Balestier Christmas Rapid 2023

Girls...they wanna have fun....NOT

CM juniortay

Updated: Dec 20, 2023, 4:01 AM | 2

WCM Fang Kun was taken aback when I told her to scurry over to play a rapid chess event against Elo 2100-2200 type masters. She is rated about 500-600+ points below them for that matter. "OMG, why am I in this event, I am gonna get thrashed!", she protested. But she did turn up and after 5 hours of intense fighting, she emerged unbeaten and in clear 1st position.

What's amazing if she had more self-belief that she can overcome that 600 point handicap, she would have cleaned up the field with a 4-0 result. This is the only game she failed to win...and she even had winning chances at the end...

I would agree that such big upsets by girls (local context) are not very common (and this is just a rapid event...) but of late, lightning has struck a few times....

After the Covid measures were lifted, WCM Bernadette Kong managed to win the SCF Rating I standard chess event on tiebreak from Marcus Chen (who at 2021, out-rated her by close to 600 points). I think we can see from their personal encounter, it wasn't a fluke.

WCM Bernadette Kong playing in Czechnia where she won the top ladies prize (Czech open)

Recently, Charlene Mak completed the requirements for her WCM title in style, finishing 2nd in the Rome Open A category with a 180 point Elo gain.

This is how she started proceedings in Rome - one big tactic and a continuous sustained attack which Black could not fend off from start to end.

It seems that Singapore Chess Federation's national coaches have decided to recommend parents to 'throw' their female trainees together with the sharks and see if they can swim or sink. Instead of playing in European events during the December holidays, some of them chose to duke it out in the very tough Asian events such as what Eden Pang did in Indonesia with a 53 point Elo gain. Gladys Koh also took part in the very daunting Manny Pacquiao International Open in the Philippines where she bagged 30 Elo points plus the Top Ladies prize. She did it the hard way by drawing IM Garma Chito in the final round to secure the prize by 1/2 point from her nearest rival.

Gladys Koh at the Manny Pacquiao International Open - she's flanked by Singapore-based Filipino NM Reggie Olay

Let's talk about the local junior ranks.

This was sent to me by GM Kevin Goh from Round 5 of the National Age Group U10 event.

NAG U10 top boards (Rd 5)

What you can see is Nicholas Kuo (the eventual champion) surrounded by three girls on the top 2 boards even at this late stage of the event. For that matter, Nic observed that his opponent Zeng Mohan gave him the hardest time and pushed him to the brink before he outlasted her.

We look at the final standings now for the U8 and U10 categories and we get this.

We can see that at U8, 5 girls made it to the top 20, but at the U10 level , almost half the spots are occupied by girls. So clearly they give the boys a very good run for their money/trophies.

I asked two National female players, WGM Gong Qianyun and WFM Liu Yang what is their take on how young girl players approach the game. The former indicated that she finds that female youngsters play more creatively and are less rule-based than their male counterparts but they also tend to be more emotional than boys during the decisive parts of the game. Yang feels that girls are more prone to be distracted by other things in life whereas boys are more singularly focused when working on chess.

I am going to leave you with the biggest upset in Singapore chess history from the 2023 Lim Kok Ann International Open where 12 year old Leah Rice (the reigning Australian ladies champion) overcame a nearly 1000 point rating deficit to beat her illustrious GM opponent.

Leah (2nd from left) with the rest of the Singapore contingent at the World Youth Championships 2023.

Girls...they wanna have fun....NOT

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