Grandmaster Chess

One of our Year 7 chess club players took on a former world champion and grandmaster at a special exhibition match.

Maya in Year 7 is part of our school chess club; the free, weekly lunchtime sessions are run by coach Lorin D’Costa, founder of She Plays to Win, a non-profit organisation whose aim is to encourage more girls to learn, play and benefit from chess. Maya was recently selected to play in an all-girls simultaneous exhibition chess match and reports back on her experience of playing against a grandmaster.

“A simultaneous exhibition is when one person plays multiple people, all at the same time – you might have seen this if you watched The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. In my case, I was one of 30 girls playing against Antoaneta Stefanova, the 2004 women’s world champion and grandmaster from Bulgaria. Antoaneta was playing against us on 30 boards, all at the same time. Naturally, playing a grandmaster with a rating like hers was quite intimidating… but, after a few moves, I began to relax into the game and I played my hardest. However, as one might expect, I lost after 27 moves!

Antoaneta said how pleased she was to be playing at a girls-only event, as girls are very underrepresented in this sport. I was so thrilled to have the chance to meet a grandmaster and I would encourage everyone to come to our school chess club on Tuesday lunchtimes – not just to have fun, but also to be able to compete in these kinds of events. Mr D’Costa is a brilliant teacher with big plans for girls’ chess. He has even written a book about inspirational women chess players!”