Winner of the Kyrgyzstan Women's Chess Championship 2024!

Hi everyone! 

It has already been more than a week since the 2024 Superfinal of the Women's Chess Championship of Kyrgyzstan ended, and in this blog post, I would like to share some information about my results and the Championship overall.

I'll start with the main news: this year, I became the Women's Chess Champion of Kyrgyzstan, and this is my fifth national championship title! 😊 To say I'm happy would be an understatement. I am absolutely thrilled! Although the tournament went relatively smoothly for me, it was emotionally challenging.

To be honest, although my primary goal was to win the Superfinal, I had little faith that it would happen. After all, the tournament is long, and the competitors are young, ambitious, and strong in their play. I knew each one would be fighting for the championship title. But luck, it seems, was on my side this time.

Now about the tournament itself:

Last year, the new management of the Chess Federation of Kyrgyzstan (now officially named the Kyrgyz Chess Union) returned to the previous system for the main tournament of the year – the Superfinal of the Kyrgyzstan Chess Championship among men and women. In the Superfinal, 12 players participate, and the tournament is held in a round-robin system. Seven players qualify for the Superfinal through the High League, where they join five players – finalists of last year's Superfinal. Since I did not participate in last year's Superfinal, I had to qualify through the High League, which took place in February of this year, where I took second place.

The Superfinal was held from May 1 to May 11, 2024. This is the traditional time for the main tournament, as there are many holidays and days off in our country in May.

I tried to approach the tournament seriously. I work on chess as much as I can within my free time, which is unfortunately limited due to my main job. Moreover, a month before the tournament, I reduced my streaming time on Twitch to dedicate more time to preparing for the Superfinal. I didn't know what would come of it, but I wanted to put in more effort to achieve my goal!

Let me explain why this Championship was so important.

2024 is an Olympiad year. This year's Olympiad will be held in Budapest, Hungary, from September 10 to 23, 2024. Last year, the Kyrgyz Chess Union changed the selection criteria for the national team. Based on the Superfinal of the Kyrgyz Championship, only the winner of the tournament automatically joins the national team. Participants who take places 2 to 9 are included in the extended team, and the selection of the remaining four team members will be done by the Trainers Commission of the Kyrgyz Chess Union based on certain criteria (rating, number of tournaments played, performance, etc.). A questionable system, to say the least, and whether it is fair is another issue. In my opinion, a sports selection would be the fairest, as it has been for many years in our country. But since changing the system is impossible, I had to work towards achieving the best possible result.

By taking first place, I automatically secured my spot on the Kyrgyzstan national team, and now I eagerly await the Olympiad!

For your information, I have participated in 8 Olympiads (Bled 2002, Turin 2006, Khanty-Mansiysk 2010, Istanbul 2012, Tromsø 2014, Baku 2016, Batumi 2018, Chennai 2022), and I consider it one of the most interesting chess tournaments!

Now, let me tell you how the tournament went. The tournament went relatively smoothly for me. I won the first round but lost the second. In this case, I blamed only myself; with the white pieces, I decided to take my opponent out of preparation and went for a line that I knew poorly and had not prepared in advance. This was my only loss in the tournament.

Apparently, due to the importance of this Championship, I was very worried about each game against every opponent.

The pairings were such that in the first half of the tournament, I faced lower-rated opponents, and I understood that I couldn't afford to lose points. In the second half of the tournament, I had to face higher-rated, more experienced opponents, past champions of Kyrgyzstan.

Link to Chess-Results: Women's Kyrgyzstan Championship Super Final - 2024

I could probably share thoughts on each game, but then this blog post would be too long 😊.