Young girl making a name

Meet the chess prodigy
KIM BRISCOE
20 November 2006 09:41
Norwich Evening News

It may be a game traditionally dominated by men, but one eight-year-old chess champ has proved that girls can be queen of the check-mate by trouncing her male opposition.

Anouska Nichols is making a name for herself in Norfolk's junior chess circles and her latest triumph is taking the Norfolk under-9 chess champion title.

The Norwich youngster won her age-group outright with six wins out of six at the Norfolk Junior Chess Championship.

Anouska, a Year 4 pupil at Norwich High School for Girls, is the first girl in recent years to win a Norfolk championship which is open to boys

......By the mid-1980s a number of women were competing regularly in events with men. In 1991, Susan Polgar became the first woman to earn the Grandmaster title on the same basis as the men.

But as of 2005, no woman has ever been the world champion and only a handful made it in to the top 500.

In September 2005, Susan Polgar's younger sister GM Judit Polgar of Hungary, then rated 8 in the world by the international chess organization FIDE, became the first woman to play for the World Championship title.

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