Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Ontario Girls’ Chess Championship/Chess Photo-shoot

May 18, 2013 lorlova Leave a comment

Hi Everyone,

May 12, 2013 – not only was Mother’s Day in Canada but one of our important girls’ championship!

I was really glad to see so many girls playing in this tournament (and even though it was less than last year, it still was a hit!)

I’d like to thank my close friend Monica Chung for these lovely pictures!

Here are some pictures of the girls and the tournament:

The same day, I decided to do another photo-shoot with my friend. We had this day planned for a long time, so the weather did not stop us from doing it (rain/snow/hail)! Here are some pictures:

Miscellaneous

50,000 Views! / Toronto Standard Article

April 27, 2013 lorlova 1 Comment

I am astonished to say that I have reached 50,000 views on my website!

I’d like to say thank you to all my fans! If it weren’t for you, I’d be nothing 🙂

& to those of you who did not see the article of myself in Toronto Standard, read below:

Meet Yelizaveta Orlova, Canada’s Teenage Chess Ambassador

“The more girls that play chess, the better the tournaments are going to be.”

Yelizaveta Orlova‘s new endgame is to raise the profile of chess for women in Canada. The 18-year old has has been declared a Woman National Master in Canada. She has represented Canada twice at the World Chess Olympiad.

The number of women playing competitive chess in Canada is dismally low – only 60 active players. The Canadian Federation of Chess (CFC) recently introduced the new titles of Women’s National Master (2100) and Women’s National Candidate Master (1900) as an incentive for women to play and stay involved with the game. Chess is typically the domain of males, conjuring images of child prodigies and socially-inept eccentrics.

“There’s a stereotype in North America about people who play chess,” says Orlova. “It’s assumed that if you play chess that you’re not popular, it’s not cool. People join the chess club that can’t fit in anywhere else.”

Orlova was taught how to play chess when she was four years old. Both her father and grandfather were accomplished players – her grandfather was an American Master. When she was nine, her father brought her to a simultaneous exhibition where she played an International Master, and it ended up in a draw. She decided to start playing seriously. She grew to become the fourth highest rated female chess player in Canada. In her native Ukraine, chess was taught in the school system. Here, it’s an anomaly to see a female chess player. “Here, if a girl plays chess, people are very interested because they don’t see a lot of girls play.”

Her longest game took six hours, but that is atypical. Orlova says that the game puts her into a focused, meditative state where time goes by unnoticed. She enjoys the calm, logical march of chess, and the mannered culture of studiousness and respect that it encourages. Her forte is the middle game: the positional portion where there are lots of pieces on the board. “You’re persuading your opponent to make bad moves. Setting them up in a trap,” grins Orlova. This is in contrast to many who prefer the finishing moves of the end game.

Her idol is Bobby Fischer, one of the most prolific chess players of all time. She admires his ambition. She visited Fischer’s grave in Iceland at a recent tournament. “He ended up dying at age 64,” she says. “There are 64 squares on a chess board. He was born to be a real, true chess player. I find him very interesting.”

Orlova wants to get more women playing chess to raise the bar competitively. “Men – they’re supposedly technically better at chess. Nowadays, the highest rated female is really close to 2700. The highest male is close to 2900. That’s a 200 point gap. Judit Polgár – she was always highest rated. She was the only woman to prove to men that women have the ability to play good chess.”

Although women can technically compete against men in open tournaments, females have their own set of ratings. Many players take offense to the fact that chess, despite being a non-physical game, still separates females into their own category. Orlova supports this division, telling me that most women she has competed against play a more emotional game. “People say that everything is much more interesting when you watch the females play than the males. The males tend go with the positional element, whereas the females try to attack. Males are less aggressive while women want to give it all they got.”

In open tournaments, particularly in Canada, Orlova thinks that girls may occasionally have a small advantage in competing against guys. “If a woman plays against a guy, it’s usual. I play against guys all the time. But if a guy plays against a girl, its very unusual. I feel like a lot of guys start worrying, ‘Well, she’s a woman so I need to win.’ They have that mentality. I feel like they’re more worried to lose.”

Orlova claims there is a significant drop in girls playing chess when they reach high school. At 14, she quit playing chess for a year and a half, a decision she deeply regrets now.

“I finally smartened up. High school is only four years of your life. So I don’t understand why I have to be so self-conscious about playing chess. Chess is a smart, logical game. It makes me laugh that they think it’s not cool. In high school, all the conversations are all ‘Oh do you know? He’s dating that girl?’ In chess, they wouldn’t talk about that kind of stuff. That would be absurd. I am very happy that I didn’t give up chess. I realized I shouldn’t be degrading myself to them. In grade nine, everybody’s worried about what people think. So I think people kind of forgave me, for dropping out for that year and a half,” she jokes.

What the game needs is a strong female ambassador, a role that Orlova is happy to assume. She started her own YouTube channel, Beauty & the Chess Geek, where she scrutinizes games, discusses strategy and interviews notable chess players she meets on her travels (she has been to 21 countries all over the world, largely due to chess). Orlova’s dream is to open her own chess school in Toronto. “I love teaching kids. I have many private students, I teach groups of kids as well. Not a lot of people have the patience to teach chess to kids. My youngest student is five years old.”

“I’m not trying to just advertise myself but chess in general,” she states. “It would be really nice if I could get more girls playing chess. The more girls that play chess, the better the tournaments are going to be. And the male players won’t look at it as inferior.”

For more information or to contact Orlova for chess lessons, visit here. Follow her on Twitter: @OrlovaChess or Her Facebook page

You can see the article on this website too: http://www.torontostandard.com/the-sprawl/yelizaveta-orlova-chess

Miscellaneous

Woman National Master

April 9, 2013 lorlova 2 Comments

Yelizaveta Orlova – © Monica Chung

Canada being the 2nd largest country in the world, surprisingly only has 60 active female players. The Canadian Chess Federation has decided to add two new titles hoping to raise more interest in women chess. The titles are WNCM (Woman National Candidate Master) and WNM (Woman National Master).

Currently as of today (April 8, 2013), I am a Woman National Master!

Here is a post made by Bob Armstrong, one of the players in Canada. He also includes a statement made by one of my close and great friend, Iulia Lacau-Rodean.

“National Women’s Master/National Women’s Candidate Master

At the recently concluded CFC Spring Governors’ On-line Meeting, a passed motion created the new CFC titles: Women’s National Master (2100); Women’s National Candidate Master (1900). There was some debate about the helpfulness of these titles to the progress of women’s chess in Canada. The mover of the motion, CFC Governor from Windsor, Vlad Drkulec, Masters’ Representative, posted in favour of this motion, seconded by the CFC Women’s Coordinator, Iulia Lacau-Rodean:

Iulia Lacau-Rodean – © Egidijus Zeromskis

“This is the current usual cutoff range for qualification for the Canadian woman’s Olympiad team. The hope is that this would encourage more women and girls to continue to participate in chess for a longer period of time and also to give recognition to the women and girls who have attained this level of performance in Canadian chess.

Currently in Canada we do not have the level of female representation in chess tournaments and CFC membership that are seen in the United States. My observations in Windsor are that the level of chess interest in girls is about the same as that of boys but over time they become discouraged from playing by the observation that there are few other girls playing. It is hoped by making the top Canadian women more visible by offering this recognition that girls will continue playing chess in an effort to attain the additional titles and achieve similar recognition as the top titles.

Initially I thought to offer intermediate titles which would require norms in the 2200 level range for the WNM title and 2000 range for the WNCM title but after consultations with my co-sponsor and with governors have amended the levels to where they are attainable by Canada’s top women and girls (Ed.: 2100 & 1900). Once the WNM title was set it made sense to make the WNCM title levels two hundred points below the higher title to be consistent with all of our other titles. For the most part implementation of this would merely require editing the web page that currently lists the NCM title holders to include the title Woman National Master and the web page that currently lists the class A titled players to include the Woman National Candidate Master title. Women that wish a printed certificate could ask for one for the usual charge with the Women’s National Master title certificate being offered for free as is the usual practice for the National Master title.”

Scarborough CC Treasurer, Ken Kurkowski, on CMA Chesstalk, nicely analyzed the two sides of the debate on this motion:

“With this issue there are two approaches, the Principled and the Pragmatic.

The Principled argument accepts that women cannot compete with men on equal terms in physical sports, but finds the idea that women are ‘inferior’ in mainly intellectual pursuits to be offensive. Hence the view that women’s titles and separate competitions in chess are inappropriate.

The Pragmatic view (mine) is that, for whatever reason (and this is an entirely separate debate!) there are far fewer strong female chessplayers than male. If we eliminate separate treatment, high level chess would become like motor sports, with a handful of women (e.g. Danica Patrick in NASCAR) competing against a large majority of men. Is that what we want? Why not do something to encourage more women to compete (and CONTINUE competing), while still allowing (and encouraging!) the most ambitious and talented ones to compete alongside the men?”

The motion passed: Yes – 21; No – 5; Abstain – 5.

The National Master Title is 2200. The new Women’s National Master Title is only 2100. Similarly, the National Candidate Master Title is 2000. The new Women’s National Candidate Master Title is only 1900.”

I’d like to inform everyone that I think the new titles is a great idea to raise interest in women chess, specifically in Canada!

Many young girls stop playing chess at the age of puberty–I am sure that Canada is not the only country witnessing this. Having these new woman titles, might influence the decision of these girls to keep going in their chess career. In Canada we have many girls who are lower than 1900. Why not strive for the WNCM title? Or if you are just below 2100, keep playing so that you can get your WNM title and keep going towards the top! If Females get more ambition they will start fighting for the normal titles (Male titles).

Here is my opinion towards the people who were really against having such titles in Canada and around the World.

1) Competitions have ALWAYS been separate between Males and Females. Since chess is in the ‘Olympics’, it is known as a sport. If the competitions are merged, they are called Co-op competitions.

2) In the world, and especially in Canada. There is much less women playing chess than men. It is quite sad, but this is the truth. The separate titles in Canadian chess and International chess has been a great way to advertise more females to play. The Female chess population has been growing dramatically but not to the extent of Males yet.

3) People sometimes wonder why the titles for women are much easier to get than male. Well, here is one example–Currently, the highest Woman chess player is rated 2696 (Judit Polgar) and the highest Male chess player is rated 2872 (Magnus Carlsen). That’s almost 200 rating points difference right there, which happens to be the rating between the Female titles and Male titles.

Thank you for reading this post!

Once again, I am really happy to have gotten the opportunity to be one of the first females in Canada to get the Woman National Master Title.

I really wish this will be a new start to Women Chess in Canada, and I will be trying my best to help in any way to accomplish this goal!

Miscellaneous

Thank you Chess Rex!

January 31, 2013 lorlova 2 Comments

Here are some really cool logos/images of my name and a chess knight! 😉

For those of you who didn’t see earlier,
Check out this interview of me by Chess Rex!

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Miscellaneous

4th Top Rated Woman in Canada!

January 28, 2013 lorlova Leave a comment

I am proud to say that I am currently 4th highest rated in Canada for Women!

Here is the top ten women in Canada 🙂

#	Player	Region	Regular Rating	Last Tournament Date
1	Yuan, Yuanling	Toronto, ON	2336	2012-06-23
2	Khoudgarian, Natalia	Toronto, ON	2284	2012-08-11
3	Peng, Jackie	Richmond Hill, ON	2205	2013-01-06
4	Orlova, Yelizaveta	Toronto, ON	2119	2013-01-06
5	Agbabishvili, Lali	York, ON	2111	2013-01-06
6	Zhou, Qiyu	Ottawa, ON	2088	2012-12-27
7	Du, Jasmine	Halifax, NS	2084	2012-09-03
8	Botez, Alexandra	Burnaby, BC	2038	2012-08-12
9	Yun, Chang	Brossard, QC	2004	2012-09-09
10	Roy, Myriam	Varennes, QC	1971	2012-11-18

Miscellaneous

10,000 Views!

January 27, 2013 lorlova Leave a comment

I opened this website at the end November/start of December and I amazed at how popular it became in the past two months!

Thank you everyone who has been following my website! If it weren’t for all of my fans, I wouldn’t have got this far! Thank you & Keep following for more chess news in the future!

PS. I just started a twitter account : https://twitter.com/OrlovaChess