Sisters – Staunton I

The new year started, the chess season continues.

The way you present information is as important, if not more, as the information itself.

For instance, I could say that with close to 15% of members being women, SISSA is the chess club with the most women within the NOSBO*, and probably top 3 or 5 within the entire country (average in the Netherlands: 8%). 

Or, I could say that with not even 15% of women within its members, SISSA is barely beating the FIDE average (11%), and is very far off actual gender parity. 

Both statements are true, but maybe for once, rather than putting the emphasis on how awesome SISSA is, I want to remind my reader how much of a minority in the chessworld we, women, remain.
Must be nice to not quasi-constantly be aware of it when enjoying your hobby. 

And enjoying the chess hobby as women, is the core and the cœur of the sisters team. 

Monday, January 20th, 2026, the team is full of enthusiasm for the game against Staunton (6% women among members*).

For an efficient report, see Staunton’s.

We start with a dinner at my place with an almost-full team, and Nouschka shows us her prep (Olaf seems to be a decent second). 

After a short bike ride (with maybe some non-dutch sisters struggling with a borrowed bike or a soon-to-have-flat-tires one, but let’s not name names), we arrive at the playing hall of Staunton (for a non-change, a chess venue only filled with men), where Anne joins us. 

We get a warm welcome from the Stauntonians, who offer us a first drink (maybe the next sisters borrel should be a high tea), and we finally get a team picture for this season.

A pink « sisters » has been printed on the line-up sheet by Jaap, who’s very happy to see us set our 6 pink queens (thank you Justin for getting us #6!) next to the sisters boards.
It’s funny , how the NOSBO has been refusing for a few years to name our team «SISSA sisters » on netstand, despite us asking, despite it being the name by which even our opponents call us, and despite our team being the main reason NOSBO gets even a shot* at reaching the (low) national average of women players.
Afterall, what good could it do to give (even little) visibility to women in chess. Hahaha. 

The clocks start. 

I’m playing with the black pieces, and after like 10 minutes and 13 moves, I get quite the wait while my opponent tries to come up with a plan. 30 minutes is not a short time to wait. Especially when you don’t know how long it will be. In fact, it feels like forever. Or maybe longer, if, like me, you possess a very low patience reservoir. 

Around me, everyone is still playing in their opening. That seems normal.
I check a bit more carefully, and the relief becomes real: there is no crazy stuff on any board yet.
Let’s be clear here, it’s not that I can’t handle chaos (despite what Freerk says) I can handle a tiny little bit of chaos maybe sometimes, but I just spent an entire weekend watching Sven play and I’m not sure my heart can take more of …that.

Anyway, I had to wait before starting to see some chess to happen, so I’ll make you wait before reading about some chess that happened. 

Let’s talk about tonight’s teams instead.

Our opponents: let’s just say that they had a bigger age range (77) than rating range (62).

The sisters: as I already mentioned, full of enthusiasm.

Spearheading the team once again, Femke. She repeatedly proved that she could take out much stronger opponents, and my one regret is to not see her chess games more often!

I personally sit behind the second board. I am not confident on high boards, but I volunteered the white pieces to Anne, and I would have ended playing someone who’s stronger than me regardless. Well. Time to show-off some of the same skills I displayed during the chess festival!

On the third board, I feel like Anne is ready to crush anyone who looks at her king the wrong way. Not only did she volunteer to play last minute when it was not needed yet, but she came extremely prepared. What I mean is, she brought a consequent amount of food to last until the end of the night. And with the game she played, I get why extra brain power fuel was welcome. But no spoilers.

Mafalda gets to play her first rated game with the black pieces, on board 4. It is crazy how much she improved since she joined the first damesschaak, a year ago. I heard that Dylan still has nightmares of Mafalda trapping his queen. Apparently, Maarten helped her preparing for today’s game, and warned us to « [not] be surprised if she plays romantic chess ». Not being familiar with the saying, I got a bit disappointed when she didn’t show up to her game lighting up candles and carrying a red rose.

On board 5, Ilse is also playing her second rated game, this time with the white pieces. She looked up her potential opponent this afternoon, and she took the win from Klaas-Jan during the SISSA-off-the-record last week. I’m excited to see how she’ll perform today.

Board 6 features Nouschka, also playing what I believe is her first official game with black pieces. Up until now, she was always worried to not know what to play, but today is the Day. And with the 2000moves-deep prep that Olaf concocted with her, against the exact opponent that she’s facing, what could go wrong.

Most times, I don’t prepare for my games, as I am quite lazy in that aspect. However, I do know some of the basic principles behind prepping, such as, « get a feeling for what kind of player your opponent is ». For instance, is he an agressive e4 player, or a positional d4 player? Anyway.

The prep assumed e4.

Gert-jan started with d4.

Maybe Olaf is not such a great second after all. 

It’s interesting to see both Nouschka and Mafalda figuring out how to play against a London. Where Mafalda keeps a very safe position, Nouschka enters agressive mode right away, which includes a pawn sacrifice, which we will call « a long-term strategical gambit maybe ».

I get a bit confused when I see that according to Mafalda’s notation sheet, the first move of her opponent (white) was e5, to which she (black) replied with one of her pawn on the 4th row. It all starts to make sense when I realize that all her notations have been reversed. When discussed later in the group chat, turns out that even our most experienced players still mess up their notations from time to time.

My opponent is still thinking, so I spend a bit of time watching Anne’s game. A lot of activity for both players, but I like Anne’s pieces more. I’m waiting for her to play Ne4 for a while, getting two beautiful knights in the center, but she keeps making other moves. She grabs more space though, throwing all her pieces into the game. But with only one pawn being traded since the start, it could still go either way.

Checking out the rest of the playing room, I can’t help but notice the very full vitrine displaying all of Staunton’s chess achievements. The oldest club cup that they have is engraved from 1933 onwards, which is 3 years before SISSA even got founded. I actually never looked into how old the (surprisingly many) clubs of Groningen were, but further investigation revealed that in 2021 Staunton actually celebrated their 150th anniversary already!

The chess scene of Groningen keeps impressing me. Can’t wait to see whether after so many years of stability, it’ll be evolving and improving. Something something inclusivity*.

(:

Back to my team, looking more closely at Ilse’s game.
Last time against Bedum (0 women among members*), she ended up with her king slightly awkwardly placed in the middle of the board, so today she promised us she would castle. And OMG, castle she did.
And then on top of the castle, she built a fortress.
With reinforced concrete.
Now that king’s safety is insured for several generations, she starts pushing her pawn army on the queen side. I’m not sure where black had his pieces, considering how little space she gave him.
I’m a big fan. 

While my opponent is still looking for a plan, I attend Femke’s board. Less chaotic than Anne’s, but scarier than Mafalda’s or Ilse’s. Material is equal, but Jaap is claiming the open c file, and building pressure with his bishops. Femke is stuck defending her position, and even though the game has a long way to go, I’m not very confident in the outcome there. 

Going back and forth and forth and back, what else can I do while I wait? I am now ready for the one thing that is gonna take up most of my remaining waiting time: ordering a second tea. A task that should be very mundane, if not for getting the person behind the counter to understand and write down my name correctly. I stopped counting how many times I had this conversation before. At least for once, I did not need to also clarify my family name.

Finally, it’s my turn to play. c3. I waited for 35 minutes, for him to play c3? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad move, and I guess now I don’t threaten to take c2 with my bishop. But like… 35 minutes in NOSBO tempo??
Anyway.
We barely reached the middle game, he has no potential breakthrough, and I have a very comfortable time advantage.
« Just. Don’t. Blunder. », as the old sage would say.
We both start putting some pressure on the king side, we trade some pieces. In the end, I am forced to give back the bishop pair, letting us both with our queen, our rooks, and only one bishop – opposite color. He forces a queen trade, which I evaluate as favorable for me: it might take a while, but with my slightly better bishop and good rooks coordination, I am gonna win at least a pawn, if not two, on the queen side.    

In the meantime, all the games next to me are finally unfolding. 

Mafalda’s pieces lack coordination, and she starts being in a serious material disadvantage. Is it the infamous romantic chess? Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much options for counterplay. She tries to hold on for a bit, but the several-pieces-advantage for her opponent is too strong, and Staunton scores their first point. Maybe next time the red rose next to the board is a better way to do the romance.

0-1

On Anne’s board, the little pieces dance that she was having with her opponent transforms into a redoutable maneuver, that wins her a quality. They then both try to improve the place of their remaining pieces. If her opponent manages to open the position, his bishop pair might start causing real problems. However, when Anne casually forces the knight back to d5 with her g pawn, she successfully traps the rook that was sitting on d4, and thus wins the game.

1-1

For Femke, all the pieces but the queens have been traded. It is a relief, the pressure that he kept on putting is now gone. Not only that, but her queen starts on a better square than his. This could be a long endgame that would probably end in a draw, if not for the intitiative that Femke is getting with her queen. 5 more moves, and he resigns. Second point for us.

2-1

With our current score, and being hopeful for my game, I start being hopeful for the team. 

Unfortunately, Ilse missed a pin, and lost a jellyfish (yes, I’m still saying this in 2026) in the process. Her pieces are still quite active, but not enough to maintain any pressure or keep a draw. Nonetheless, considering how her game went, against an experienced 1800+ player, I am not worried for the future of the sister.

2-2

On board 6, Nouschka also loses a jellyfish, and has a severely weakened king. The long-term-strategical-gambit-maybe might have backfired. Until the end, she tries to set traps for her opponent, but he doesn’t fall for it, forcing our captain to resign.

2-3

I don’t enjoy this: it’s late, I’m the last one playing, and the final score depends on me. 

I enjoy my position though. I won a pawn, and so long as I keep my rook on the board I have hopes (analysis revealed that these hopes might have been too high) to save a match point for us. It would be particularly nice, considering that for now we only have one, from our last game against Roden (2% women among members*).

Anyway, I mess up a bit, get forced into trading my rook, and my opponent places all his pawns on dark squares, defended by his bishop and king, very successfully preventing me from any further progress. Remise.

2.5-3.5

We still have to play Middelstum (0 women among members*), GC (6% women among members*) and Van der Linde (0 women among members*), all of which currently have performed much better than us (the few 1900+ players in some of these teams might help, if you ask me), which promises for exciting but very challenging games.

People sometimes ask me why not making balanced teams. Why not having a sisters team in the viertallen, where our less experienced sisters would have a much easier time, and have the more experienced ones with higher teams, to increase SISSA’s chances at winning? They often don’t understand why we keep saying that the sisters team is not about winning. Who doesn’t like winning? I am a competitive person myself, does it frustrate me? Yes.

But it is not about winning. I still much prefer having SISSA3 and the SISSA sisters struggling a bit in the zestallen. Because whenever the sisters play as a team, I’m not wondering if once again, I’ll be the only woman surrounded by 15 men, to enjoy my hobby. Because whenever the sisters play, I feel like there is more to the team than just chess. Because whenever the sisters play, the chess match reaches gender parity. And why would I ever prefer doing that in smaller teams if we don’t have to?

The way you present information is as important, if not more, as the information itself.

So, I could say that once again the sisters did not win. 

Or, I could say that we currently have more board points than all the teams of the bottom half of our division. That despite 100+ rating points difference, today we scored 2.5-3.5. That our lower 3 boards, way less experienced than their opponents, made it complicated until the end. That our first 3 boards really performed. That Staunton had plenty of little gestures showing appreciation for our sisters team. That by the end of this season, we might have even more sisters, and that we hopefully won’t stop there. (@Carolina, we kept your seat warm. @Elise, we will make you forget all about Shanghai). 

In case this report did not make it clear, I’ve been thinking about gender equality in chess a lot lately (understatement). 

And yes, it is nice to see that many of the (men and women) chess players around me are also great supporters.

Yet, there’s still a very long way to go in the chess world. 

In the KNSB. 

In the NOSBO. 

And, in SISSA. 

I’ll try to keep doing my part.

And you*?

(;

By Aurore 🌺 

*Women among members of the NOSBO clubs

% based on all the registered members of each club in January 2026, born strictly before 2011.

Number between () corresponds to all the registered members of the club in January 2026, born strictly before 2011.

Data issued from ratingviewer.nl.

The names in bold-italic are the chess clubs with >10% of women

The underlined names are the chess clubs with at least 3 women.

**Useful resources:

• Extensive study on gender equality in chess

• The best (and worst) countries to be a female chess player

• Chess and sexism: Can the game be made safer for women?

• Damesschaak: (only) amateur chess events in Groningen for women-only

• Women in chess foundation

• Stichting ChessQueens

• The Hidden Gender Bias in Chess

• Checking gender bias: Parents and mentors perceive less chess potential in girls