Chess & Pizza at Warwick University Girls Tournament

Saturday 15th November saw 17 girls participate in the She Plays To Win University Girls Tournament, in conjunction with Warwick University.

Warwick University is becoming a very popular university for chess players. They have around 250 members of their university chess society, and a thriving place for female chess players as well through their women’s chess nights as well as other social events to encourage more girls to enjoy playing chess.

She Plays To Win founder Lorin D’Costa noticed during a walk through campus how the University is advertising its STEM Connect Programme (https://warwick.ac.uk/about/strategy/connect/stem/) and so it is not surprising that most chess players (but not all!) tend to be doing STEM related subjects at university. The link between chess and STEM is definitely strong, as proved at this event where the girls explained how they were studying subjects such as maths, physics, engineering and other STEM related subjects.

Lorin also gave a lunchtime lecture about Judit Polgar, the strongest ever female chess player, which seemed to inspire the girls to channel their ‘inner Judit’ for the second half of the event!

The event was won by Silvia Donate Moreno, who visited England from her university, Jaume 1 in Castellon, Spain, where she studies robotics.

Silvia was pushed hard by sisters Emmanuelle and Eunice, both studying at Kings College London. Top Warwick University girls were 1st years Diana and Rosa.

The top 6 girls qualify for the She Plays To Win Athena Finals in Hammersmith, London on 7th March. Congratulations to those girls!

As a reward for their efforts, free pizza was enjoyed by the girls and tournament staff.

She Plays To Win would like to thank Warwick University for their collaboration.

Final results: https://s1.chess-results.com/tnr1293587.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=6&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0