"Queen of Katwe" Movie Review in the New York Times

It was only a matter of time before this story was turned into a movie.  Some of you may remember some years back the big splash of publicity of young female chessplayer from Africa received - Phiona Mutesi.  I wrote about her in 2011.

She had her "15 minutes" of fame and was feasted and courted, and then it all faded away.  The movie should, however, renew interest in this young lady and the plight of other young women and girls just like her around the world.

Review: In 'Queen of Katwe,' a Pawn Finds Her Crown Through Chess

•  NYT Critics’ Pick
 
• Directed by Mira Nair
 
• Biography, Drama, Sport
 
• PG
 
• 2h 4m
• 
  

By A. O. SCOTTSEPT. 22, 2016

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“Irresistible” is one of those adjectives that critics should handle with utmost care. No matter how universally charming or winning a movie or a performance might seem to be, there is always a chance that somebody, somewhere, will be able to resist it. For all I know that may be the case with “Queen of Katwe,” but if there is anyone out there capable of remaining unmoved by this true-life triumph-of-the-underdog sports story, I don’t think I want to meet that person. [Click the link to read the rest of the review.]

Phiona Mutesi Talks of Her Experiences in Chess

From The Los Angeles Times

Ugandan chess star tells her story to youths in Valencia

Phiona Mutesi was hungry and living on the streets when she discovered the game. She went on to become a three-time Women's Junior Chess champion of her country.

By Ann M. Simmons, Los Angeles Times

December 16, 2012

Phiona Mutesi's journey from a Ugandan slum to the world stage as champion chess player was inspired by hunger.

"I was yearning for porridge," the 16-year-old Mutesi said as she recalled how one day in 2005 she followed her brother to a place where poor kids gathered and she knew she would get food. There she met Robert Katende, a missionary, who was trying to improve the lives of local Ugandan children by teaching them to play chess on boards spread out on the dirt. Those who showed up got a free bowl of porridge.

The three-time Women's Junior Chess champion of Uganda shared her story with young chess players last week during a visit to Trinity Classical Academy in Valencia, where she also played an exhibition game with four children.

Mutesi, who was living on the streets when she discovered chess, admits she kept returning to the makeshift youth center for food. But her talent quickly stood out, Katende said. Before long she was representing her country in international competitions, including this year's World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey.

Mutesi grew up in Katwe, a squalid area of the Ugandan capital of Kampala. Her mother struggled to feed her four children. Her father died of AIDS when Mutesi was just a toddler, she said in an interview.

Still learning English, Mutesi addressed the audience in her native Luganda as Katende interpreted. She told the audience that it took a while for her to develop interest in the game. At first, she said, "it was about the cup of porridge."

The shy and soft-spoken Mutesi became the youngest person ever to win the African Chess Championship this year and the first Ugandan female with a chess title. She is the subject of the book "The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl's Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster," by author Tim Crothers.

Mutesi said the moment she realized she might be good at chess was when she beat a boy.

Katende said Mutesi was helping to break down some of Uganda's rigid gender barriers. She aspires to become a doctor.

Moises Robles, 14, a chess player, and his 11-year-old sister Morelia of Santa Clarita said hearing Mutesi's story inspired them.

"It has really encouraged me to play more chess and to keep on trying," Moises said. "It's not just for fun. It's serious. It's about how each person is important, and it's important to work and never give up hope that you can become even better. "

A crowd gathered around as Mutesi wandered from table to table facing off with Trinity students Noah Chang, 13, Elizabeth Banescu, 10, and 11-year-olds Andrew Dever and Anthony Kirchmann. Jay Stallings, founder and director of the Valencia-based California Youth Chess League, who hosted Mutesi's visit to the school, gave a running commentary explaining the move of each player on a chess board projected on a screen. Mutesi beat the Trinity students, but all said they learned something from her life story and her game.

Stallings said it was clear that Mutesi brought her slum experience of resourcefulness to the chess table.

"When I watch her game there are no pieces that stay back," said Stallings, who is ranked as an "expert" with the U.S. Chess Federation. "She finds the best use for them. When you live in the slums you solve problems all day; you're used to challenges."

Phiona Mutesi Back in the News

From BBC.com
Uganda's chess champions from the slums
25 April 2011 Last updated at 03:05 ET
By Sigrun Rottmann

When Phiona Mutesi saw a chess board for the first time, five years ago, all she wanted to do was touch the pieces.


Phiona Mutesi

Then 10 years old, she was taught chess by a six-year-old girl, like her visiting a charity project for children in the slums of Uganda's capital, Kampala. "When I play my former teacher now, I always win," Phiona says and chuckles.

Those first improvised lessons set Phiona on the path to become a chess prodigy: At 15, she is her country's No 2 and the top woman player in the under-20 category - a title she has held for three consecutive years.

Last year, she travelled to Siberia to compete in the World Chess Olympiad.

And she has helped change the public's perception of chess and who in Uganda should play it.

Having grown up in Kampala's Katwe slum, Phiona never expected to succeed in anything, let alone travel abroad.

Her family's poverty forced her to leave school and sell food in the streets.

When Phiona dropped in at a project run by the Christian charity Sports Outreach Institute, coach Robert Katende was still unsure if chess could capture the imagination of slum children.

Should every child be made to play chess?
"We were running a soccer project, but some children were just not interested," Mr Katende told the BBC World Service.

"I wondered how I could get those kids involved, and because I had a chessboard and knew how to play chess, I gave it a try."

"I did have my doubts, because you do have to make an effort to learn chess," the 28-year-old added.

First time abroad
"These are kids who have never been to school, they are in a bad state, living below the poverty line," Mr Katende said. "They are so desperate, and many of them are orphaned."

Now playing chess has become almost a status symbol, not least because the children and teenagers get to travel to competitions.

When Phiona travelled outside Uganda for the first time, it was for a regional children's competition in South Sudan in 2009, with 16 African nations taking part.

"I was very nervous, because I had never been abroad and also met new players," Phiona told the BBC.

She won all her games. So did her teammates - two boys from the slums.

The trio also won the team championship.

Benjamin Mukumbya, one of the boys who competed in Juba, says chess has changed him.

"I used to be stubborn and would not listen to people's advice," said the 14-year-old, who is Uganda's under-16 champion.

"Now I listen, and I pick out what will help me."

He added that he also finds it easier to make plans and stick to them, "for example when I plan to read my books".

Phiona, who has just finished primary school, also said playing chess had helped her to plan ahead and persevere with her studies, "especially with mathematics".

More young players
Having watched some of his protegees make "amazing" progress and become more confident, Mr Katende is convinced that "skills acquired on the chess board can be transferred into the daily life of a slum kid".

"For me the the magic of chess is that you become like a prophet, seeing things that are ahead. You think of solutions for challenges to come, and when they come you have a remedy for each."

I know they are still struggling, but not the same as five years' back”

"When you live in a slum, you have to deal with challenges all day long. You wonder what you will eat, what you will drink, where you will sleep, how you will manage."

"That's why chess is a good platform for growth and development."

The Ugandan Chess Federation (UCF) did not agree at first, and Mr Katende had to work hard to persuade them to open the national junior championships for his protegees.

In Uganda, chess was seen as a sport only suitable for educated professionals and successful students.

"The Federation said the competition was for children at school, and some of these kids were not attending classes," the coach said. "But the UCF agreed in the end."

Now UCF General Secretary Godfrey Gali is glad his organisation listened to Mr Katende.

The number of under-20 players in Uganda has risen by 40% in the last few years, Mr Gali said.

He attributed the rise to the success stories of players like Phiona and Benjamin, "who have put a lot of time in to train, have put all their energy into it".

"Other young people also see that chess might open up opportunities to travel, and that makes it more exciting."

Mr Gali believes Phiona is only at the beginning of an international career as a chess player. But he worries that she might not receive the support she needs in order to make it all the way.

"It's really about opportunity. She has the capacity and she has the talent," Mr Gali said.

"The problem is that in Uganda a sport like chess is considered a past-time, and there is no money to build up and support champions."

When thinking about the events of the last few years, Mr Katende still wonders if he is dreaming.

"I look at the situation and ask myself: 'How can this be true?'," he said.

"I am so encouraged by the children's determination. I look at where they came from and the life they lead now. I know they are still struggling, but not the same as five years' back."

Phiona Mutesi, Female Chessplayer from Uganda

I have no idea what was going on in this Gambit blog by Dylan McClain.  What was he trying to say?  What was his point?  That this young woman from a poor African country, a young woman who does not even know her own birthdate, is some kind of calculating fraud?  Is that what you were saying, Dylan McClain?

January 5, 2011, 5:10 pm
ESPN Discovers a Chess Prodigy. Or Not.
By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

ESPN the Magazine has a story in the current issue about a young chess player from Uganda named Phiona Mutesi. The story is titled “Game of Her Life” with a smaller headline, “For 14-year-old chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi, chess is a lifeline.”

Written by Tim Crothers, the article tells the story of how Phiona went to play in the Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, last year, and about her impoverished upbringing. It is a touching story, full of vivid detail.

Crothers spent time with Phiona in Uganda and at the Olympiad and he interviewed her opponents in the competition, including Dina Kagramanov, the Canadian champion, who was generous in her assessment of Phiona’s skill, saying, “Anybody can be taught moves and how to react to those moves, but to reason like she does at her age is a gift that gives her the potential for greatness.”

But will Phiona achieve greatness? Is she a prodigy? Rest of article.

I think everyone should read the online article at ESPN, and judge for themselves about Phiona Mutesi and her life:

Updated: January 4, 2011, 5:58 PM ET
Game of her life: For 14-year-old chess progidy Phiona Mutesi, chess is a lifeline
By Tim Crothers
ESPN The Magazine

Young Canadian Teams for 2010 Chess Olympiad

WIM Yuan Yuanling (western style: WIM Yuanling Yuan) leads the Canadian's Women's Team to the 2010 Chess Olympiad.  Goddesschess was pleased to host her presence at the 90th City of Montreal Open Chess Championships held last week (September 10-12, 2010) in Montreal.  Here is an article on the Women's and Open Teams Canada sent to the 2010 Chess Olympiad:

From insidetoronto.com
TIM FORAN|
Sep 21, 2010 - 8:28 AM
North Yorkers head Canada's national chess teams

Erase the image of two crafty old men sitting across a chess board and slowly strategizing their moves. The reality of Canada's competitive game is drastically different.

Two North Yorkers, Yuanling Yuan and Mark Bluvshtein, both of whom shot to the top of Canada's rankings at age 14, will lead the country's youngest ever women's and national chess teams respectively over the next two weeks at the 39th annual Chess Olympiad, the first round of which began play Tuesday, September 21.

Yuanling Yuan, a 16-year-old high school student at Victoria Park C.I. and Canada's top rated female player at year end in both 2008 and 2009, will play "first board", or leader, for Canada's five-person women's team.

"She's the youngest first board on the women's team that Canada has ever sent," said Bob Armstrong, governor for the Chess Federation of Canada, which is one of approximately 150 federations sending their nation's top players to the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, a small city in western Siberia. The Olympiad is a biannual affair attracting the world's top talent and organized by the international chess federation FIDE. Canada's two teams are both ranked in the fifties.

Despite Yuan's age, this will actually be her second Olympiad, as she also played in the last one in 2008 in Dresden, Germany.

Leading Canada's national team this year is Mark Bluvshtein, 22, a recent York University graduate and Newtonbrook Secondary School alumnus. This will be the fifth Olympiad for Bluvshtein, who became Canada's youngest ever grandmaster at the age of 16.

International masters Thomas Roussel-Roozman, 22, Leonid Gershoy, 22, and Artiom Samsonkin, 21, round out the starting squad for the national team, while Nikolay Noritsyn, 19, is the team's reserve, a position that generally sees quite a bit of playing time, said Armstrong.

The women's team is even younger. Both starter Yelizaveta Orlova and reserve Dalia Kagramanov are only 16, while Kagramanov's older sister, Dina, another York University grad, is the "elder" on Canada's teams at the age of 24. The other starter Iulia Lacau-Rodean is 22. ...

Rest of article.

With all due respect to the chess dudes, this is Goddesschess and we concentrate on the femmes!  How did the Canadian women do?

Round 1 on 2010/09/21 at 15:00
Bo. 58 Canada (CAN) Rtg - 113 Uganda (UGA) Rtg 3½: ½
56.1 WIM Yuan Yuanling 2189 - Amoko Ivy Claire 0 1 - 0
56.2 WIM Kagramanov Dina 2086 - Mutesi Phiona 0 1 - 0
56.3 Lacau-Rodean Iulia 2024 - Kigeni Grace 0 ½ - ½
56.4 Orlova Yelizaveta 1917 - Butindo Joanitah Justine 0 1 - 0

Canada Women moved up from start rank 58th to 50th as a result of their R1 performance. 

Note:  Phiona Mutesi (see Goddesschess post) was not able to prevail against WIM Dina Kagramanov.