Sandhya Goli bagged gold at the Asian Amateur Women Chess Championship 2019 held at Kathmandu in Nepal from November 9 to 14.
The Rajamahendravaram girl represented Asia, in Under-2100, open section category, after she won the World Women Amateur Chess Championship 2019, U-2300 held in Mexico in the month of July.
Sandhya won five of the nine matches, faced a draw in two and lost the other two, as she won six points out of nine.
Her current world rating is 1908. Sandhya now became the only female to be selected for the World Amateur Chess Championships to be conducted in 2020.
While Sun Furong from China won second place, Sujana Lohani from Nepal secured the third position.
“It is a very proud moment for me. I am elated that I could bring glory to my country. I am also thankful to the Indian government as I am the only one officially selected by them to represent our country at the world-stage,” she said.
She will be on Europe tour between December, 2019 and February next year. She will represent India in Grand Master tournaments to be held in Greece, 25th Chess Festival to be held in Italy and other NORMS tournament in Europe.
FIDE on Monday, 18th September, 2019 announced the dates and venue of the King Salman World Rapid & Blitz Championships-2019.
According to the 3-year contract signed in 2017, the company Sela Sport Company Limited acting for and on behalf of the General Sports Authority of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as, a partner of FIDE and the owner of the rights to the World Rapid & Blitz Championships 2017-2019.
This year’s the tournament will be hosted in Moscow from 25 to 30 of December 2019.
Tournament schedule:
December 25 — Opening Ceremony
December 26-28 — Rapid competition
December 29-30 — Blitz competition
Following the joint efforts of the organizers a prize fund of 1 million US dollars has been secured for this event. The organizer will provide full board accommodation in a standard room 4-star hotel minimum, from December 25th to 31st 2019, to the players who meet the following criteria:
Open competition
Players rated at least 2750 in any of the FIDE rating lists (Standard, Rapid or Blitz) from January 1st to December 1st, 2019.
Women’s competition
Players rated at least 2500 in any of the FIDE rating lists (Standard, Rapid or Blitz) from January 1st to December 1st, 2019.
Vietnam won 14 medals, including four gold, four silver and six bronze, at the Southeast Asia Chess Championships 2019, which concluded in the northern province of Bac Giang on November 3 after nine days of competition.
The four gold medalists included Vo Thi Kim Phung, Le Tuan Minh, Hoang Thi Bao Tram, and Do Hoang Minh Tho.
The tournament was held by the Vietnam Sports Administration, the Vietnam Chess Association and the Bac Giang Provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
It attracted more than 60 players from Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The players competed in individual events for men and women, including rapid, blitz and standard chess
At the opening ceremony of FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich made two important announcements.
Arkady Dvorkovich, FIDE President, said: “We are officially opening the third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series, organized by World Chess. This time we are running a tournament in Hamburg, a city known for its chess culture. We are grateful to our Hamburg colleagues for their hospitality and help. We hope that the games will please all chess enthusiasts”.
The main events of World Chess Olympiad 2020 will be moved from Khanty-Mansiysk to Moscow. Khanty-Mansiysk will host the first-ever Chess Para-Olympics.
Two countries – UAE and Argentina – submitted the bids to host the FIDE World Chess Championship Match 2020.
The Candidates’ Tournament will determine the next challenger for current World Champion Magnus Carlsen for the world chess championship crown.
Filipino-American chess whiz Wesley So toppled on Saturday chess world champion Magnus Carlsen to snag the first World Fischer Random Chess Championship.
So, who previously played for the Philippines before moving to the US in 2014, beat Carlsen 13.5-2.5 in the final match of the three-day series.
Unlike standard chess, Fischer Random games start with the pieces jumbled, forcing players to drop strategies based on standard chess openings.
“”I’m very happy! It’s my favorite type of chess, and it hasn’t been popular until the last couple of years,” So said. “I usually win tournaments the first time and never again.”
So said Carlsen would have easily beat him in standard chess.
“I’m very happy to be the world champion but it doesn’t change much. I think he was shaken in our game 2, and wasn’t able to bounce back, but he congratulated me right after the match, he is a great sportsman,” So said.
FIDE World Junior Championship U20 officially ended on Friday, October 25th, 2019 in New Delhi, India. The competition brought together the strongest teenagers from across the globe. The open section had 94 players, including 15 grand masters taking part in the event. The girls’ section attracted 95 participants.
After 10 rounds in the open section a student of Texas Tech University, Evgeny Shtembuliak (Ukraine, 2577) was a half-point ahead of Aram Hakobyan (Armenia, 2561), Miguel Santos Ruiz (Spain, 2560) and Shant Sargsyan (Armenia, 2580). In the final 11 round, the leader beat Volodar Murzin and took the title with an excellent score 9 out of 11, whereas Sargsyan prevailed in the key game with Santos Ruiz and became second.
In the girls’ section two-time World U18 Girls Youth Championship winner Polina Shuvalova (Russia, 2412) reeled off four victories in a row in the second part of the event and by the final round created a full point margin from her main competitor Mobina Alinasab (Iran, 2239). By making a draw with black in the final round Polina secured gold. The Iranian won her final game and finished a half-point behind the champion.
FIDE World Junior Championship in New Delhi is heading down the home stretch to the second round this week. The strongest teenagers from across the globe enjoyed a rest day on Sunday before starting the second round of the tournament yesterday with 5 more games to go.
After six rounds Evgeny Shtembuliak (Ukraine, 2577) and Aram Hakobyan (Armenia, 2561) are tied for the lead in the open section with 5 points each. They are paired to meet in round 7, with Shtembuliak having White. Both leaders have been undefeated so far. Eight players including the 14-year old Indian prodigy, the winner of the World Youth Championship U18 Praggnanandhaa thrill the leaders with a half-point.
Mobina Alinasab (Iran, 2239) is the sole leader in the girls’ section with 5.5 points. She conceded only half-a-point in the encounter with the World Youth Chess Championship U18 winner Polina Shuvalova (Russia, 2412) who is breathing down the leader’s neck with 5 points.
FIDE World Junior Chess Championship (U20) 2019 officially kicked-off on Tuesday in the Indian capital New Delhi. This is the second big event happening in India in the month of October after the successful completion of the World Youth Championships a few days ago. The open section of the World Junior has 94 registered players including 78 titled players with 15 GMs and 31 IMs. Notably, there are also 18 players above the rating of 2500.
The girls’ section attracted 95 participants including Amin Tabatabaei (2642), Zhu Jiner (2507), as well as, other top-rated U20 women players across the globe are taking part in the tournament as rating favourites in their respective categories.
The top seed of the tournament is GM Amin Tabatabaei, even though Iranian GM Tabatabaei is the favourite, he will be provided stiff resistance from Aravindh Chithambaram and Karthikeyan Murali, second and third seeds of the competition respectively.
The newly crowned World Youth Chess Championship winners U18 Open and Girls category 14-year old Praggnanandhaa and Polina Shuvalova are also in New Delhi and will try to repeat a dose of their Mumbai success. The participants will play 11 rounds Swiss system; the world junior champions will be crowned on October 25.
D.V. Sundar, honorary Vice-President of FIDE in his speech highlighted that “during the elections, I was in the opposing team of Arkady Dvorkovich. We lost to a very desirable candidate. A few minutes after the defeat Dvorkovich came to me and said, I do not know if you are going to fight for the Vice President’s spot, but I would like to have you as an honorary Vice President. At that point I realized that he was not a politician but a statesman. Later Dvorkovich confirmed this by saying, “It doesn’t matter to me whether someone gave me a vote or not. The most important thing is to work together for the development of chess” said Sundar.
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich congratulated the Indian Chess Federation on the successful organization of the recently completed World Youth Championship and stressed the importance of youth and junior chess.
Most Vietnamese might assume that the country’s first female billionaire would be standoffish and difficult to know. But Nguyễn Thị Phương Thảo, who is one of 25 women on Forbes’ 2019 Asia’s Power Businesswomen’s list, is admired for her friendly manner and desire to support and inspire younger generations.
Born in Hanoi in 1970, Thảo, CEO and president of Vietjet Air, is known in Southeast Asia as a powerful female leader with internationally renowned achievements in the aviation sector.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in finance and credit and a PhD in economics from universities in Russia, Thảo began trading commodities in Eastern Europe and Asia.
While working as a trader, Thảo predicted that demand for air travel would rise dramatically in Vietnam. In 2011, she launched the budget airline VietJet Air and took it public in February 2017. Since its launch, the airline has been a roaring success, and has helped put air travel within the reach of millions of Vietnamese.
As the only woman to have started and run her own commercial airline, Thảo epitomises the values of the “Powerful Businesswoman” who defies stereotypes and breaks barriers.
Besides her renown in the aviation sector, Thảo, with her knowledge and enthusiasm in finance and banking, has greatly contributed to improving HDBank, a private joint-stock commercial bank, where she is the permanent vice chairwoman of the board of directors.
As a key shareholder of the bank, she was instrumental in helping HDBank become one of the top 40 banks in Vietnam. Prior to her work with HDBank, she was one of the founders and leaders of Techcombank and VIB.
Her stunning achievements are no surprise to those who have known her since she was a student in Russia.
“Our young years are filled with memories about a lovely girl with a sweet Hanoi accent and an energetic singing voice that kept the cold away in Russia through the song ‘A Million Roses’,” a businessman recalls.
“At that time, we all could see that she had a talent in business, which would help her career in the future. Years later, we were not surprised to see that she began work at Techcombank and VIB, and then had great achievements at HDBank,” he adds.
For Thảo, who was also on Forbes’ Asia’s Power Businesswomen 2016 list, “nothing is impossible”.
“I have always aimed big and done big deals. I have never done anything on a small scale. When people were trading one container of goods, I was already trading hundreds of containers,” she says.
Inspiring leader
Despite her great achievements and fortune, Thảo is modest and easygoing, especially with young students and the poor. She often stops to chat with customers and spends a great deal of time and money on charity activities.
With a desire to create connections between owners of large enterprises and younger generations, Thảo often meets and shares experiences with young people to send the message that they play a vital role in the bright future of Vietnam.
She also devotes time to many charity programmes such as “Wings of Love”, which each year offers scholarships to poor students and gives clothes to children living in remote areas.
Thảo has been a sponsor of the HDBank International Chess Tournament and HDBank Chess Cup
For the past 10 years, Thảo has been a sponsor of the HDBank International Chess Tournament where the world has been introduced to top Vietnamese players such as Quang Liêm and Trường Sơn. She is also a sponsor of HDBank Chess Cup and the HDBankFutsal tournament, which promotes the physical fitness of Vietnamese youth.
Through her frequent meetings and visits with local and international students, she continues to support and nurture future generations of leaders. At meetings with Thảo at HDBank and Vietjet, many international students at Imperial College London, Harvard Business School, and Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College have all expressed their admiration of Vietnam, calling it “an Asian dragon that has awakened”.
What international students admire most is Việt Nam’s culture and dynamic society, its creativity, and its breakthroughs in private businesses in an emerging Asian economy, Thảo says.
With a staff of nearly 30,000 people at Vietjet, HDBank and HDSaison, Thảo is viewed as a “captain” whose philosophy of business is trusted and admired by her employees.
Her lasting philosophy is to create jobs and employee happiness and advancement, as well as better serve customers, contribute to the State budget, and develop the economy to achieve a civilised and prosperous community.
Thảo also takes seriously her corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, with her desire to contribute to charities and make a better community. She has organised, for example, a series of praying ceremonies and has built historical monuments that follow the motto “when you drink water, think of its source”, to pay tribute to the people who have sacrificed their lives for the homeland during wartime.— VNS
Nguyễn Thị Phương Thảo, CEO of Vietjet Air, Viet Nam’s first self-made female billionaire, is well known in Asia and has been named one of 25 women on Forbes’ list of Asia’s Power Businesswomen 2019.
The gender gap in sport may be narrowing, but in the game of chess women may never reach the levels of their male counterparts – according to the world’s best female player.
University of Oxford student Hou Yifan said the cerebral game won’t get a female world champion for decades because women “are less focused” than men, don’t train as hard and are at a physical disadvantage.
The 25-year-old, who is often referred to as the Queen of Chess’, has opened a row in the normally genial world of chess.
Her comments follow a controversial claim by English Grandmaster Nigel Short that men and women should just accept they are “hard-wired very differently”.
Short, who was widely criticised for his stance, said he “would have been ripped to shreds as a misogynist dinosaur” if he’d said the same as Hou.
Speaking to chess.com, Hou said: “Theoretically, there should be a possibility that a woman can compete for the title in the future, but practically I think that the chances of this happening in the next few decades are very small.
“I do think the average rating of female players could improve, but the gap between the top women right now and the players competing for the world title is really quite large.
“But if you look at any sport, it’s hard to imagine girls competing at the same level as men.
“I think there is a physical aspect because chess exhausts a lot of energy, especially when games last 6-7 hours, and here women could be more disadvantaged.
“But in general, I think women train less hard at chess compared to men while they’re growing up.
“In China, girls tend to think more about university, and then things like family, life balance… while boys are more focused and persistent on that one thing.
“This makes a big difference. The ones who put greater effort in achieving better results. But I also think there are external factors too.”
In chess, there is the World Championship which is open to all and is currently held by the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen. Since its inception in 1886, all 16 undisputed champions have been men.
There is also a parallel Women’s World Championship and women-only tournaments designed to encourage female participation in the sport.
Hou Yifan Plays against World Champion Magnus Carlsen
However, while Hou is a four-time winner of the women’s crown, in recent years she has chosen not to compete in women’s events in order to compete against higher-ranked players.
Hou, who became a Grandmaster aged 14, is the number one ranked female player but number 87 among men and women. She is one of just three women, along with Judit Polgar and Maia Chiburdanidze, to have cracked the world’s top 100.
However, there is a big gap between Hou’s rating and the top men. By comparison, Hou’s current rating is 2659, while world number one Carlson is more than 200 points higher on 2876.
The next strongest female player is another Chinese player, Wenjun Ju, way back at world number 288 with a rating of 2586.
Hou said: “Growing up, female players are told, ‘If you win the girls’ title, we’ll be really proud of you, and this is a great job!’ It’s unlikely that any of them were told, ‘No, you should be fighting for the overall title!’
“Girls are told at an early age that there’s a kind of gender distinction, and they should just try their best in the girls’ section and be happy with that. So without the motivation to chase higher goals, it’s harder for girls to improve as fast as boys as they grow up.”
Asked if she believes there are any gender differences in the way men and women play the game, Hou added: “To me, in all aspects of life, sometimes women and men tend to see the same thing from completely different perspectives, and that also comes into chess.
“I suspect that the male perspective on chess favours men, perhaps when it comes to the emotional aspect of the game and making practical and objective decisions.
“To put it simplistically, I think male players tend to have a kind of overview or strategy for the whole game, rather than focusing too much attention on one part of the game. It could be interesting to explore this further. I need to do more research to answer this properly!”
