Don’t Mess with Texas Chess Girls
Girls Chess Clinic in Brownsville, Texas
This summer is a big one for US Chess Women and Girls, and you can find a wide range of events in our recently added Women’s and Girls’ Event Calendar. The season features the US Women’s Open and the US Junior Girls Championship (now underway.) Meanwhile, US Women’s Championship runner-up Annie Wang is playing in the US Junior Championship mixed division. A couple weeks after the Juniors, US Chess hosts the National Girls Tournament of Champions in Madison.
In Texas, WFM Priya Trakru is involved in a number of events to promote chess to girls. Priya, a HERLead scholar, is based in Brownsville, Texas. She is partnering with the City of Brownsville to host free Girls Chess Clinics, with her most recent session featured in the Brownsville Herald.
If you can get girls into that male-dominated field (of chess), it’s really empowering and you get more confidence.
Priya leading a free Girls Chess Clinic in Brownsville, Texas
Priya also led a class at the 2nd Annual Queens of the Rio Grande Valley camp, hosted this week in Mercedes, Texas. Organizer Russell Harwood told US Chess, “It is an honor to hold our camp at their wonderful facilities of the South Texas Independent School District’s Science Academy in the top-rated school district in Texas.”
WIM Luciana Morales give a simul at the 2nd Annual Queens of the Rio Grande Valley camp
The first edition of camp was featured in the April edition of Chess Life Magazine in a piece by Harwood called, “All About the Girls.” WIM Luciana Morales, also of Brownsville, was a guest instructor on the final day of the camp.
Class is in session at the 2nd Annual Queens of the Rio Grande Valley camp! Photo courtesy Rusty Harwood
JUDE ACERS |
I do not wish to sow fear but another definite factor which must be considered is basic security on the road for women playing in tournaments particularly in run down hotels and out of the way locations ..the more training tournaments like this the better. Jude Acers/ New Orleans
Priya Trakru on the US Chess School: Power Queens - US Chess |
[…] chess training more seriously and has given me ideas on how to improve on my own girls chess clinic “Pawns and Queens” back in Brownsville. One of the most important parts of chess is not the game itself- it’s the relationships you form […]