"Despite the documented evidence of chess historian H.J.R. Murray, I have always thought that chess was invented by a goddess." George Koltanowski, from Women in Chess, Players of the Modern Game
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Friday, June 29, 2007
2007 U.S. Women's Chess Championship - Final Line-Up
USCF posted a story with the final line-up for the 2007 Women's Championship to be held in Stillwater, OK next month, along with a link to a dedicated website for the Championship. I really like the idea of having a website just for the event - there was no separate website for the "Men's" event.
2006 Women's championship Zatonskih will be competing, so the final field is:
Player USCF Rating FIDE Rating
Krush, Irina (WGM, IM) 2497 2479
Zatonskih, Anna (WGM, IM) 2491 2462
Baginskaite, Camilla (WGM) 2361 2328
Rohonyan, Katerine (WGM) 2304 2332
Tuvshintugs, Batchimeg (WIM) 2275 2236
Abrahamyan, Tatev (WFM) 2258 2237
Battsetseg, Tsagaan (WIM) 2234 2241
Melekhina, Alisa (WFM) 2168 2104
Airapetian, Chouchanik (WFM) 2157 2162
Vicary, Elizabeth (WFM) 2155 2148
Prior posts on the Championship may be found here, here and here.
Thanks to Frank K. Berry for bearing most of the expense for this Championship and for being a big fan and supporter of women's chess. We need more people like you, Mr. Berry. Everyone please read Mr. Berry's website (I assume it is sponsored by him, it doesn't appear to be the work of USCF) and please read here for my scintilating commentary when the Championship begins :)
It's great to see that so many up and coming players are on this list. One ingredient in the recipe to get womens' participation in chess up to a critical mass is the development of a talented set of women players who inspire others to play and get better. The line-up suggests that US Chess has folks who have developed at a young age, and whose potential is far from fully reached. In five years, we'll be able to look back on this set of folks and see some IM and perhaps GM titles among this set of talented folks. It's great that the folks at Stillwater are hosting this fine event.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more! We need to reach that critical mass, and that means retaining female players. As I understand it, girls participate in scholastic chess in grade school in about equal numbers with boys, but drop out once puberty hits; those who do stay in the game through high school drop out after they finish high school. So we have to figure out how to keep the girls and young women playing as they approach and pass those two critical junctures. Frankly, I've no idea how that might be accomplished, but I do wish chess got more publicity in this country instead of just the occasional mention in the local newspaper. I would love to see the U.S. Women's Championship get some time on prime time news and coverage on Oprah and The View. I'm looking forward to this championship, I want to see what the chess femmes can do OTB and I want to see some norms earned. I think it's going to be an exciting championship. Duh - it just occurred to me - I'm going to see if there are email addys for those television shows and drop them a line. It wouldn't hurt to try and drum up some national publicity.
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