UQCC Friendly Simultaneous Online Chess with IM JOVANKA HOUSKA

Yet another British player is taking on the playing field this weekend! Under the Lichess username, ButterflyQueen, she demonstrated what it means to be an International Master, despite being a female chess player – a feat achieved by only a few ladies. She defeated most of our Filipina lady woodpushers and masters last weekend in the England Team Battle. A good friend of IM Lawrence Cooper and is a serious and amazing chess player, the United Queens Chess Club is happy to introduce our fifth female master for this year, International Master Jovanka Houska of England!

The English female chess player has held her international master title since 2005 and was the third British woman to ever successfully achieve this wonderful feat. Amazingly, not once, not twice, not thrice, but NINE times did IM Jovanka Houska dominate the field, becoming the British Women’s Champion and still the reigning champion since 2015 – for six consecutive years! Considering her astounding achievements throughout her chess career, she had started playing chess at a young age and captured the eyes of many British players in the 2000 European Junior Championships Under 20 Girls. In 1998, she competed in the same tournament and finished third. Two years later (2020) in the same category, she bagged a gold medal and secured her third and final norm to attain her Women Grandmaster title. Six years later, she was awarded by the English Federation as the English Chess Player of the year as she was recognized as being the most active; she was the first female to ever attain the award. Not only was she strong individually, but she is a good team player as well. In 2015, she represented England as the board one player and fought against a field of 30 countries in the 20th European Women’s Team Chess Championship. Pressure did not get the best of IM Jovanka as she finished with an almost-perfect score of 8 points out of 9 rounds with no losses and two draws, securing her a silver medal in the individual category. Her long history of chess gradually opened more doors and eventually led her in becoming a chess author herself, writing three famous chess books about the Caro-Kann and Scandinavian Defense, and was the co-author of the novel, The Mating Game.

Watch the first female International Master here in UQCC.