2009 US Women's Championship Player Bios
IM & WGM Anna Zatonskih
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Status:Accepted
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Age:31
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Residence:Long Island, NY
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Birthplace:Ukraine
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Rating:2496
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Title:International Master & Woman Grand Master
Anna is described in a U.S. Chess Federation biography as an intense competitor who has trouble sleeping at night during tournaments because she ponders the next day’s games. That was a fact when it was written four years ago, but Anna says it’s no longer true. She now has a 2-year-old daughter, Sofia, and motherhood has given her a completely different view of chess. She’s still highly competitive, but it’s nothing compared to trials and tribulations of raising a child. “I want to win, I want to achieve,” she says.
IM & WGM Irina Krush
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Status:Accepted
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Age:25
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Residence:Brooklyn, NY
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Birthplace:Ukraine
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Rating:2478
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Title:International Master & Woman Grand Master
Irina Krush looks forward to chess matches, but doesn’t spend much time contemplating her chess success or failures. “I’m more attached to my future accomplishments.” She says she enjoys the challenge of playing grandmasters most. “When you beat a strong GM, that's when you feel like you can play chess.” She faced GM players in her first 8 matches in the U.S.
IM & WGM Rusudan Goletiani
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Status:Accepted
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Age:27
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Residence:Hartsdale, NY
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Birthplace:Georgia
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Rating:2437
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Title:International Master & Woman Grand Master
For about as long as Rusudan Goletiani has been playing chess, she has been among the elite players, and that includes the eight years she has spent in the United States. The winner of the 2005 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship says she can’t pick out one or two highlights that stand out. “Every accomplishment means a lot,” she says, adding that her ultimate chess goal is to become a grandmaster.
WGM Sabina-Francesca Foisor
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Status:Accepted
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Age:20
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Residence:Baltimore, MD
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Birthplace:Romania
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Rating:2390
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Title:Woman Grand Master
Sabina Foisor has been a chess dynamo since starting around age 4. While her parents have been her biggest chess influence, she says her favorite players are Gary Kasparov and the late Bobby Fischer. Like many players, she has traveled the globe playing in tournaments, but 2009 will be her first time in the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship. Her main goal in chess is to become one of the top 20 women players in the world.
WGM Camilla Baginskaite
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Status:Accepted
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Age:42
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Residence:Sioux Falls, SD
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Birthplace:Lithuania
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Rating:2356
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Title:Woman Grand Master
In a tournament dominated by players in their late teens and early 20s, Camilla Baginskaite stands out. She is 42, making her five years older than anyone else in the field. She says there’s a “very simple” explanation for the relatively few peers her age in the top ranks: “They don’t have time for that.” She calls her own time for practice “uneven,” adding, “Sometimes I don’t practice at all.” The rigors of chess also can take a toll on more seasoned players.
WFM Tatev Abrahamyan
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Status:Accepted
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Age:21
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Residence:Glendale, CA
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Birthplace:Armenia
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Rating:2334
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Title:Woman FIDE Master
Tatev Abrahamyan started playing chess at 8 years old after her father took her to the Chess Olympiad games in 1996. There she met grandmaster Judith Polgar, arguably the greatest woman player of all time and the only woman in the tournament. “I was in complete awe,” Tatev says. “My first thought was, ‘I want to be just like her.’” She was soon playing competitively among the top players her age in Europe and has played in the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship five times.
WIM Alisa Melekhina
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Status:Accepted
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Age:18
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Residence:Philadelphia, PA
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Birthplace:Ukraine
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Rating:2301
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Title:Woman International Master
Alisa Melekhina was the youngest player in the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship two years ago, and is still the youngest today. That’s what you might expect from someone who started playing at age 5 and entered her first tournament at age 7. In less than three years, she was winning prestigious international tournaments.
Alisa has already earned an International Master norm, which she considers her top chess accomplishment so far, but her ultimate goal is to become a grandmaster.
WIM Iryna Zenyuk
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Status:Accepted
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Age:23
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Residence:Pittsburgh, PA
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Birthplace:Ukraine
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Rating:2281
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Title:Woman International Master
Iryna Zenyuk has two huge goals in life: To be a chess champion and to help the environment. She has a good start on her chess goal, ranking as one of the top 10 women players in the U.S. And she is active with her second goal too, currently pursuing a master’s and eventually a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
WIM Battsetseg Tsagaan
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Status:Accepted
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Age:37
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Residence:Ellicott City, MD
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Birthplace:Mongolia
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Rating:2265
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Title:Woman International Master
Battsetseg Tsagaan has the dream of many elite chess players: She wants to become a grandmaster. In pursuit of that, she has racked up an impressive string of tournament successes that have made her a household name in her native Mongolia.
But it’s not so easy these days. She’s kept busy as a wife and mother to two children. She says balancing chess with the rest of her life is the most difficult challenge she faces.
NM Yun Fan
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Status:Accepted
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Age:19
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Residence:Indiana
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Rating:2201
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Title:National Master
If Yun Fan were back in China, she probably would be a professional chess player. But for Fan, the music industry beckons even louder. “I play chess for fun,” she says. “My real ambition is music.” Fan readily acknowledges that she spends very little time playing chess because she would rather concentrate on music. She writes lyrics and music for a rock band in which she also sings. She’s also a band manager. In addition, she has a company where she brings American bands to China and Chinese bands to the U.S.
Chris Bird
Chris Bird is a FIDE Arbiter and USCF Senior Tournament Director who has served at numerous major events across the US, including the 2007 US Women's Championship and 2009 US Championship. As well as providing arbiting duties, Chris is just as well known for his chess website work (www.uswcc2007.com, www.chicagoopen.net, www.foxwoodsopen.com, www.northamericanopen.com) and for providing an onsite audience display and online live broadcast of games. Chris has also had articles and photographs published in both Chess Life and Chess Life Online and was awarded the US Chess League Blogger of the Year award in 2008 for maintaining the Boston Blitz website at www.boston-blitz.com. For the past three years Chris has also organized an annual Masters event, the New England Masters (www.newenglandmasters.com) which is specifically run to provide opportunities for players seeking FIDE norms.
Born and raised in Hull, England, Chris moved to Las Vegas, NV, in 1998 and has lived in the US ever since, currently residing near Boston, MA, where he works as an administrator at Harvard Medical School. Chris is a former President of Nevada Chess, Inc., the USCF state affiliate for Nevada, and former General Secretary of the Hull & District Chess Association.
Carol Jarecki, IA, NTD
Chief Arbiter for the US Championship in St. Louis, Carol Jarecki’s credentials are extensive. Awarded the International Arbiter title by FIDE in 1984 she served as deputy in several Olympiads and Candidates matches as well as the FIDE World Championship in Lyon, France, 1990, and Las Vegas 1999. Carol was Chief Arbiter for the FIDE World Youth Festival held in Fond-du-Lac, WI, the only time it was organized in the US.
She was Chief of the 1994 and 1995 PCA Grand Prix events in New York, the PCA World Championship match Kasparov-Anand at the top of the World Trade Center in 1995 as well as the famous IBM Deep Blue-Kasparov match in 1997. Jarecki even was arbiter for the original Kasparov-Deep Thought match in NY, the program developed by the team that then went on to work with IBM on Deep Blue. In 1989, as Chief Arbiter of the Karpov-Hjartarson FIDE World Championship Quarterfinals in Seattle, she was the first woman to serve in that position for any world-championship-cycle match. Among many other international events she has been the Chief of the annual Bermuda Open and Invitationals for the past 21 years.
As a U.S. National Tournament Director (NTD) she has covered an array of events, large and small, from National Scholastics to previous U. S. Championships. Carol is a member of the FIDE Technical Committee. She co-authored the USCF Official Rules of Chess, 4th edition. In 1993 Carol received the USCF Distinguished Service Award and, subsequently, the initial award for the Top Tournament Director of the Year.
Jarecki graduated from the Graduate Hospital, University of PA, with a certificate in anesthesia and worked in that field in NJ for several years before starting a family and spending seven years living in Europe. There she took up aviation as a hobby and has been an avid pilot ever since. She has two daughters, one living in Sydney, Australia, the other in the British Virgin Islands. Her son, John, once the youngest US Master at age 12, lives in New York City.