Ladies Knight

Jennifer speaks on Ladies Knight to Nadya Ortiz, a chess champion who now works as a senior software engineer at Apple. Born in Ibrague, Colombia, Nadya talks about growing up in a lower-income family that supported her chess career, which led her career and life to flourish. She speaks about classism, and the power of...

My guest today on Ladies Knight is NM Sarah Chiang, a graduate of Washington University in Saint Louis, a med student and an advocate for girls and women in chess. She is one of a handful of female players who have played in both the US Women’s Championship as well as the US Junior Championship....

Ladies Knight welcomes Holocaust Survivor, author and 1956 French Women’s Chess champion, Isabelle Choko. Born on September 18, 1928 in Lodz, Poland, Isabelle Choko was two weeks away from her 11th birthday when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Isabelle and her loving parents were among 160,000 sent to the Lodz ghetto. Her father...

Jennifer brings National Master and chess coach and streamer Laura Smith to Ladies Knight. Laura talks about her very early beginnings in the game and her current passion for chess in education and streaming. A mom of three, Laura gave birth to twins at the start of the pandemic and talks about the joys and struggles of...

In a special double-header, Jennifer interviews entrepreneur and organizer Judith Kiragu and chess patron Dr. Philip Mwashe on the origin story of the Lighthouse Chess Club in Mombasa, Kenya. Kiragu and Mwashe speak about changing the landscape of chess in Kenya by founding the club in May 2017. Throughout its four year history, they advance education through...

Jennifer Shahade welcomes theoretical physicist, author and chess enthusiast Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein to Ladies Knight. Prescod-Weinstein’s new book, The Disordered Comsos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime & Dreams Deferred is our current Madwoman book club selection. The book is both an ode to her love for physics and astronomy, a tour of some high and lowlights...

This month’s Ladies Knight features IM Irene Kharisma Sukandar, the first WGM from Indonesia, a five-time Olympian and the fifth ranked player in her country of any gender. Irene was recently featured in the most viewed chess match of all time, with 1.3 million peak viewers, shattering previous records many times over. The...

Jennifer welcomes Courtney Lauren Penn to Ladies Knight, a friend she has known since childhood. Courtney is now a producer and the founder of Renegade Entertainment. In addition to being a player in Hollywood, Courtney is also a chessplayer: she was ranked in the top fifty female players in the country for six years, and played in the...

Women International Master, author and entrepreneur Sabrina Chevannes is our February guest on Ladies Knight. Sabrina talks about how she transitioned from chess to her current career leading a full service creative agency. She also gives Jen some advice on her own brand and the US Chess Women brand. They move on to discussing Sabrina’s books, “Chess for...

Jennifer Shahade invites a longtime friend on a very special episode of Ladies Knight: US Chess Creative Director Frankie Butler. The talented designer and art director talks to Jennifer about her expanding role at US Chess and her passion for design and graphics. Jennifer and Frankie even reveal how their own friendship predates their work...

In a bonus episode of Ladies Knight, William Horberg, the Executive Producer of The Queen’s Gambit, talks to Jennifer Shahade about the long road to creating the hit Netflix series. He also talks about his first chess project, “Searching for Bobby Fischer” which got great reviews, but did not succeed commercially. Bill moves on to discussing some...

Award-winning author, New Yorker writer and psychology PHD Maria Konnikova enters the GRID to talk about her first book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. Maria is also the author of the recent bestseller, “The Biggest Bluff“, a chronicle of her poker journey, when she went from newbie to champion in a year. Jen and...

In a special edition of Ladies Knight, Jennifer Shahade talks about the Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis. She starts by summarizing her thoughts on the series, and the experience of seeing chess all over the media, including a number of interviews Jen did on the show for Vanity Fair, the New York Times, PocketFives, Salon and the Mic. She then...

Jennifer interviews Robin and Sarah Ramson for the October edition of Ladies Knight podcast. Robin Ramson is the founder of Chess Girls DC and the organizer of the upcoming Chess Empowerment Weekend (Nov 6-8), which will feature a series of chess tournaments and a star-studded line-up of guest speakers. Sarah Ramson is Robin’s daughter, and a chess player, golfer,...

The September edition of Ladies Knight features legendary Grandmaster and seven-time US Women’s Champion Irina Krush. Irina and Jennifer talk about Irina’s coaching philosophy and her recent learning experiences at camps with Kramnik and Polgar. They also touch on Irina’s battle with COVID-19, which was featured this Spring in the New York Times. Despite her struggles with...

On the August episode of Ladies Knight, Jennifer interviews author, chess teacher and speaker Lauren Goodkind. Goodkind is a popular Bay Area teacher and the author of “Poison Pieces” and “Queen for a Day: The Girl’s Guide to Chess Mastery.” In her latest book, Queen for a Day, readers work through an entire game with...

Our July Ladies Knight features 18-year-old IM Annie Wang, who captivated the chess world in 2018, when she nearly won the US Women’s Championship at just 15. Since that feat, Annie has continued to raise her playing level. In 2019, Annie won the Pan-American World Junior to earn her IM title and her first GM norm. A recent...

Jennifer Shahade welcomes singer, songwriter and former scholastic chess champion, Linda Diaz on Ladies Knight. We play a clip from “Magic” in the middle of the episode, a song you may have heard on twitch.tv/botezlive, where Linda’s music videos have played on breaks during our Saturday US Chess Women fundraisers. https://youtu.be/Vbqj4ouV8us Like twitch, Linda has been blowing up...

Jennifer Shahade talks to 16-year-old International Master Carissa Yip on the newest episode of Ladies Knight. The popular two-time US Junior Girls Champ is a serial record breaker- the youngest female to defeat a GM at the age of ten, and the youngest American female in history to become an International Master. Jennifer and Carissa talk...

Our April edition of Ladies Knight features Grandmaster Humpy Koneru, the 2020 Cairns Cup Champion and our May 2020 Chess Life Magazine cover star. She is the reigning World Women’s Rapid Champion, and the second woman in history to break the 2600 barrier. She also defeated Judit Polgar’s record as the youngest woman to achieve...