To commemorate International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8, Chessable would like to honor all the women who make the game of chess great all week from March 6-12.
We will be hosting a tournament featuring all the outstanding female professionals, working, streaming, and playing under the Chess.com umbrella. It’s a team event that will be streamed live on March 15, complete with a special Q&A session with the legendary GM Judit Polgar, the best female player of all time.
Chessable is fortunate to have many great female authors on its platform. Last year, we highlighted all female authors on the platform. As we continue to grow, we’d like to showcase the new female authors producing content on Chessable.
We will also for the week be holding a sale on all courses authored by female authors.
Let’s take a look at the new talented female authors that have helped the world improve its chess game over the last year.
Hanna Iván-Gál
Hungarian Woman FIDE Master Hanna Iván-Gál joined the Chessable ranks this year with her course Beating the Hedgehog System, which she released jointly with IM Lazslo Hazai.
As a child, Iván-Gál was a big fan of solving puzzles, even the most challenging ones. Her parents took note of this and introduced her to chess, which allowed her to exercise this analytical ability to the fullest extent.
Her passion for the game was evident, and results were soon to follow. Her balanced tactical and positional playing style has led her to win the European Rapid Youth Championship on three occasions.
She’s also represented her home country of Hungary, a country known for producing top female chess talent.
As a member of the Hungarian team, she helped her country win fourth place In the U16 Youth Olympiad in 2014, and in 2016, she won the silver medal in the Hungarian Women’s Championship.
Angelika Valkova
In August of last year, Angelika Valkova released her first course for Chessable, 1.d4 for Ambitious Chess Improvers. On top of that, the course was nominated for Best Opening Course for White in the 2022 Chessable Awards.
Valkova is much more than an author and player; the Ukrainian talent is also a chess streamer, commentator, organizer, and coach.
Having begun to play the royal game at a young age, her dedication to chess improvement is second to none. She is on her way to attaining the Woman Grandmaster title and has increased her rating by hundreds of points over the last few years.
Her results have been impressive too. She has won the German Women’s Team Championship back to back (2018-2019), won the bronze medal in two Ukrainian Youth Championships (U12 and U18), and has been selected as a candidate for the Master of Sports title in Ukraine.
Alexandra Samaganova
Alexandra Samagnova is Chessable’s latest female author. In fact, on International Woman’s Day this year (March 8), she will debut her first course for Chessable, Razor-Sharp Tactics: Women’s World Rapid & Blitz 2022, a course highlighting tactics from this prestigious women’s tournament.
The Kyrgyz Woman FIDE Master has been a veteran in the Chess Olympiads, having represented her country on eight different occasions.
The Women’s World Rapid & Blitz Championships was Samagnova’s first time competing in a world championship. The championship took place concurrently with the open section, and her participation in the event inspired her to create her first course showcasing games from the women’s section, which is often not given the attention it deserves in comparison to the open section.
Florencia Fernandez
Part of our effort in making Chessable an all-encompassing and inclusive platform is not only encouraging participation from all genders but making content available in other languages as well.
Just over a year ago, Argentine Woman International Master Florencia Fernandez released her first course “Vence a la Grunfeld“ (Beat the Grunfeld) in Spanish.
Fernandez is another all-around chess talent. She is a popular streamer and a frequent commentator for Chess24 where she commentates on blitz games.
Her trophy case is packed full too, having been a four-time Argentine National Champion and two-time representative of Argentina at the Chess Olympiads.
Luciana Morales
Luciana Morales shares joint privileges with Alexandra Samagnova as Chessable’s newest female author as she will also debut her first course, Queens of the Chessboard on International Women’s Day.
The course, which will also be released in Spanish, is quite fitting for a release on International Women’s Day, as it is examines games from the first 5 female chess champions.
Luciana was not the first female in her family to take up chess; in fact, her mother taught her the game at just six years old. Her mother was crucial to supporting her on her chess journey.
Hailing from Lima, Peru, Morales showed promise from a young age in her home country, winning the Lima Absolute U16 and U18 Championships. She also won Pan-American Youth Championship on three occasions, going on to win the Zonal Tournament 2.4 in São Paulo, which allowed her to qualify for the 2004 Women’s World Chess Championship, being the first Peruvian player to do so.
Luciana studied a master’s degree in public policy and management, which drew her away from the chess board temporarily.
However, she returned to chess in June 2021 as a Chessable employee, where she heads many special projects within the organization, such as the FIDE Chessable Academy, which aims to give kids access to top-tier chess education and talent development.
She also manages the Chessable Classroom, where she gets to interact with leading players and coaches, from Judit Polgar, Ivan Sokolov, to Andras Toth and more
Gaby Vargas
Paraguayan Woman International Master Gabriela Vargas was another addition to our female Spanish-language roster of authors last year, with her debut course “La Lógica de los Finales“ (Endgame Logic).
Vargas is a six-time National Champion of her home country, a member of the Paraguayan Olympic team, and was the first woman in her country to become FIDE ranked, a true pioneer and inspiration for women in chess!
Her first course reflects her strengths over the board as an endgame virtuoso. She is a long admirer of José Raúl Capablanca and directs the Bobby Fischer Chess Academy along with her husband in Asunción.
Elisabeth Pähtz
Spanish isn’t the only language we’ve added to our course offerings. Just last year, we launched in German.
One of the authors debuting for our German launch was Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz, with her course “Elementare Schachstrategie” (Elementary Chess Strategy).
Chess runs in Pähtz’s family, with her father, a Grandmaster himself, having taught her chess at just five years old.
Somewhat of a child prodigy, Pähtz was asked to play for the German national team at just 13 years old. From there she started collecting chess titles, starting with IM, attaining her WGM title, and finally getting the most prestigious title of all, full Grandmaster just last year!
She’s also been crowned champion on numerous occasions, including Junior World Champion (U18 w) as well as German Women’s Champion several times in Blitz, Rapid, and Classical time controls.
Without a doubt, Pähtz is one of the strongest female players in Germany, and when she’s not busy playing for the Chess Women’s Bundesliga or playing individual or team championships, she gives chess lessons and creates video lessons.
Josefine Heinemann
Josefine Heinemann is another German prodigy who recently debuted as an author on Chessable in January with her course “1. e4 e5: Das prinzipielle Schwarz-Repertoire” (1. e4 e5: A Basic Repertoire for Black).
Her love for chess began at the age of seven while playing at school. Shortly thereafter she won the U8 state championship in Saxony-Anhalt.
She has won the German Youth Championship twice and was called up to the women’s national team at the age of 17. Since then, she has represented her country in international competitions such as the Chess Olympiad and the European Team Championships. In 2018, she was finally awarded the WGM title.
For the past seven years, Heinemann has also been sharing her chess knowledge as a coach.
Passion for play and passion for teaching make Heinemann an exemplary chess professional. Not only does she have quite a few championships under her belt, but she is dedicated to communicating chess topics via blogging and streaming.
As Chessable continues to grow, we welcome and celebrate all women who play a part on our platform. We hope the trend of new female authors joining us continues and that these professionals inspire more women to take up the game of chess.
