The Shameless Sisters in the news

Followers of Chessbase.com will be aware that my two favourite female chessplayers, the shameless Kosintseva sisters, have hit the headlines in Russian chess, for less than desirable reasons. The full story can be found here, but in brief, they have refused to play on the Russian team for the forthcoming world team championships, because they object to the choice of GM Sergey Rublevsky as captain, citing "psychological incompatibility". They played on the team that won gold in the Istanbul Olympiad last autumn, under Rublevsky's captaincy, but clearly, something happened out there, which put them off playing for him again. Speculation is now rife that the sisters may switch federations, although that would be a very big step for both, as they would probably lose access to their long-time personal trainer, Yuri Dokhoyan.

Obviously, only those close to the Russian Olympiad team can know the full story, but funnily enough, I was not entirely surprised when the news broke. I have never met Sergey Rublevsky, but I recall when I lived in Moscow, that a Russian chess friend, by no means the sort who was habitually critical of people, went out of way one time to tell me that Rublevsky had a fearful reputation for being very rough, outspoken, aggressive, no-nonsense, etc. More recently, another GM friend, who is acquainted with him, described him to me as "a bit of a redneck". Rublevsky himself has admitted that, during the Olympiad, a critical moment was reached, when the team lost first place, and he had to take measures to "shake them up". Whatever he said or did worked, as they went on to take gold, but the delicate sensibilities of the sisters seem to have found it all too much. One only has to look at some of the photos in the Chessbase report, taken at the Olympiad prize-giving, to see that something was badly wrong - the sisters' body language screams decibels. The other players, however, (Kosteniuk, Pogonina and Gunina) seem much less disturbed.

"We are one family - and the rest of the team are another!". The Russian Olympiad team celebrates gold. L to R: Naer, Rublevsky, Kosteniuk, Riazantsev, Gunina, Pogonina, and the Shameless Sisters. (photo: Chessnews.ru)

For me, though, the most interesting thing about the whole affair has been the reaction of the average Russian chess fan, on the bulletin boards of sites such as Chessnews.ru. The hostility towards the sisters has been considerable. That may be surprising, except for one thing. As this blog has exposed in the past, the sisters have quite shamelessly been pre-arranging games between themselves for years, in major international tournaments, without a syllable of criticism from anyone else, yet now, their names are suddenly mud, because they won't play for the Russian team! It speaks volumes about the warped moral sense of the chess world. In fact, it speaks even louder than the Shameless Sisters' post-Olympiad body language...