Femme Batale Raises $3,397 For Fight Against Coronavirus
The second Femme Batale show, a women's continental clash between Europe and North America held last Saturday, raised $3,397 for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The match starred IM Anna Rudolf, WGM Jennifer Shahade, WFM Alexandra Botez, and WFM Anna Cramling and was streamed live on Twitch.
Cramling and Rudolf played for Europe against Botez and Shahade, who represented North America. The prize fund began with $1,000 guaranteed and 40 percent of all in-stream donations were added to the prize fund.
However, the event was first and foremost a fundraiser where donations of any size were welcome. The remaining 60 percent of in-stream donations went to a charity serving those coping with mental health challenges during the prolonged quarantine.
The full show available for replay.
At the start of the show, Rudolf expressed one of the bigger ideas behind the match: "I was just thinking that this whole social distancing term is so scary. We are really social people, all of us human beings, so I thought that social distancing is just physical distancing, and what we can do instead is online bonding."
Social distancing is just physical distancing, and what we can do instead is online bonding.
—Anna Rudolf
The match consisted of one hand and brain game with a time control of 10 minutes with a 10 second increment, followed by some odds games and variants of which two can be seen in the viewer below.
Chess.com teamed up with the World Health Organization (WHO) to allocate the proceeds to their COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund which has a special emphasis on mental health.
The first edition of the Femme Batale—a part of Chess.com's Team Battle Series—was held in November 2019 when proceeds went to two charities: U.S. Chess Women and Chess in Schools & Communities.
A week before Femme Batale 2, on Saturday, March 21, Botez and Shahade hosted the Isolated Queens Swiss, a blitz tournament on Chess.com open to female players of all ages. 85 players participated including over 30 streamers who played while providing commentary on their Twitch channels. Women and girls from six continents played, many practicing social isolation to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
One of them was GM Irina Krush, who actually played while being in quarantine. The day before the match, she revealed on her Facebook page that she had tested positive for the coronavirus and is recovering. She felt somewhat better the next morning and could participate, but the coming days were a bumpy ride for her, as she shared in subsequent posts.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
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