Congratulations to Jessica Callender, 21, for winning the 2023 Women’s Chess Championship without losing a game. The Women’s Championship is an essential tournament in the annual calendar of the Guyana Chess Federation, being an inspiration to female newcomers in the ancient game. Winning this championship prepares the player for serious international exposure. Local players are now expecting the National Open Chess Championship in which women are free to compete with their male counterparts.
I examined the game between Callender and Waveney Johnson, with Callender playing the white pieces. White created a dangerous a-pawn that was passed and which began travelling down the chess board aiming to reach the 8th rank and a queen. In order to stop the pawn, Black sacrificed a piece on the 37th move, leaving White with the only Bishop remaining on the board. Black resigned in a hopeless position on the 59th move.
Meanwhile, local women chess players might want to study famous Hungarian grandmaster Judit Polgar, widely regarded as the strongest woman chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgar attained the title of grandmaster at the age of 15 years and four months, the youngest person to do so at the time, breaking the record previously held by American world champion Bobby Fischer.
Her FIDE Elo chess rating, although inactive since 2015, is a sparkling 2675. She was the youngest player ever to break into the FIDE top 100 rating list, ranking Number 55 in the January 1989 list. She was 12 years of age.
Polgar reached Number 8 in the FIDE rating list of 2005 when she achieved her peak rating of 2735. She is the only woman worldwide to have passed the 2700 mark and remains the most powerful woman chess player to date. Polgar has been awarded the Women’s Chess Oscar seven times including the Oscar for woman chess player of the century. She has defeated, at one time or another, Boris Spassky, Garry Kasparov and even Magnus Carlsen, all world champions.
