Checkmate! Vera Menchik was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in England. Menchik grew a reputation as the first Women's World Champion from 1927 to 1944 with a record of eight world championships. She was also the first woman to compete in master-level tournaments. Menchik won the inaugural Women's World Chess Championship in 1927 after defeating the British women's champion Edith Charlotte Price in 1925 in two matches. Not to mention, Menchik went up against MANY male grandmasters and won most of them while drawing the rest. Some of the men included George Alan Thomas, Regionald Pierce Michell, and Hubert Ernest Price. When she participated in seven women's world championship tournaments, she won a total of 78 out 83 games played. Unfortunately, Vera Menchik's streak ended in 1944 before given the GM (grandmaster) title. Vera Menchik was killed in a German air raid that destroyed her home during World War II. Even so, she would still go down as one of the best female chess players of all time when the trophy for the winning team of the Women's Chess Olympiad was named the Vera Menchik Cup in her honor.
Checkmate! Jennifer Shahade is an American grandmaster chess player. Shahade grew up in a family of chess and game players including Poker. Although she did not enjoy the game of Chess as a five year old, she revisited the game and fell in love with it during high school. At the age of 16, Shahade became a National Master (NM) and the first female to win the US Junior Open. Throughout her success, Jennifer aso won two US Chess Women's Championship titles and a Silver Olympic medal. Using her knowledge of the game and title, she wrote many chess related books including "Chess Queens" with a rating of 4.8 stars on Audible and "Thinking Sideways: How To Think Like a Chess Player and Win at Life" set to release February 27 of 2025. Last but not least, Jennifer Shahade is a co-founder of 9 Queens and an advisory board member of the Women in Chess Foundation. She is a constant advocate for women in the chess community. As of today, Jennifer is a MindSports Ambassador at PokerStars and a two-time Global Poker Award winner. Although she no longer plays chess competitively, she maintains relevance in the conversations around chess AND poker.
Today, the queen piece is known as the MOST powerful chess piece. The queen piece is a combination of ALL the chess pieces: the rook, the bishop, the king, the pawn, and the knight. Many people probably did not know where the game truly originated from. Chess originated from India, where at the time, it was called Chaturanga. However, there was no such thing as a queen piece, only male figures. Chess only started to evolve when it had reached Persia. A new piece had evolved called the Counselor. The Counselor could only move one square diagonally. Despite the counselor being weaker than the modern queen piece, it represented a drastic sign of change for women in society. The later evolution of the queen piece reflected the new roles and perception of women not just socially but politically as well. The chessboard served as a metaphor for the medieval court, where power struggles and alliances were constantly at play. Gradually, the queen piece slowly replaced the Viziers (male advisors) of Islamic and Persian chess. At the MET Museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, there is an artifact from the 13th century that is riding on top of a horse, much different than the queen piece today.
