Wisconsin 4th Annual All Girls Scholastic Chess Tournament

Soon the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation will be announcing details for the 4th Annual All Girls Scholastic Chess Tournament - I understand the particulars of the 2009 Tournament are being put together. I realize this is somewhat late in reporting (lol!) but I've only recently become aware of this important event in my home state that promotes chess for younger chess femmes! Way to go WSCF! Here are the individual standings in the K-3, K-6 and K-12 classes from the 2008 tournament, held on April 26, 2008: K-3 Place Name Rating Pts TBrk1 TBrk2 TBrk3 Rnd1 Rnd2 Rnd3 Rnd4 Rnd5 1 HUANG, ALENA 1019 5.0 14.0 16.0 32.0 W21 W9 W8 W3 W2 2 CHIESA, EMILY 648 4.0 14.5 16.5 23.0 W24 W12 W17 W4 L1 3 CATALAN, ANGELICA 450 4.0 14.0 15.0 20.0 W32 W15 W10 L1 W11 4 SCHNEIDER, CLAUDIA 519 4.0 13.0 14.5 21.0 W6 W23 W25 L2 W8 5 RATHORE, SRISHTI 458 4.0 11.0 12.5 20.0 W18 L17 W29 W13 W9 6 LEWIS-TAYLOR, DONNA 407 4.0 10.0 11.0 14.0 L4 W33 W23 W29 W17 7 ROBINSON, DESTINY 249 3.5 11.5 14.0 19.5 W11 L8 W12 D17 W19 8 ULATOWSKI, HANNAH 442 3.0 15.5 17.0 16.0 W28 W7 L1 W10 L4 9 O'CONNOR, HÉLÈNE 318 3.0 13.5 15.0 12.0 W16 L1 W24 W25 L5 10 LENZ, EMMA 397 3.0 12.0 14.0 14.0 W26 W14 L3 L8 W21 11 HUANG, SABRIN 611 3.0 12.0 14.0 13.0 L7 W19 W20 W21 L3 12 ILCHENKO, ISABELLA 313 3.0 12.0 14.0 13.0 W27 L2 L7 W18 W20 13 SCHNEIDER, MAYA 311 3.0 11.0 13.0 14.0 L20 W27 W14 L5 W22 14 REBHOLZ, MADISON 306 3.0 10.0 11.0 10.0 W22 L10 L13 W34 W24 15 RAJENDRAN, JASHMI 301 3.0 10.0 11.0 9.5 W33 L3 D18 D20 W25 16 SIDDIQUE, MANAAL 194 3.0 9.0 9.0 7.0 L9 L18 -B- W23 W29 17 ADUSUMILLI, ARIANNA 279 2.5 11.5 16.5 13.5 W34 W5 L2 D7 L6 18 GONZALEZ, MARINA 122 2.5 8.5 14.0 11.0 L5 W16 D15 L12 W31 19 SUBRAMANIAN, UMA 214 2.5 7.0 12.0 9.5 D30 L11 W22 W26 L7 20 DEPALMA, NATALIE 270 2.0 10.5 13.5 10.5 W13 D29 L11 D15 L12 21 HILDEBRAND, GABRIELLE 193 2.0 8.5 13.5 5.0 L1 W32 W28 L11 L10 22 GALIEN, SIERRA 112 2.0 8.5 11.5 6.0 L14 W31 L19 W28 L13 23 CHRYST, BAILEY 213 2.0 8.0 12.0 3.0 W35 L4 L6 L16 W33 24 ZIETLOW, MARIAH 111 2.0 7.5 11.5 3.0 L2 W35 L9 W33 L14 25 ULATOWSKI, GRETA 100 2.0 7.5 11.5 3.0 -B- W30 L4 L9 L15 26 MCCAULEY, MIRANDA 115 2.0 7.0 10.0 6.0 L10 D34 W30 L19 D27 27 OKORO, CHIKA 100 2.0 7.0 10.0 4.5 L12 L13 W35 D30 D26 28 PEREZ, ERIKA 100 2.0 5.0 8.0 2.0 L8 -B- L21 L22 W34 29 PETZOLD, GRACE 221 1.5 10.0 14.0 5.0 W31 D20 L5 L6 L16 30 WHITTOW, KATIE 100 1.5 6.5 9.0 5.5 D19 L25 L26 D27 D32 31 CAYEN, EMMA 100 1.5 5.0 7.5 2.0 L29 L22 D34 W35 L18 32 HILLER, MARLA 100 1.5 4.5 8.5 1.5 L3 L21 L33 -B- D30 33 RUCKSTADTER, ALI 100 1.0 8.0 12.0 2.0 L15 L6 W32 L24 L23 34 TROMPETIR, HAILEY 100 1.0 7.5 10.5 3.5 L17 D26 D31 L14 L28 35 RUCKSTADER, EMMA 100 1.0 5.5 7.5 0.0 L23 L24 L27 L31 –BWSCF K-6 Place Name Rating Pts TBrk1 TBrk2 TBrk3 Rnd1 Rnd2 Rnd3 Rnd4 Rnd5 1 EMERY, ELIZABETH 606 5.0 11.0 11.0 22.0 W11 W14 W3 W2 -X- 2 HOLZ, MARY 564 4.0 14.0 17.0 25.0 W8 W4 W5 L1 W3 3 DUBROSKY, JASMIN 377 3.0 14.5 16.5 16.0 W15 W9 L1 W7 L2 4 SMEATON, MORGAN 388 3.0 12.5 13.0 11.0 W18 L2 W10 L5 W12 5 SAGER, STEPHANIE 587 3.0 12.0 12.0 16.0 W12 W6 L2 W4 -F- 6 LEWIS, ABBY 544 3.0 11.5 13.5 14.0 W7 L5 W13 W11 L9 7 RAJENDRAN, RASHMI 301 3.0 11.0 12.0 12.0 L6 W8 W14 L3 W16 8 MERAZ, ODALYS 293 3.0 11.0 11.5 9.0 L2 L7 W17 W14 W13 9 MCCAULEY, ALANNA 722 3.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 W13 L3 L11 W12 W6 10 PATTERSON, HEATHER 224 3.0 9.0 10.0 10.0 W16 L12 L4 W15 W11 11 MISEY, ROSE 315 2.0 11.0 15.5 10.0 L1 W15 W9 L6 L10 12 GOMOLL, RACHEL 301 2.0 10.0 13.5 8.0 L5 W10 W16 L9 L4 13 WHITTOW, JESSICA 294 2.0 7.5 10.5 3.0 L9 W17 L6 W16 L8 14 MCKAY, RACHEL 413 2.0 7.0 11.5 2.0 W17 L1 L7 L8 W18 15 REDLINGER, JULIA 132 2.0 6.0 9.0 2.0 L3 L11 W18 L10 W17 16 MCCAULEY, CASSIDY 263 1.0 7.5 10.5 1.0 L10 W18 L12 L13 L7 17 MARLIN, LAURA 100 0.5 6.5 9.5 0.5 L14 L13 L8 D18 L15 18 STAUDT, SARA 100 0.5 5.5 8.5 0.5 L4 L16 L15 D17 L14 K-12 Place Name Rating Pts TBrk1 TBrk2 TBrk3 Rnd1 Rnd2 Rnd3 Rnd4 Rnd5 1 HUANG, JOANNA 801 4.5 11.5 12.0 21.0 W5 W3 W4 W2 D2 2 LANGE, CHARLOTTE 406 3.0 13.5 14.0 13.0 W3 D6 W5 L1 D1 3 KIM, MARY LIZ 730 3.0 11.5 12.0 9.0 L2 L1 W6 W4 W5 4 UNGER, DEBORAH 458 2.0 5.0 9.5 4.0 W6 W5 L1 L3 -U- 5 STEARNS, MADDIE 113 1.0 8.5 13.0 0.0 L1 L4 L2 -B- L3 6 FILALI, SARA 249 0.5 5.5 8.5 3.0 L4 D2 L3 -U- -U As you can see, there was a great drop-off in participants between the K-3 and K-12 level: from 35 girls to 6. As GM Susan Polgar has repeatedly pointed out at her blog, young girls who start out eager to play chess tend to drop out of the game in their early to mid-teens. Just speaking selfishly, as a nation, we could potentially be losing some female players who could develop into outstanding chess talents - and we cannot afford to lose even one of these potential stars! I mean, darlings, it's not as if we're churning out top 10, 20 or 50 world-class players on a regular basis. I would like to see more American players in the top 10 of international competitions - and in world events put together for children (World Youth Chess Championships) and teens (World Junior/Girls chess Championships). What's to be done? GM Susan Polgar has led the way in the United States by developing and promoting national girls-only events - we can do more. Programs to encourage girls to play chess and continue to play chess can be developed at local levels, in our own communities, and at state levels. But - it is local players who participate in the big national events that GM Polgar has been putting together, offering great scholarships and other prizes for the all-female participants. (GM Polgar also sponsors a great national boys event offering great prizes, so no promising young U.S. players are excluded from perhaps winning a 4-year college scholarship, laptop computers, and other great prizes). We must start at the local level to promote chess among our children. The benefits of young people playing chess has been well documented and I won't go into that here - I will post links to some articles that discuss the topic and provide much better information that I can do in my own words! This morning I had a lengthy telephone conversation with one of the members of the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation. It was an eye-opener for me, and very informative. Perhaps because of reading so much about GM Polgar's efforts to promote chess as an educational tool (as well as a route to individual personal development) I was under the impression that scholastic chess in the United States is pretty well funded. That is not necessarily the case, at least - not here in Wisconsin. The WSCF, operating on a shoe-string budget (funding is primarily comprised of individual donations and net funds raised from entry fees for tournaments and chess camps) and run by non-paid volunteers (primarily parents of scholastic chessplayers), offered a total of $700 in prizes in 2008 for their girls-only tornaments, in the form of U.S. Savings Bonds. I hope I got that right! Can we do better? I know we can - we just need more people wrapping their brains around how to get better funding and how to better promote these fantastic events for our young players. I mean really, darlings, wouldn't you rather see our young people going head to head over a chessboard, using their brains, developing skills and abilities that will serve them well for the rest of their lives, than acting out their competitive instincts as gangbangers on a one-way trip to dead before 21? How about volunteering to assist at a local chess club? Or if your state has a scholastic chess organization, volunteer to assist it? How about contributing $25, $50 or $100 a year toward funding prizes for our kids? Imagine the impact on a state chess organization if just 50 people contributed $100 each. Wow! Think about it.