FIDE Chess For Girls Vienna – World Strongest All-Girl’s Invitational

Chess For Girls Vienna 2015 – World’s Strongest All-Girls Invitational
By Paul Truong

The event is sponsored by FIDE (FIDE Women’s Commission), Webster University – SPICE, and the Susan Polgar Foundation, with support from the Austrian Chess Federation, Vienna Chess Federation and hosted by Webster University Vienna.

We invited the top 10 highest rated girls in the world (1 per country limit) to Webster University – Vienna Campus for a 4-day intense training. After the training, they will compete against each other in a round robin tournament for the top prize of 2,000 euros.

We cover all hotel (4-star) expenses and meals + 6,050 euros (2,000-1,250-750-500-400-300-250-200-200-200) total cash prizes for the 10 participants.

We also invited the top 2 players from Austria (as the host nation) for training. They will go through the full training sessions but will not participate in the tournament.

The first edition of FIDE Chess For Girls was held at Webster University – Geneva Campus, and the second one was held in Saigon, Vietnam. This is the 3rd one.

Here is the field:

IM Ziaziulkina, N (Belarus) 2431
WFM Osmak, I (Ukraine) 2426
IM Khademalsharieh, S (Iran) 2412
IM-elect Aulia, Medina W (Indonesia) 2412
WGM Abdumalik , Z (Kazakhstan) 2411
WGM Davaademberel, N (Mongolia) 2371
WIM Blagojevic, T (Montenegro) 2338
WGM Mammadzada, G (Azerbaijan) 2336
WFM Bykova A (Russia) 2337
WFM Gazikova, V (Slovakia) 2314

* IM Rodriguez, P (Colombia) 2371 – Could not obtain visa timely. She was replaced by another participant.

The original idea is to host this event for the top 10 girls in the US. Unfortunately, the USCF had no interest, and many parents do not want to “waste” time unless it is a USCF sponsored event. It is more important for a number of parents to have their daughters win trophies from the USCF events than to help their daughters improve a few hundred rating points through this valuable training and competition. Because of this, we gave up on the USCF and brought the idea to FIDE and various national federations. Everyone jumped on this opportunity.

The national chess federations of Switzerland, Vietnam, and now Austria, have gone out of their ways to support the opportunity for their top young female players. I am absolutely sure this program will produce many IMs (4 so far in just 1 year) and GMs in the future.