About Us
Our Story, Our mission
The mission of Chess Girls DC is to build the confidence of Girls using Chess as a tool. Chess teaches Persistence. The Chess Girls DC program develops a solid foundation of chess knowledge taught in a way that properly prepares girls to apply it in a productive fashion, in order that every maneuver becomes a way to practice effective thinking.
Chess Girls DC 501c3 Nonprofit Organization was launched in response to scientific evidence that self -confidence plays a tremendous role in a girl’s approach to course work that requires higher level thinking skills and challenging circumstances. Chess teaches the focus and strategic thinking used to successfully tackle college examinations. Scientific studies show that, confidence in one’s abilities has a significant impact on learning and performance on many levels. Self-belief about one’s ability determines how well students motivate themselves and persevere in the face of difficulty.
Chess Girls DC is a nonprofit organization created to provide a space for all girls to play Chess and Thrive.
On the anniversary of our 5th year, Chess Girls DC is most proud of the community that helps us provide resources to teach and assist girls with travel to compete in national tournaments and professional coaching to elevate their tournament performance.
Experience a breakthrough with our team
Over the years, Chess Girls DC presented several approaches to teaching chess to students during the year and incorporating family engagement.
· Weekly lectures by an experienced chess professionals
· Supervised chess games with volunteers
· Video conferencing with young up and coming higher ranked chess players
· Students were taught how to use chess clocks
· All students received age appropriate books to encourage chess literacy
· Students were taught and practiced chess notation
· Lessons were guided by chess books appropriate for younger students
· Students were given weekly take home activities to reinforce lesson
· Students had the ability to participate in on line chess education (chesskids.com) with videos, lectures and chess puzzles.
· Students participate in the end of the semester recognition award ceremony for personal accomplishments during semester
· Students were coached and supported to participate in local and national tournaments.
Chess Girls DC 501c3 organization hosted the Regional Girls Mid Atlantic tournament.
· There are field trips to meet Chess masters
· Chess Girls DC exposed parents to chess scholarship opportunities
· Chess Players and Leadership Series
Girls realize that they can intellectually challenge the world
Meet 10 year old Ayah, the newest 4th grade Mid Atlantic Chess Champion. She represented Washington,DC at the All Girls National Tournament of Champions. She is the youngest and the first African American girl to represent Washington, DC. Ayah has been part of Chess Girls DC for 5 years.
Effective Tips to improve your chess game
Written by Womens International Master Akshita Gorti
Welcome !
Every month we will post helpful articles to help you improve your chess game.
Tips to Balance Chess and School Classes
It is definitely not easy to manage trying to improve in chess as well as academics (especially for high school students). Elementary students will have more time to practice chess. But there are ways to balance both improving in chess and academics. It’s very important to make the best use of the time we are given, and follow a daily plan to finish school homework and get time to improve in chess.
- One possible way would be to wake up early before going to school. By waking up early, you may get an extra hour or even more to practice chess. The extra time can be used to do plenty of tactics before going to school. Tactics are extremely important in chess, and doing them daily can help sharpen your skills. It’s very crucial for players of all levels to do tactics. Doing tactics is one of the fastest ways to improve in chess. Some very good websites to practice tactics are chesstempo.com, chesskid.com, and chess.com.
- If there isn’t any time in the morning to do chess, it would be best to do as much chess as possible after coming back from school. I recommend to at least spend 3-4 hours on chess. Spending 3-4 hours on chess daily will immensely improve your chess.
- It’s also needed to know how to improve in chess, and what to do on a daily basis so that the playing strength can increase. I had already mentioned tactics as a necessity to improve the playing strength. Its also very important to play as many online games as possible. Playing online games is a very good way to gain plenty of practice and experience. The experience can help when it comes to playing actual tournaments, where you will feel more prepared because of playing so many online games. Chesskid.com and ICC are great platforms to play online games.
- A very crucial part of improving in chess is to always analyze your games. It’s a healthy habit to analyze both tournament and online games. Analyzing the games helps identify the mistakes and most importantly helps you to not repeat the same mistakes in another game. Analyzing the games helps you identify the good and bad parts of the game and can immensely help improve your chess.
- Doing plenty of checkmating puzzles is very important for beginners. In a chess game, the main goal is to always checkmate the opponent. So, knowing how to checkmate is very important. It’s not just about knowing how to checkmate, but also being able to identify the checkmates quickly. Doing plenty of checkmating puzzles keep the brain sharp and whenever you are presented with a checkmating pattern in a tournament game, it will become really easy to solve it and win the game. Chesstempo.com and chesskid.com are great websites to practice checkmating puzzles.
- Another way to improve in chess is to follow the games of world champions. Following the games of world champions is a great way to improve since we can get many ideas from their games. Getting inspiration from their games is very helpful, since we can try to use similar if not the same ideas in our own games.
- The last thing I would like to mention about improving in chess would be to play as many tournaments as possible. Playing tournaments gives lots of experience. Playing tournaments also helps you implement all the chess you’ve been practicing and it’s a lot of fun to win!
In a future article, I will recommend some very important chess books for beginners.
Ayah Swan Girl of the Year
Congratulations to Ayah Swan
The 2018 All Girls representative for the District of Columbia.
She actively competes in Robotics competitions in addition her Chess studies.
Dream Big Play Tough
Ayah is the 2019 4th grade Mid Atlantic Chess Champion . This is the first time a girl from Washington,DC has held this position.
Chess Girls DC Pioneer
A member since 2013, Ayah loves competing with her friends, looking forward to All Girls Nationals in Chicago. http://rknights.org/registration/tournaments/all-girls-nationals/
suppport Chess Girls DC
Your donations support girls as they develop into high level chess players. Please donate as we are victims of the government shutdown.
