Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

[Peter McKillop]

She's representing Canada in the Women's World Chess Championship which started today in Khanty Mansiysk.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8616

[Michael Yip]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

http://budapestchesnews.blogspot.hu/

There is a blog entry with small bio+ a game from the 2012 Olympiad on Natalia.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

and Hal Bond will shout with a camera in a free time from arbitrating :D

[Frank Dixon]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

I'm sending my best wishes for the Women's World Championship to our WIM Natalia Khoudgarian!! :)

The opening ceremonies have been held earlier today, and Natalia, the 61st seed at 2138, will face GM Xuo Zhao of China, the fourth seed at 2565. The tournament website does not specify the colours for this match or any of the others. It will be a very good test for our many-time Canadian women's champion!

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

I'm sending my best wishes for the Women's World Championship to our WIM Natalia Khoudgarian!! :)

The opening ceremonies have been held earlier today, and Natalia, the 61st seed at 2138, will face GM Xuo Zhao of China, the fourth seed at 2565. The tournament website does not specify the colours for this match or any of the others. It will be a very good test for our many-time Canadian women's champion!

Each of the knockout matches are 2 games aren't they? Maybe the higher rated player has white in the first game?

[Mark S. Dutton]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian @ The Women’s World Chess Cup 2012

Each of the knockout matches are 2 games aren't they? Maybe the higher rated player has white in the first game?

I would also like to wish Natalia Khougarian very best wishes for a successful tournament! Good Luck Natalia! :)

Yes Kerry -- you are correct -- 2 games in each round!

The Women’s World Chess Cup 2012 will be staged by the Ugorian Chess Academy from 11 November to 2 December. The best 64 chess players in the world will take part in the competition, which consist of six knock-out rounds which reduce the participants from 64 to 32, 16, 8, 4, and 2. The winner will play a match against the winner of FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2011-2012 (Hou Yifan), which will determine the World Champion among women.

11.11.2012 - Su 15:00 Round I - game 1 64 players

12.11.2012 - Mo 15:00 Round I - game 2

13.11.2012 - Tu 15:00 Tiebreak (as required) ... and then 32 players and so on....

First Round Pairings, 2012 Women's World Chess Championship
name country title Rating - name country title Rating
1 Hou, Yifan CHN g 2606 - Ranasinghe, S D SRI wm 1821
2 Koneru, Humpy IND g 2610 - Frick, Denise RSA wm 1871
3 Muzychuk, Anna SLO g 2586 - Mezioud, Amina ALG wm 2055
4 Zhao, Xue CHN g 2565 - Khoudgarian, Natalia CAN wm 2138
5 Lahno, Kateryna UKR g 2553 - Mona, Khaled EGY wg 2155
6 Kosintseva, Nadezhda RUS g 2539 - Castrillon Gomez, Melissa COL wm 2159
7 Cmilyte, Viktorija LTU g 2524 - Aliaga Fernandez, Ingrid Y PER wf 2175
8 Sebag, Marie FRA g 2521 - Berezina, Irina AUS m 2190
9 Gunina, Valentina RUS m 2517 - Gu, Xiaobing CHN wg 2209
10 Cramling, Pia SWE g 2516 - Ghader Pour, Shayesteh IRI wm 2219
11 Kosintseva, Tatiana RUS g 2515 - Davletbayeva, Madina KAZ wm 2220
12 Harika, Dronavalli IND g 2512 - Soumya, Swaminathan IND wg 2251
13 Khotenashvili, Bela GEO m 2504 - Arribas Robaina, Maritza CUB wg 2273
14 Kosteniuk, Alexandra RUS g 2501 - Abrahamyan, Tatev USA wg 2304
15 Ju, Wenjun CHN wg 2501 - Pourkashiyan, Atousa IRI wg 2321
16 Stefanova, Antoaneta BUL g 2491 - Romanko, Marina RUS m 2355
17 Zhu, Chen QAT g 2491 - Ziaziulkina, Nastassia BLR wg 2367
18 Zatonskih, Anna USA m 2489 - Lujan, Carolina ARG m 2369
19 Pogonina, Natalija RUS wg 2478 - Matveeva, Svetlana RUS m 2377
20 Muzychuk, Mariya UKR m 2476 - Foisor, Cristina-Adela ROU m 2383
21 Danielian, Elina ARM g 2476 - Khukhashvili, Sopiko GEO m 2383
22 Hoang, Thanh Trang HUN g 2470 - Ovod, Evgenija RUS m 2384
23 Krush, Irina USA m 2470 - Li, Ruofan SIN m 2394
24 Galliamova, Alisa RUS m 2468 - Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina RUS m 2409
25 Girya, Olga RUS wg 2467 - Rajlich, Iweta POL m 2410
26 Huang, Qian CHN wg 2465 - Shen, Yang CHN wg 2413
27 Mkrtchian, Lilit ARM m 2457 - Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan SCO g 2414
28 Javakhishvili, Lela GEO m 2455 - Bodnaruk, Anastasia RUS m 2415
29 Dembo, Yelena GRE m 2454 - Khurtsidze, Nino GEO m 2428
30 Ushenina, Anna UKR m 2452 - Cori T., Deysi PER wg 2429
31 Zhukova, Natalia UKR g 2451 - Guo, Qi CHN wg 2432
32 Socko, Monika POL g 2445 - Skripchenko, Almira FRA m 2441

[Mark S. Dutton]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian - 4 TIME CANADIAN CHAMPION!

http://budapestchesnews.blogspot.hu/

There is a blog entry with small bio+ a game from the 2012 Olympiad on Natalia.

Canadian Women's Current Champion

Natalia Khoudgarian ON 2012 Canadian Closed Women's Champion


Canadian Women's Championship (1975 to 2012)
Year Winner(s) Location Players
1975 Smilja Vujosevic Ottawa, ON 7
1978 Nava Shterenberg Victoria, BC 9
1981 Nava Shterenberg Toronto, ON 9
1984 Nava Shterenberg Toronto, ON 9
1986 Nava Shterenberg Toronto, ON ?
1989 Nava Starr (name change) Scarborough, ON 6
1991 Nava Starr Guelph, ON 17
1995 Nava Starr Montreal, QC 4
1996 Johanne Charest Toronto, ON 10
2001 Nava Starr Toronto, ON 18
2004 Dinara Khaziyeva Toronto, ON 15
2006 Natalia Khoudgarian (Dina Kagramanov)Toronto, ON 10
2007 Natalia Khoudgarian Kitchener, ON 8
2009 Dina Kagramanov Kitchener, ON 7
2011 Natalia Khoudgarian Toronto, ON 16
2012 Natalia Khoudgarian Montreal, QC 10



All the very best wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian in Khanty Mansiysk for this six round 64-player Womens World Championship knockout tournament!

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

WIM Khoudgarian, Natalia (2138) - GM Zhao, Xue (2565)
FIDE WCh Women World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (1.1), 2012.11.11

1.e4 d6 2.d4 c6 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.Bc4 d5 5.exd5 cxd5 6.Bb5+ Nc6 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Qxf3 Qa5+ 9.Nc3 e6 10.Bd2 Qb6 11.O-O-O Nf6 12.g4 Rc8 13.Rhe1 Be7 14.Bxc6+ Qxc6 15.Qd3 O-O 16.f4 Bb4 17.g5 Bxc3 18.gxf6 Bxd4 19.fxg7 Rfe8 20.c3 Bf6 21.Kb1 Qc4 22.Be3 a6 23.f5 Qxd3+ 24.Rxd3 Rc4 25.Bf2 Rf4 26.fxe6 Rxe6 27.Rxe6 fxe6 28.Bg3 Rf1+ 29.Kc2 Kxg7 30.b4 b5 31.Bd6 Kg6 32.Rg3+ Kf5 33.Kb3 e5 34.a4 e4 35.axb5 axb5 36.Kc2 h5 37.Re3 h4 38.Bc7 0-1

[Michael Yip]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

http://budapestchesnews.blogspot.hu/

Game 1 with brief notes + Mark Dutton's updated Ch info and pic. Full credit to posters and Chesstalk given.

[Fred McKim]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

WIM Khoudgarian, Natalia (2138) - GM Zhao, Xue (2565)
FIDE WCh Women World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (1.1), 2012.11.11

1.e4 d6 2.d4 c6 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.Bc4 d5 5.exd5 cxd5 6.Bb5+ Nc6 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Qxf3 Qa5+ 9.Nc3 e6 10.Bd2 Qb6 11.O-O-O Nf6 12.g4 Rc8 13.Rhe1 Be7 14.Bxc6+ Qxc6 15.Qd3 O-O 16.f4 Bb4 17.g5 Bxc3 18.gxf6 Bxd4 19.fxg7 Rfe8 20.c3 Bf6 21.Kb1 Qc4 22.Be3 a6 23.f5 Qxd3+ 24.Rxd3 Rc4 25.Bf2 Rf4 26.fxe6 Rxe6 27.Rxe6 fxe6 28.Bg3 Rf1+ 29.Kc2 Kxg7 30.b4 b5 31.Bd6 Kg6 32.Rg3+ Kf5 33.Kb3 e5 34.a4 e4 35.axb5 axb5 36.Kc2 h5 37.Re3 h4 38.Bc7 0-1

This is a peculiar "little" defence. Playing around with ChessBase, it might be that 3.f4 is the best reply to 2...c6 - Curious to see some Master comments.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

This is a peculiar "little" defence. Playing around with ChessBase, it might be that 3.f4 is the best reply to 2...c6 - Curious to see some Master comments.

On my own I once thought up the idea of combining ...d6 + ...c6 (or ...Nc6), and possibly ...Bg4 thrown in as well, as a (suspect!?) 'system' to use against a variety of initial pairs of standard White moves (e.g. e4+d4, or d4+c4); whether or not there are a lot of precidents I didn't bother to check. In any case, it might be evidence that chess is still far from played out, even before move 4(!).

[Hal Bond]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

The first round came off without incident - all the players made it to Khanty Mansiysk, although for some (including Pia Cramling) it was on their second attempt. I was happy to meet up with Natalia at Domodedovo (Moscow)airport for the last leg of the journey.

With this knockout system, the top seed plays the bottom seed, the second seed plays the second lowest, and so the toughest matches are on the lowest boards. Despite this, a surprising number of the higher boards were drawn or only decisive after long games. Apparently Humpy Koneru got a horrible position with Black on second board against an A player from South Africa but eventually turned things around.

The playing hall is quite full for this first round, although this same hall managed to accommodate 128 players for the World Cup.

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

Hey Hal, I did not know that you were also there (as an arbiter I assume) - CONGRATS! :)

[Rene Preotu]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

Hey Hal, I did not know that you were also there (as an arbiter I assume) - CONGRATS! :)

Hal is the Chief Arbiter

[Aris Marghetis]

Re: Best Wishes to Natalia Khoudgarian

Hal is the Chief Arbiter

Bloody awesome, Hal rules !! :)