April 15, 2021

The First ChessKid USA Girls and Women’s Championship Is 2 Days Away

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There are many reasons to mark the moment in chess, especially if you study the game and the history of childhood education that runs through it. The expansion of educational opportunities is a growing feature, in focus this weekend during ChessKid’s inaugural online tournament for girls and women in the United States.

One of the awards is the opportunity for the top 10 kids in each section to join a camp instructed by every US champion of this century, including Jennifer Shahade, Irina Krush, Anna Zatonskih, Jennifer Yu, Rusa Goletiani, Sabina Foiser, and others. Shahade is an acclaimed broadcaster and educator, and Krush is phenomenal at every aspect of competition. (Krush beat me handily when we were both kids in a team matchup with world champion Anatoly Karpov, the greatest evisceration in my early memory.) Family plaques await the top three mother-daughter pairs in K through 3rd grade, 4th through 5th grades, 6th through 8th grades, and 9th through 12th grades, with individual and team prizes.

If you’re new to the strategies and tactics, consider: There are more possible games in chess than the number of atoms in the known universe: 10^120 games, 10^81 atoms. Read up on the inaugural event, and share Recharge tips at recharge@motherjones.com.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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