Lam Vy and Will win the 2nd SPTW Pairs Invitational
Sunday 21st June 2026 in Hammersmith saw the She Plays To Win Pairs Invitational take place.
8 SPTW girls were paired with 8 titled of the UK’s top male players (FIDE Master, International Master, Grandmaster) for alternate moves chess.
This was the second edition, after the successful first one back in 2023. The concept was based on snookers ‘World Mixed Doubles’ and like snooker, She Plays To Win wants to prove that girls can compete with boys on an equal footing with chess.
The 8 girls won their respective She Plays To Win Athena Finals age categories back in March, the culmination of the year long Athena Finals series run by She Plays To Win to encourage more girls to take part in chess.
Essentially, these girls had already achieved a lot to win their place in this event!
Onto the chess itself, and two groups of 4 teams played a 3 match round robin. The top 2 teams went through to the semi finals.
After a day’s hard fought battle, Lam Vy Nguyen and her partner, FM William Claridge-Hansen prevailed in the final. Well done to Lam Vy and Will!
What was especially telling were the comments by these male players.
‘We were not aware the UK has some many promising young female players’ and ‘wow I think my partner is a super talent’. These were just a few of the comments made.
She Plays To Win believes in equality, and especially over the board, as per our mission: