Yes Ma'am, Girls PWN in Cal and Mexico!

Team USA winners. L to R: Pranav, Chenyi, Joaquin Perkins, Aksithi and Ashritha.

The recent Chess Life Online video "Women Talk Chess: Beating the Boys" has stirred emotions on both sides of the gender gap in chess.  The cold hard facts reveal that only 3% of adult players are women.  On the bright side, many young girls join their elementary school clubs, and often they outperform the boys.

CalChess Girls Champion Sophia Li

The Bay Area girls are no exception.  A dozen kids now populate the Girls U-13 and U-16 rankings on the CalChess Top 100 lists, more than double from just two years ago.  Many attended the CalChess Girls Championship in January, with Sophia Li earning a hard fought victory in the top section.  As these young women grow older, may they continue to inspire the next bunch a few years younger. 

Indeed, three local girls won medals for their age at the North American Youth Chess Championships last weekend in Mexico City!  Kudos to Ashritha Eswaran (silver in Girls-U12), her sister Aksithi Eswaran (bronze in Girls-U8) and Chenyi Zhao (silver in Girls-U10).  Actually, the girls didn't take everything--here's a big cheer for Pranav Senthilkumar for earning the gold medal in Boys-U10!

Closer to home, the girls scored a collective hat trick at the Best of the West Championship on Memorial Day weekend.  Out of six sections in this adult tournament, half ended with a middle school age lady on top!  Congratulations to Audrey Zhao (Class B), reigning state girls champion Sophia Li (Class C) and Emily Zhu (U1400 section) for capturing clear first place, each a half point ahead of the boys!

Go Girls!!!