SPTW August 2026 Newsletter
Editorial
By Lorin D'Costa, Founder and CEO of She Plays To Win
As the school academic year draws to a close, the good weather saw She Plays To Win take part in both indoor and outdoor chess activities this past month.
Chessfest was held in Trafalgar Square, London, with the stunning weather giving everyone a chance to play chess outside in a lovely setting.
Indoors, we saw a huge success for girls at the EJCOA National Finals in Nottingham; SPTW Founder Lorin visited Amsterdam to pitch and discuss She Plays To Win with the Dutch Chess Federation; and the pilot trials collaborating with UK girls' secondary schools, and with Times Tables Rockstars for primary girls, grow ever stronger.
We are thankful to SheSaaS (https://www.shesaas.org/), who are already lined up to sponsor a live girls' school chess/maths/STEM event on Friday 20th November. UK girls' schools will be contacted about that, and 19 schools have already expressed interest.
The launch of the new She Plays To Win programme will take place in late August on our website. Do look out for that!
Finally, this past week you may have seen some of the SPTW girls in the news. They featured on BBC Woman's Hour, GB News and BBC News, as well as being published in The Times, where we were the lead article on page 3.
She Plays To Win would like to thank our ambassadors Emily, Alisha and Anusha, who spoke so positively about how She Plays To Win and chess have helped them in their lives, both on and off the chess board.
Chess should be for everyone.
With just 8% of girls playing chess — not just in the UK but worldwide — She Plays To Win is only just starting its work to try and change that.
If anyone is interested in supporting us in this mission, do contact us: https://www.sheplaystowin.co.uk/contact-us
Lorin D'Costa
Founder & CEO, She Plays To Win
Charity Number: 1210171
sheplaystowin.co.uk
She Plays To Win in the news
She Plays To Win was featured on Friday 31st July across a number of news platforms, including The Times, The Guardian, BBC News, BBC Woman's Hour, Times Radio and GB News, to name a few.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/31/uk-female-chess-team-league-rule-men-join-sport
She Plays To Win are proud of the Lionesses' achievement in reaching Division 1, the very top division of the 4NCL National Chess League in the UK.
The season kicks off in October, and they will be taking on the very best chess players the UK has to offer.
A fantastic experience for the girls, and a testament to what they can achieve when given the opportunity.
She Plays To Win presentation at Dutch Chess Federation event
"It was really inspiring to hear about how you have formed your charity to help promote girls' chess"
On Saturday 11th July, She Plays To Win founder Lorin D'Costa was invited to give a talk to the Dutch Chess Federation in Amsterdam, during the Dutch Chess Championships.
Having studied Dutch at University College London over 20 years ago, Lorin was keen to give the talk in the local language, which went down well!
Lorin giving the presentation (in Dutch) to the Dutch Chess Federation and local organisers in the Netherlands.
The discussion ran for around 90 minutes and invited questions from the listeners. Around 20 local chess organisers and Dutch Chess Federation delegates helped form a fascinating discussion where ideas were bounced around.
The key takeaways were:
How does the English Chess Federation, with a population of around 60 million, have only 20,000 members, when the Netherlands, with 18 million, has the same? How does that affect the number of female members of the federation?
Are team events a good way to keep secondary school girls in chess? An organiser in Amersfoort said he had seen a huge increase in girls aged 12-14 staying in chess once team events were formed for girls. Lorin mentioned the She Plays To Win teams in the 4NCL, and how the ECF National Girls Schools Championships have seen huge growth in the past 10 years.
Use of Chesskid as a learning tool; in the Netherlands they use the 'Step Method' in their local clubs.
How forming a community, and friendships between girls, is the way to keep girls in chess.
Overall it was an excellent discussion, and another link between She Plays To Win and European federations to further how we can all improve girls' chess.
Visit to Nonsuch High School for Girls
Wednesday 15th July saw a special visit by She Plays To Win CEO Lorin D'Costa to Nonsuch High School for Girls in south London.
The school was chosen because it already has chess pedigree, entering teams into the English Chess Federation (ECF) National Girls Schools Under 19 Chess Championships.
Lorin is also from south London, and enjoyed revisiting his roots.
22 Year 8 girls attended, working through a maths puzzle book for an hour before the chess began at 11am with Lorin.
The girls learned basic checkmates and practised them on chess boards in pairs and small groups, before tackling a real game in which they wrote their moves down on a scoresheet, replicating chess tournament play.
The feedback from the school after the event was very positive:
"It was fantastic to see so many of the girls so engaged and enthusiastic throughout the day. The level of interest, excitement and participation was wonderful to witness, and I very much hope that we can keep the chess bug alive at Nonsuch for many years to come.
Lorin's expertise was invaluable and greatly appreciated. More than that, the passion, enthusiasm and joy that Lorin brought to the event helped make it such a memorable experience for the students. It is always inspiring to see someone share their knowledge in such an engaging way, and the girls clearly responded to that."
Lorin awarded this She Plays To Win hoodie to the Year 8 girl who made the best effort. Well done to Miranda — she hadn't even played chess before, and learned to checkmate and to write down a whole game of over 50 moves!
She Plays To Win believes the best way for girls to learn is with other girls, to introduce them to the game. As they gain more experience and learn how to checkmate in a game situation, they can be ready to consider playing in a junior chess tournament.
At that point, playing against both boys and girls is the next step in developing the confidence to appreciate that chess is for all genders. With just 8% female participation, this growth in confidence — as the Nonsuch High School event demonstrates — is absolutely key to getting more girls into chess.
UK girls' secondary schools can contact She Plays To Win to express interest in running similar events at their school: https://www.sheplaystowin.co.uk/contact-us
EJCOA Finals, Nottingham — 3rd-5th July
The EJCOA Finals took place at Nottingham High School over the weekend of 3rd-5th July.
Over 240 boys and girls from across the country won a place at the event by qualifying via local tournaments run by chess coaches and organisers all over England.
Age groups ran from Under 8 all the way up to Under 20.
As you can imagine, the games were long and hard fought, given the level of the players.
The best girl performance was Anvi, who won the Under 12 mixed event with a fantastic 5 wins from 5 games!
Anvi pictured with EJCOA board members Jake and Rob at prizegiving.
In fact, in the Under 12 section, half of the top 15 final ranked players were girls. This was mirrored in the Under 10 section, with 5 girls ranked in the top 10 placings.
This demonstrates the immense talent we have in this country among girls at a young age. She Plays To Win is proud to support these girls as they develop their interest and improve their game.
Well done to all the girls' winners:
Under 8: Riva and Sarah, 3/5
Under 10: Mary, 4.5/5 (also joint first)
Under 12: Anvi, 5/5 (first outright)
Under 14: Yvon and Shrishti, 2.5/5
Under 16-20: Sameera and Siyuan, 3/5
Gigafinals see SPTW 4NCL squad girls through
Mid-July saw the UK Chess Challenge 'Gigafinals' take place. This was the penultimate stage, and the age categories were fiercely fought.
Many of the She Plays To Win girls who represent our Lionesses squad in the 4NCL National League attended, and had great results.
Well done to Rebecca, Alice, Lam Vy, Olivia and Shambavi for qualifying for the Terafinals — the final stage — in October!
Alice won the Under 10 Girls section. She commented on how competitive the tournament was, with most of the top girls in the country attending; her final-round win gave her a winning score of 6 out of 7.
Chessfest, Trafalgar Square — Sunday 12th July
Chessfest took place in a sunny and bright Trafalgar Square on Sunday 12th July.
See the website for full details: https://www.chess-fest.com/
Girls like Grace, part of our Lionesses squad, got to play games against top UK Grandmasters. Here, Grace is playing against England's youngest GM, Shreyas Royal, with the beautiful sunny backdrop just behind.
Shreyas was very complimentary about Grace and how tough she played against him. Having attended quite a few of our She Plays To Win Pairs Invitational events, he is well aware of the young female chess potential we have in the UK.
9-year-old Emily attends her school chess club and loves playing chess, particularly on Chesskid. Here she is pictured with SPTW Founder Lorin (left) and Chessfest organiser Malcolm Pein (right) in the Chessfest sponsors' tent.
Chesskid is the official learning partner of She Plays To Win, and Emily says:
"Girls should definitely use it — it's fun, and I love seeing the videos to learn, doing the puzzles, and playing the bots for practice games."
Chesskid
Well done to the following girls for winning 1-1 lessons by coming 1st and 2nd in the Puzzles and Stars leaderboards for May. These girls all win 1-1 lessons with Woman International Master Coach Cami! https://lichess.org/@/Cami3
Puzzles:
NearChattyPeanut
GoldInspiredPhoenix
Stars:
NikkiSuyal
BusyJuniorMovie
Chesskid — Official Learning Partner
Chesskid is the Official Learning Partner of She Plays To Win.
Learn about the Gold Membership and how your daughter can learn from home using their puzzles and videos: https://www.chesskid.com/membership
