During the Cairns Cup, Saint Louis Chess Club co-founder Dr. Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield announced a new women’s chess initiative, the Cairns Chess Queens Award, a new initiative created to encourage more U.S. female chess players to become Grandmasters.
Beginning July 4, 2024, the Saint Louis Chess Club will award $100,000 for up to five players over the next five years who earn the title of GM.
Approximately only two percent of the more than 2,000 chess GMs globally are female and there is only one American female chess player to ever earn the title of GM.
“Worldwide there are only 42 female GMs, while there are currently more than 2,000 male GMs. Only 16 counties have developed a female GM and the United States only has one active female GM,” said Dr. Cairns. “We can do better! We challenge the rest of the world to consider creating similar programs to develop their players so we can create the next generation of competitive female players and leaders in chess.”
Retroactively, the Saint Louis Chess Club awarded the first Cairns Chess Queens Award for exceptional achievement to GM Irina Krush from Brooklyn, who became the first and only female player to earn the rank of GM while playing for the U.S. Krush is an eight-time U.S. Women’s Champion.
“I am happy to see the creation of the Cairns Chess Queens Award”, said GM Maurice Ashley, who first proposed the idea for the initiative. “The award will serve as an important tool to continue developing and incentivizing America’s most talented female chess players to be steadfast in the pursuit of reaching the GM title.”
For more information, visit saintlouischessclub.org.
