Ekaterina Smirnova shared the 3-rd place in the Challengers tournament in Ust-Kamenogorsk
And took the 1-st women’s prize

Photo from the personal archive.
A massive chess festival Oskemen Open 2025 ended in Kazakhstan on July 29. WIM Ekaterina Smirnova from Balashikha participated in the Challengers tournament (rating under 2400).
As Round 1 started less than a day after the closing ceremony of Moscow Open chess forum our chess player had to take a night flight, but unexpectedly the plane was delayed for 11 hours so Ekaterina received a minus in Round 1. 6.5 points out of 8 scored afterwards allowed her to share places 3-9 however she could only get the 8-th place due to an unfavorable coefficient. However, she received the 1-st women’s prize, prize money and 52 Elo points. Konstantin Kornienko from Volgograd finished first.
Alexey Grebnev dominated the main Masters tournament (2400+). The silver medal was won by Richard Rapport from Hungary while the 3-rd was given to S.P. Sethuraman.