Jennifer Shahade

Jennifer Shahade (born December 31 1980 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American chess player and writer. She is a two-time American women's chess champion and, as of October 2007, has a FIDE rating of 2322. Jennifer is the author of the controversial book "Chess Bitch". She also writes for the magazine Chess Life and is the daughter of FM Mike Shahade, Drexel University Chemistry Professor and author Sally Solomon and the sister of IM Greg Shahade.

In 1998, she became the first (and so far only) female to win the U.S. Junior Open. In 2002, she won the U.S. Women's Chess Championship in Seattle, Washington. The following year, although she did not repeat as U.S. Women's Champion, she did well enough to earn her second of three required International Master norms. In 2004, she returned to the top spot among U.S. women chess players by winning the U.S. Women's Championship that year in a 7-player invitational round robin.

Shahade lives in Philadelphia and has earned a degree in Comparative Literature at New York University. Her writing has appeared in the LA Times, The New York Times, Chess Life, New In Chess, and chessninja.com. Her first book, "Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport" (Siles Press, ISBN 1-890085-09-X) was published in October, 2005.

In 2006 Shahade was hired by the United States Chess Federation to be the web editor in chief of their site [http://www.uschess.org www.uschess.org] . In 2007 Shahade co-founded a Chess non-profit called 9 Queens.

Shahade has also displayed her poker prowess by finishing 17th out of 1286 in the 2007 Ladies World Series of Poker and following it up with 33rd out of 1190 in the same event in 2008. [http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/players/playerprofile.asp?playerID=32518]

External links

* [http://www.jennifershahade.com Jen Shahade's official web site]
*fide|id=2011905|name=Jennifer Shahade
* [http://9queens.org 9 Queens Jen Shahade's non-profit organization web site]
* [http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=10788 A Philadelphia Weekly article about Jen]
* [http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2706 A Chessbase article about Jen]
* [http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues03/aug03/chess_queen.html Chess Queen, Smithsonian Magazine August 2003 article]
* [http://www.chessmaniac.com/2006/09/online-chess-interview-with-grand.php ChessManiac.com Interview]
*cite web
last=Kramer Bussel | first=Rachel | authorlink=Rachel Kramer Bussel
url=http://gothamist.com/2006/12/28/jennifer_shahad.php
title=Jennifer Shahade, Author, Chess Bitch, U.S. Women's Chess Champion 2002, 2004
publisher=Gothamist
date=December 28, 2006