Brains at the board: Blondes defeat brunettes in chess grudge match

Insert brunette joke here.

It may not settle the argument, but consider it an interesting data point: A team of blondes defeated a team of brunettes in a “friendly” team chess match last week in Moscow to mark International Women’s Day.

IM Ekaterina Kovalevskaya was the heroine for the flaxen-haired horde, scoring 6½ points in the eight-round event. There were some powerful players on both teams, with the raven-tressed former women’s world champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk anchoring the brunette squad. Time control for the event, held at the Moscow restaurant Carlson, was three minutes for the game with a two-second-per-move increment.

Despite Kosteniuk’s 6½-1½ result, the blonde squad triumphed by an overall 34-30 score.

This is actually the seventh annual grudge match between the blondes and brunettes, with the blonde team avenging a 34½-29½ loss to the brunettes a year ago. Overall, the blonde squad have won four times and brunettes twice, along with a hard-fought draw in 2013.

An account of the match by chessdom.com, along with pictures from the competition, can be found here.