, and thus became the first person to win both the womens and mens national chess
titles in Switzerland. [2]

Personal life
Kosteniuk has dual Swiss-Russian citizenship. [2] She is married to Swiss-born Diego Garces, who is of Colombian
descent.[3] On April 22, 2007 Alexandra gave birth to a daughter, Francesca Maria. Francesca was born 2
months premature, but after an 8-week stay in the hospital has made a full recovery.
Alexandra is today a member of the Champions for Peace club, a group of 54 famous elite athletes committed to
serving peace in the world through sport, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international
organization.[4]

Notable games
The World vs Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2004, Sicilian Defense:
Najdorf Variation. English Attack (B90), 01
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1333486)
Alexandra Kosteniuk vs Alexander Onischuk, Corus, Group B
2005, Spanish Game: Classical Variation (C65), 10
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1327780)
Anna Ushenina vs Alexandra Kosteniuk, WWCh. 2008, NimzoIndian Defense: Classical, Noa Variation (E34), 01

Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2007

(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1504421)

Bibliography by Kosteniuk
Kosteniuk, Alexandra (2001). How I became a grandmaster at age 14. Moscow. ISBN 5829300435.
14 . Moscow, 2001. 202, [2] ., [16] . . ISBN 5-89069-053-1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kosteniuk

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: / ,
. Moscow : Russian Chess House, 2008. 142 ISBN 978-5-94693-085-7.
Kosteniuk, Alexandra (2009). Diary of a Chess Queen. Mongoose Press. ISBN 978-0-9791482-7-9.

References
1. ChessBase.com Chess News Mainz 2008 Kosteniuk wins Chess960, Rybka and Shredder qualify
(http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4806)
2. chessqueen.com - Chess Queen Alexandra Kosteniuk's Chess Blog (http://chessqueen.com/chess-queen-kosteniukwrites-history-in-switzerland.html#more-3675)
3. Various photos of Frascati (http://translate.google.com/translate?
hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.asigc.it/News/frascati_varie.htm&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=8&ct=result&prev=/se
arch%3Fq%3D%2522diego%2Bgarces%2522%2Bcolombian%2Bkosteniuk%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_en
US243US243)
4. Peace and Sport (http://www.peace-sport.org/)

External links
Kosteniuk's website (http://www.kosteniuk.com/)
Alexandra Kosteniuk
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=10940) player

Wikimedia Commons has

media related to Alexandra
Kosteniuk.

profile and games at Chessgames.com

Alexandra Kosteniuk's chess blog Chessqueen (http://chessqueen.com/)
Alexandra Kosteniuk's chess tips ChessKillerTips (http://www.chesskillertips.com/)
Interview with Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk on LatestChess site
(http://latestchess.com/showInterview.php?id=9)
Kosteniuk wins WMSG blitz title (http://reports.chessdom.com/alexandra-kosteniuk-wins-wmsg-blitz-chess)
ChessBase: Alexandra Kosteniuk is Women's World Champion
(http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4912)
The crowning of Kosteniuk as a World Champion (http://photos.chessdom.com/wwcc-2008/closingceremony)
Preceded by
Xu Yuhua

Women's World Chess Champion

20082010

Succeeded by
Hou Yifan

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexandra_Kosteniuk&oldid=640960272"

Categories: 1984 births Chess grandmasters Chess woman grandmasters Living people
Russian chess players Russian chess writers Sportspeople from Perm World Youth Chess Champions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kosteniuk

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Women's World Chess Champions European Chess Champions

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