As of 2019, only ten percent of The International Chess Federation (FIDE) players were female, while the US Chess Federation only documented eight percent female chess players.

The current number one female chess player is not even in the top 100 men players. This might come as an ironic fact knowing that the most powerful chess piece is the queen while the objectively least powerful one is the king. Cut back to the heart of the pandemic when everybody was in lockdown, where Netflix produced The Queen’s Gambit. 

“All kids should be taught how to play chess, including girls,” said Molly Nichols, a female chess player. 

She is not the only person who thinks this way. Judit Polgar, arguably the world’s best women chess player, was taught chess by her father from the age six. Her hard work came to show  when she became the youngest Grand-Master of her time at age fifteen while also being rated number eight in the world. Some have taken inspiration from her. 

“It is not necessarily that women do not like chess, it is the environment, but I think that is changing,” said Madison Harte, another female chess player at Woodland. She does not have to wait for this change for long, word has it that there have been attempts to create an end of the year chess tournament here at Woodland.