Women's Championship in Iran

by ChessBase
9/7/2004 – For a while chess was forbidden, but now it is blossoming in Iran, which now boasts two GMs and five IMs. But especially the women seem to be profiting from the chess boom – 170 turned up for the Iran Women's Championship that ended last Friday. Here's a report and pictures of the Girls of Iran...

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The Iran Women's Championship, which was held in the Iran Women Champions Station in Tehran from August 27 to September 3, 2004, saw 170 players compete in the Open and 50 players qualify for the final.
Amongst these were three WIMs and two WFMs. The tournament was an 11-round Swiss, with FIDE standard time control (90 Min. + 30 Sec./Move).

The championship was won by WIM Shadi Paridar, who at Elo 2232 was the highest rated player in the tournament. Third seed Shirin Navabi won second place on Buchholz points.

Rank
Player Elo Score
Buch
1
Paridar Shadi (WIM)
2232
9.0
70.5
2
Navabi Shirin (WFM)
2105
8.0
71.0
3
Pourkashian Atousa (WIM)
2229
8.0
70.5
4
Salman Mahini Mona (WFM)
2105
8.0
68.5
5
Ghaderpour Sh. (WIM)
2011
7.5
70.5
6
Tajik S.
7.5
58.5
7
Hemmatizadeh N.
1928
7.5
58.0
8
Bayat Shohreh
2092
7.0
68.5
9
Khachatourian Yeraz
2063
7.0
59.0

WIM Shadi Paridar, WFM Shirin Navabi, WIM Atousa Pourkashian, WFM Mona Salman Mahini all qualified for the Iran National team at the Spain Olympiad. At the last Olympiad in Bled 2002 the Iran women came 19th! WFM Shirin Navabi, three times Iran Women Champion, returns to the National team after three years' absence.

Here are the four top-ranked players of the Iran Women's Championship:


WIM Shadi Paridar

WFM Shirin Navabi

WIM Atousa Pourkashian

WFM M. Salman Mahini

Picture Gallery

- WFM Shirin Navabi three times Iran Women Champion, came back in National
team after three years.


WFM Shirin Navabi, playing at the Open in Abu Dhabi


Shirin is three times Iranian Women's Champion


Khachatourian Yeraz, ninth on the final table


12-year-old Mitra Hejazipour


Young Iranian talent Sima Ghafouri


Mona Saeidpour


Mandana Teimouri


Shiva Mahboobi


The arbiters at the Iran Women's Championship

For a while after the Revolution chess was forbidden, but 15 years ago Imam Khomeini deemed it legal, and two years later the Iran Chess Federation was reinstated. Before the revolution Iran had three IMs (Harandi, Shirazi and Sharif). Today it has two GMs and five IMs. Top GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, 21, last year married WIM Shayesteh Ghaderpour, 20, who was the Iranian Women's Champion at the time.


A great chess team: Iran's top player and his wife WIM Shayesteh Ghaderpour

Until recently the Iranian federations for men and women in all sport were strictly seperated, but now the Sports Ministry has decided that from September onwards all sports will have united federations.

In a presumably independent development the Iran Chess Federation president Ali Asghar Gholamrezaie, who has been the president of the Iran Chess Federation for a year now, resigned from his post.

All information and pictures by courtesy of Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh (picture right).


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