Oregon’s first woman grandmaster in chess is 16-year-old Zoey Tang, a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton.
“Woman grandmaster” is the highest chess title restricted to …
Unlock unlimited access for just $1 for your first month
Please log in to continue |
Oregon’s first woman grandmaster in chess is 16-year-old Zoey Tang, a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton.
“Woman grandmaster” is the highest chess title restricted to women that is awarded by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, or FIDE, the international governing body over competitive chess.
To put Tang’s achievement into perspective, there are some 350,000 active FIDE-rated chess players across the globe, according to chess.com. About 11% – or 38,500 – of those players are women, and fewer than 500 players are woman grandmasters.
According to the Portland Chess Club, Tang is the first Oregonian to receive the woman grandmaster title.
Next on Tang’s list: achieve the open grandmaster title.
“If I become grandmaster within the next four years, that would be amazing,” Tang said. “I’m just going to keep playing as much as I can and then hopefully, I’ll get there.”
Among the world’s approximately 2,000 chess grandmasters, only 42 have been women.
Chess players gain ratings by competing in tournaments and beating higher-rated players. To earn a grandmaster title, a player must do well in a certain number of competitive tournaments (called “norms”) and achieve an international rating of at least 2500.
Tang has a current rating of 2306 and is a FIDE Master, which is two ranks below grandmaster.
James Tarjan, Oregon’s only living grandmaster and one of only two in the state’s history, praised Tang’s chess game.
“I think it is important to realize that most of the tournaments she plays in are ‘open’: in other words, all ages and genders compete together,” he wrote in email. “She is the Oregon State Champion, not just of the women and girls but the men as well, and she is routinely competing (successfully) with very strong chessmasters in tournaments around the country.”
Tang started playing competitive chess in a school club at age 7.
“It was fun, and it was also challenging because it’s not like Candyland, where it’s just luck,” she said. “There’s actual strategy, and you can improve by just practicing.”
In 2022, Tang started Puddletown Chess, a nonprofit chess club aimed at reaching student players in elementary and middle schools.
“We want to increase classic scholastic participation in Oregon,” Tang said. “We want to create a more diverse community of young players. At our tournaments, female players, low-income players, rural area players, they all get free entries to encourage more of them to play chess.”
A huge gender gap remains in the game of chess. Only about 11% of FIDE-ranked chess players are women. But at Puddletown tournaments, which typically draw more than 100 players, the gender breakdown is closer to 50-50.
“The tournaments looked a whole lot different when I started out at age 13 or so,” said Tarjan, 72. “Now, there are so many young players that it can be hard to tell the scholastic tournaments from the open tournaments. When I myself play in an occasional tournament (as I do), I have to accept that the ages of my opponents, all together, may not quite add up to mine! And that all the games will be very tough.”
Tang has traveled across the country and internationally to compete in more than 250 tournaments over the course of her chess career. In November, she competed in the Continental Women’s tournament in the Dominican Republic, where she tied for first place and earned her woman grandmaster title.
Tang’s advice for novice players is not to worry about losses and take each game as a learning experience. Chess rewards those with patience and resilience.
“A huge part of chess is just losing a whole bunch,” Tang said. “You have to be able to learn and pick yourself up from that and improve from your losses.”
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.