Nevertheless I have to point out a mistake in Susan's bio above. <Appaz: .. But are there any mistakes or exaggerations in there> It may not be intentional but it is significant for the records

http://www.answers.com/topic/nona-g...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nona_G...

Now, what a formidable player for her time! In 1975 she also had a perfume named after her, beat that Ms. Polgar!

After a long, hard search I found one link that states explicit that she had been been granted the title honorarily:

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictiona...

Like I said I thought that too. But it strikes me as really odd, and I think a lot of visitors too, reading in the bio that: <In 1991, Susan became the first woman player to ever achieve the men's grandmaster title>. For as sure as whatever, Nona Gaprindashvili ACHIEVED that also also. She scored sufficient GM results in men's tournaments. So what Susan's bio must read is that: Susan Polgar is the first woman player ever to FULLY EARN the men's grandmaster title!!!!

I also thought Gaprindashvili was granted the title by becoming women world champion. But that seems not to be the case reading a book from Frits Agterdenbos 1984 on Gaprindashvili. Quote: <"She is the only woman who achieved the GM title. Her biggest success must be winning Lone Pine 1977, where she shared first place with Balashov, Panno and Sahovic. That meant her first GM-norm. The second she achieved in Dortmund 1978">. Furthermore it stated the rules needed to earn the GM title (in 1984). Two GM- norms and a rating of 2450 were sufficient. Quote from the same book <"The most usual way to achieve a GM result is achieving TWO or more GM results in tournaments with more that 24 games plus a rating of at least 2450 (this is the only question whether Gaprindashvili had that, not according to this database). It should be noted that winning the women worldchampionship is equal to ONE GM result">.

A few thoughts:

- Overall the event had the feeling of a well made infomercial. I'm glad to see, however, that it didn't take the usual late night infomercial timeslot.

- The games were exciting.

- The time control was just about right. If its changed next time, I'd err a bit on slightly longer games.

- Bering Straight were a pleasant, appropriate filler between matches.

- Paul Truong was a very good commentator- he spoke at just the right level to draw in the beginners and hold the interest of more experienced players.

- The setting looked elegant and tasteful. I would have liked the Russian side to have been similarly decked out. It appeared as if the Russians were playing an a basement somewhere. Sometimes it was confusing determining who was playing whom. Perhaps having a similar layout in both locations where the opponents sat "across" from each other would help illustrate this visually. Also, one could have placed the players names on the screen.

- The board in the corner of the screen was just a tiny bit too small. On my 25" TV, it was hard to read.

- There were too many cuts between games. Sometimes there was not enough time to figure out which move had been made.

- While I understand that the TV limits the coverage of the flow of a game to "broad strokes", I would have rather spent a bit more time to analyze a crucial position or two in each round than to see every move of every game. Qxf7 in Stripunsky's second game was a particularly interesting for the amateur, and would have been a good place to stop and analyze.

- It was nice to see House of Staunton advertizing on TV.