Alexandra Kosteniuk rewrites chess history

Alexandra Kosteniuk

For the first time in Switzerland’s 113-year chess history, a woman has been able to win both the women’s and men’s national chess titles.

Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk achieved the distinction last week in Grächen, Switzerland. Thanks to her dual Swiss-Russian citizenship, Alexandra Kosteniuk has been invited to fight for the National Swiss Championship for the fifth year in a row.

This year’s Swiss championships took place in the beautiful mountain resort Grächen (close to Zermatt).

The event started with eight GM’s and eight IMs, the strongest being GM’s Bauer, Stojanovic, Sokolov and Miezis, and the highest ranked fighting for the Swiss title were Gallagher, Kosteniuk, Gerber, Lötscher, Buss, Klauser and Carron.

The last round was critical. Alexandra drew GM Bauer (Elo 2637) and got 6.5/9. But, IM Buss and GM Gallagher also finished with 6.5/9. So according to the rules of the championship, the top two players according to Bukhholz had to play a tie-break match of two games.

Alexandra won both games against IM Buss and became the first woman to win the men’s Swiss Championship.

So the men’s podium was as follows: 1. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk 2. IM Ralph Buss 3. GM Joe Gallagher. The women’s podium was as follows: 1. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk 2. WFM Laura Stoeri 3. WGM Barbara Hund. The traditional photo all Swiss champions, from left to right: FM Vjekoslav Vulevic (Seniors), GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (both Men and Women), Aurélien Pomini (U-16), and André Meylan (U-18)