Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia is the new Women’s World Chess Champion, who defeated the 14 years old Hou Yifan of China at the final of the 2008 Women`s World Chess Championship (WWCC) ended last week in Nalchik, Russia.

The Women`s World Chess Championship returns to Russia after 46 years where it was under the dominance of Georgian (1961-1990) and the Chinese chess players (1991-2008 with short breaks ruled by the Hungarian-American chess grandmaster Susan Polgar and Bulgarian Antoaneta Stefanova). This year event took place without the Georgian players, who protested against the Russia-Georgia war, and without the number 1 woman chess player Judit Polgar and the number 3 player and 2-times Women’s World Champion Xie Jun.

Alexandra Kosteniuk became the 12th Women`s World Chess Champion after defeating chess prodigy Hou Yifan 2.5-1.5 at the final match, veteran Pia Cramling and Anna Ushenina at the semi-finals. Hou Yifan, who became the youngest finalist in WWCC history, had arrived to the finals exhausted from playing her Indian rival Koneru Humpy at the semi-finals, and lost on the first game against Kosteniuk. The following games had ended in draws and on the fourth and final game, Kosteniuk played a solid game against Hou’s Scheveningen Sicilian, yet the latter did not surrender quickly and continued setting traps for her opponent, who’d also refused to fall, and the two agreed on a draw on the 56th move.