Tehran, potpourri and other nonsense
Women’s World Ch: today is Rd2
The first round saw a number of surprises, as one would expect from such a competitive and youthful championship. One need only take a quick glance above at the round’s results. The Vietnamese Pham knocked out the much higher rated Georgian star Javakhishvili. And Natalia Zhukova going down to the Georgian Khurtsidze also raised some eye brows..
Special mention must also go to the young Canadian participant, Zhou Qiyu, for putting up a good fight against the experienced Russian grandmaster Natalia Pogonina.
I was also a bit disappointed by the early exit of the Armenian star Lilit Mkrtchian, whom I had previously picked as one of the favourites of this championship. Such is the sport of chess, but one can not but regret the short-comings of a system that does not allow for come-backs…
There has not been a lot of focus in the media on the requirement of the players to use the traditional hijab, contrary to what one might have expected given the high-profile withdrawals in the run up to the championship. I suppose this is a good thing for the organizers…
HOWEVER, it must be remembered that Iran has since the 1950’s always been the most progressive country in the middle-east with respect to women’s rights and dress codes. Only since the revolution in 1979 have things become more conservative — by force majeure — but even so Iran still remains much more liberal than most of the others, with the obvious exceptions today of Israel and Lebanon.
Tehran PostScript:
The reader is invited into visiting David Llada’s really artistic and unbiased TWITTER, where he/she can make up his/her own mind.
And speaking of religion in general…
Chess is much more than a mere game…
Or combine both chess and sex! (I admit it might be a bit out of place, but the chess board is technically set up wrong: the corner square closest to the lady should be white!) Details, details…
