Kosteniuk and Yip BotezLive Match to Benefit Online Education

On Saturday April 18th, our BotezLive Saturday fundraisers continue  at 2 ET with a match between IM Carissa Yip and former Women's World Champion Alexandra "Chess Queen" Kosteniuk. Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk was the champion of our "Isolated Queens" tournament,which was hosted by US Chess Women and BotezLive in March, to celebrate the female chessplayers all over the World practicing social distancing. Kosteniuk's twitch stream is a popular channel, and she recently added English streams to the programming. Carissa Yip is a popular young International Master, and she has written several articles for CLO. She's also a new streamer on twitch.tv/carissayip. After the match on the 18th, you can follow Carissa's progress in the "IM Not a GM" speed chess event on chess.com, a 16-player knockout featuring some of the most popular IMs in the country. Yip faces IM Dean Ippolito in the first round and if she wins, she will face the winner of Greg Shahade and Anna Zatonskih. Three weeks ago, Kosteniuk and Yip met in the aforementioned Isolated Queens event. What should Carissa do here? White to Move and Win  Show Solution Find the full game below- Kosteniuk eschewed the theoretical perpetual on move 10, and was punished for it.

[pgn]

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2020.03.21"]
[White "Magician4MA"]
[Black "ChessQueen"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C43"]
[WhiteElo "2506"]
[BlackElo "2674"]
[Annotator "jensh"]
[PlyCount "87"]
[EventDate "2020.??.??"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nxe4 4. Bd3 d5 5. Nxe5 Nd7 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qh5+ Ke7
8. Qe2 Kf7 9. Qh5+ Ke7 10. Qe2 {...Kf7 leads to a forced draw after Qh5+} Kd6
$2 11. Bf4+ Kc6 12. Bxe4 dxe4 13. Nc3 a6 14. Qc4+ Kb6 15. Bxc7+ Qxc7 16. Nd5+
Ka7 17. Qxc7 h5 18. a4 Rh6 19. Qf4 Bd6 20. Qe3 Rg6 21. g3 Nf6 22. Nxf6 Rxf6 23.
O-O-O Bg4 24. Rd2 Rc8 25. Kb1 Bf3 26. Re1 Rf7 27. c3 Rf5 28. Rc2 Be7 29. c4 Bb4
30. Rec1 Rf6 31. c5 Bg4 32. d5 a5 33. c6+ b6 34. Ka1 Bd6 35. Rc4 Rf3 36. Qxe4
Rxf2 37. c7 Re2 38. Qd3 Be5 39. R1c2 Re1+ 40. Ka2 Be2 41. Qd2 Bxc4+ 42. Rxc4
Rf1 43. d6 Rff8 44. Qd5 1-0

[/pgn]

Despite this loss, Kosteniuk went on to finish the Isolated Queens tournament a half point ahead of the field. Saturday's match format is best of seven with a time control of three-minutes with a two second increment. The action kicks off at 2 ET at twitch.tv/botezlive. The prize fund is $500 with a $350/150 split and Alexandra Botez will provide educational commentary on the match. With many tournaments and school clubs on hiatus to reduce the spread of COVID-19, this month’s BotezLive matches will benefit online educational opportunities for US Chess members and followers, such as Zoom seminars and masterclass streams led by male and female professionals and coaches. 60% of on stream donations will support US Chess online programming while 40% goes back to support future matches. Thanks to all of the twitch donors, guest commentators and to Ian “Maprail” Silverstone for supporting these events. See you on Saturday! Find out more about Alexandra in our premiere Ladies Knight episode and in a recent NBC article with video about the streaming boom.  Find out more about our Women’s Programs at uschesswomen.org, find out a full listing of our women’s related articles and announcements here.