Using chess to empower girls

The Netflix television series the Queen’s Gambit has recently brought chess into the mainstream spotlight as it soared to unheralded popularity.

The story of Beth Harmon is one of a woman who rises in a men’s dominated sports amidst a struggle with drugs and depression. She however empowers herself through her chess playing abilities and eventually this leads her to a life of happiness and fulfillment without chemical dependencies.

It was a few weeks ago that the activities manager Ann-Marie Greene contacted the Barbados Chess Federation (BCF) about organizing a chess event at the Cobblers Cove hotel in Speightstown. She however stated that she had no idea about chess but had watched the tv series The Queen’s Gambit and had been completely enthralled by its intensity.

The BCF then took the initiative that we could try a small tournament involving some of our promising girl players and some of the guests at the hotel. It would fall under the initiative of the annual Christmas activities for the hotel.

The girl players included Hannah Wilson, Gaybrianna Moore, Chanon Reifer-Belle, Alehsha Lovell and Sierra Austin. They joined several hotel guests in a competitive but learning exercise where our more experienced young lady players bestowed some of their expertise to the guests.

Learning and playing chess helps to develop such skills as critical thinking, problem solving, calmness under pressure, patience, time management and sportsmanship among others. Skills that can be readily transferable to other spheres of one’s life with positive consequences.

Interesting enough the strongest ever female player grandmaster Judit Polgar of Hungary, believes that females can perform just as well intellectually as males. At a younger age in chess, girls’ and boys’ performances are relatively comparable as their ratings are closer when they are younger than when their ratings are compared at a higher age.

Polgar has also postulated that having female players compete against male players on a regular basis tends to improve the female players more dramatically than having the girls playing among themselves alone.

Having watched the female players of chess who have taken the game seriously, one thing I have seen is an increase in their confidence. They all enter the sport as shy girls but over time if they stick around, they develop into confident and expressive young ladies.

The results of the recently concluded Central American and Caribbean Youth hybrid championships in which the girl players competed with the males in the different age categories clearly reinforced Polgar’s ideas. In Barbados our top female players play in the female events but can also play in the open events. Chess is one of the few sports where the females have their own category, but they can also play in Open events as the men have no separate corresponding section. Participating in Open events can improve the self confidence of the girls especially since chess is not an activity where physical prowess is important.

Wilson placed third overall in the Under 12 section (Girls Under 12 champion), while Reifer-Belle placed fifth (Girls Under 12 Bronze medal).Another young lady from Costa Rica Sofia Mayorca placed fourth. Results which do reinforces Polgar’s ideas.

One must also ensure parity when it comes to training of young players, and the BCF in coordination with the Barbados Olympic Association and the world governing body of chess FIDE has allowed training opportunities for Wilson, Reifer-Belle, Lovell and Moore among others with the likes of the FIDE Chessable Academy Programme which involves some of the top chess trainers in the world. The federation has also financially supported a number of other females among the juniors with training locally. We have also encouraged our girl players to participate in any of the character building programs and seminars put on by the BOA in an attempt to build skill and capacity within our players.

Kelvin Daniel is Vice President of the Barbados Chess Federation.