First female players join Chicago squad
For the first time in the team’s history, a woman will be in the Blaze lineup tonight when the first pawns are pushed in our match against the St. Louis Arch Bishops. In fact, this year’s Blaze roster includes two female players, and we’d like to welcome them now.
WIM Cindy Tsai – Cindy hails from Florida, where she discovered chess at age seven and then grew up traveling the world playing for the U.S., including eight World Youth Chess Championships. She finished 5th in the World Youths a number of times and is a five-time Pan-American Youth Champion. Upon attending Stanford University, she took a bit of a hiatus from chess until returning to it briefly when she moved to New York City for work and played for the U.S. in Beijing in the 2008 World Mind Sports Games. She’s currently pursuing her M.B.A. at the Kellogg School of Management, starting her second and final year this fall. Cindy is looking forward to coming back to chess and excited to play for the Chicago Blaze. Cindy will play Board 4 in tonight's match.
WIM Nalluri Vinuthna – Playing chess since 6, Nalluri has participated in several national and international youth chess championships. Winning medals in most events in which she participated, her real success being in 2002 when she won the gold medal in the National Sub-Junior Girls championship and represented India in the World Youth event. In 2004 she secured the national junior girls title and also won the Asian Youth championship U-18 girls. Nalluri won silver in the National Women’s Championship and finished 6th in the World Junior Girls Championship in the same year. That same year she completed the requirements for her WIM title. She played in a few tournaments in 2005 and was selected for a special award from Government of India for being an international medal winner. Nalluri finished her bachelors of science degree in electronics and communications and is currently pursuing her M.S. in computer science at Northwestern University.
Welcome, Cindy and Nalluri, and best of luck to Cindy tonight!
