Do you like to play?

Do you like to play Mr. Bond?

 

I LOVE to play chess.

And somehow the thought of a Beautiful 23 year old raven haired Russian Grandmaster named Alexandra “Sasha” Kosteniuk kicking my butt all over the board has a strange appeal to me.

Or in other words..

THIS GIRL TURNS ME ON.

Now since I’ve played chess all my life I would like to think that I could mount a decent challenge against such a gorgeous but formidable intellect.

But I’m sure the odds of me pulling this off would drop off a cliff once Alexandra touched her opening piece and gazed at me with the hypnotic stare of an enchantress preparing to “dominate” my every move.

Well Sasha has certainly elevated this 500 year old game to a new level of world attention and sex appeal.

And for this reason alone I’m ecstatic about her arrival on the scene.

Check out the article below.   

When you read it I think you’ll get a good idea as to what I’ve been saying all along…

These Women REALLY CAN do it all.  (and not just give lip service to it)

 

Glamorous Russian swimsuit model wins Women’s World Chess Championship

A glamorous Russian part-time model has won the Women’s World Chess Championship under the slogan “beauty and intelligence can go together”.

By Lucy Cockcroft – Daily Telegraph UK 

Last Updated: 11:16PM BST 18 Sep 2008

Queen of Chess: Alexandra Kosteniuk became a chess grandmaster aged 14 Photo: KOSTENIUK.COM

Alexandra Kosteniuk, 23, has worked as a catwalk and swimsuit model to raise the profile of the game.

She also sells sultry semi-clad photographs of herself, and has made a 36-minute video which shows her “doing exercises on Miami beach”.

The modelling exploits have raised eyebrows among critics, who believe it distracts from the intellectual importance of chess.

But Miss Kosteniuk has more than proved her talent for the game after being crowned “Queen of Chess” at the women’s championships held in Russia.

She said: “Modelling is not a job. It is just a hobby, like reading books.

“I want people to see there is a fun side to chess. It can be made as exciting as soccer or tennis. Things are changing. I am clever, so I can play chess; and I am not so ugly, so I can model.”

At 14 years old, Miss Kosteniuk became a chess grandmaster, the youngest woman in the world to attain the title.

She quickly made a name for herself on the international stage by reaching the final of the world championship in 2001, aged 17, and becoming the European champion in 2004.

And at the age of 20 she achieved the International Grandmaster title, becoming the tenth women to have received the highest title awarded by the World Chess Federation (FIDE).

Last Wednesday, Miss Kosteniuk won the Women’s World Chess Championship 2008, after beating the Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan in the final.

But her fans say her greatest achievement has been to give the game of chess a sexy image, which has attracted a new young following.

She is the host of a popular podcast “Chess is Cool” which informs listeners about current chess events, and has adopted the motto “beauty and intelligence can go together” and proved her worth as a model.

Miss Kosteniuk’s career began after her father Konstantin left his army job when she was young, to devote his time to training her.

She said: “I can remember when my father introduced me to exercises.

“He wrote on little cards the squares of the chessboard, like E4, A1 – or even false ones like E9 to test me. Then he would show me cards, one quickly after the other, and I’d have to say whether the square was white or black on the board.”

Mr Kosteniuk even taught his daughter to win a chess game blindfolded in three moves when she was just five, in a bid to “exercise her brain”.

Miss Kosteniuk is married to Swiss-born Diego Garces, who is 25 years her elder. In April last year she gave birth to her daughter Francesca Maria. The baby was two-and-a-half months premature and stayed in hospital for eight weeks, but has since made a full recovery.

(you can read the original article here)

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