Kosteniuk wins women's title

Position No. 6022: Black to play and win. From the game Ekaterina Liasko-Eylon Nakar, Herzliya 2008.

Solution to Position No. 6021: White wins the Queen by 1 Rb3!, as 1 . . . Qd4 2 Rb7+ Bd7 3 Rxd7+ Nxd7 4 Re7+ leads to mate. Or, if 2 . . . Kg8, then 3 Ne7+ Kf7 4 Nxf5+ wins.

Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia won the women's world championship by defeating Hou Yifan of China, 2 1/2 -1 1/2 , in the final round of the 53-player tournament in Nalchik, Russia. The match was surprisingly one-sided. Kosteniuk achieved a winning position in each game and nearly won by a much larger margin.

The tournament consisted of five rounds of two-game matches plus a four-game final. Kosteniuk did not lose a single game and never had to resort to a speed chess tiebreaker. Her feat is even more impressive considering that she has hardly played in two years. She took time off for the birth of her daughter in 2007, made a fine result in a team event in Greece last October and lost her only two games this year.

Kosteniuk finished second in the 2001 women's world championship at age 17 and earned the grandmaster title in 2004. Yet her career accomplishments seem almost secondary to her role as a chess promoter. Now that she spends part of the year in Miami, she has founded a nonprofit organization to encourage American children to play chess.

Kosteniuk calls fashion modeling her hobby. With the help of her photographer husband, she maintains a website (kosteniuk.com) that documents her world travels and sells photos of her in chess poses and in more traditional glamour shots.

Kosteniuk says, "Beauty and intelligence can go together." Blessed with both, she seems destined to enliven the sedate world of chess.

The SPICE Cup, a round robin with 10 grandmasters, concludes today at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. SPICE stands for Susan Polgar Institute of Chess Excellence, an organization founded by the former women's world champion. California's leading player, Varuzhan Akobian, is competing. For the latest results, see depts.ttu.edu/spice. Local news

The Exposition Park Chess Club, which meets every Sunday afternoon in the public library, 3900 S. Western Ave. in Los Angeles, invites all players to its free monthly tournament next Sunday. See chess.expoparkla.com/ for details.