The ECU Girls and Women’s weekend took place Online, on 14th, 15th and 16th of May.
The event was hosted by the German Chess Youth Association, and it gathered more than 800 participants. The event comprised a wide range of events, such as tournaments, simultaneous exhibitions with live commentaries, workshops and coaching sessions.
The weekend was opened by ECU Vice President Eva Repkova, director of Sports German Chess Youth Association Kristin Wodzinski, former Vice President of German Chess youth Association Lilli Hahn and a special guest was – Tatia Skhirtladze, director of the documentary movie “Glory to the Queen”.
Coaching sessions were open to all interested participants with several themes. A beginners class was given by WIM Andrea Navrotescu and WFM Anna Endress. WGM Petra Papp coached on the theme of “Golden Rules for Improving your game”. WIM Jana Schneider and GM Marie Sebag continued with advanced coaching sessions “The instructive Games of Women World Champions” and “Attacking the king”. Finally, WIM Teja Vidic and WIM Lara Janzelj presented a chess opening lecture “The Queens Gambit” inspired by popular Netflix series.
FM Akshaya Kalaiyalahan, WGM Josefine Heinemann , WGM Ticia Gara, WGM Petra Papp and IM Elisabeth Paehtz took part in the small group coaching classes.
The participants of the event could enjoy simultaneous exhibitions by WGM Laura Unuk, WFM Denise Trippold, WGM Petra Papp and GM Marie Sebag. All the simuls were transmitted live, together with live commentaries by WFM Nikola Mayrhuber, WIM WIM Inna Agrest, WGM Katarzyna Toma, WIM Lara Janzelj, and WIM Teja Vidic.
Tournaments took place through lichess platform, within beginners, U1300, U1800 and Open sections.
The winner of the U1300 event was Regentropfen21 (Germany), silver came to Nette0169 (Norway), and bronze for Greta5724 (England).
U1800 Winner became AnajBeber (Slovenia). Second place went to spongebob4 (Norway) and A-R-Y-A (Turkey) was third.
Leela_NLCS from England won the open Arena tournament ahead of Christhecat (Germany) and KatalinEngel (Slovakia).
Workshops and debates took place with many interesting themes:
- Workshop: Eat and Win – What to eat and when to eat to perform at your best. Miriam Moerwald & IM Harald Schneider-Zinner
- Presentation: Time Management: The endless chess struggle. WGM Regina Theissl-Pokorná
- Workshop: My daughter wants to play chess Aylin Albayrak and her daughter Nese
- Workshop: How to start streaming. WIM Andreea Navrotescu
- Round Table: How to publicly present and report about womens chess. IM Stefan Löffler & Alice O’Gorman
- Round Table: Do we need more female arbiters? Anemone Kulczak, Sandra Schmidt
- Workshop: Working with a Women’s National Team. IM Harald Schneider-Zinner
Thousands of people followed the 1st ECU Girls’ and Women’s Chess Weekend which attracted the attention of many chess and news portals. One of them was chessdom.com which followed the events live throughout both days. All the details about the event and video reports can be found here.