Adhara, the young Queen of Chess
“Come on girls! Time to show who you are!” was the title of our recent article n°3. And therefore we are very happy to introduce you to a promising girl who is showing who she is!
A few days ago she turned 18, but she is already an international chess champion. And not only from Tenerife (Spain) where she lives with her mother (her greater fan and supporter) and her brother, a very good chess player too.
Adhara is the name of a star in the Canis Major constellation and she certainly shines for her beauty, but above all, for her rare kindness and education. However, here we will mainly talk about her abilities and her great sporting potential in the world of chess.
The young Queen of chess has already won many titles and who knows how many others she will win! The list of her achievements is long and perhaps not complete. But they are worth rattling off to make sense of this great chess promise:
- since 2011, the year of her first competition, she has continuously been Champion of Tenerife in all age categories. As well as of the Canary Islands since 2012 till now;
- in 2019 she finished second in the Women’s Semi-Rapid Chess World Championship;
- several times second in Spain and third in categories even higher than hers, as well as Spain Under 16 Champion in 2020;
- 4th in the WGM Masters Tournament held in Fuerteventura in 2019, obtaining the title of FIDE Master;
- first Spaniard in her ELO age category for several years, including 2018, 2019 and 2020; she is in the absolute Spanish Top Ten women ranking in the same years;
- Promise of Sports Award at the Gala Santa Cruz Deporte (Tenerife 2020);
- she has the title of high-level athlete from the Spanish Federation and the Higher Sports Council of the Spanish government;
- in 2020 she qualifies for the Under 16 World Championship Online entering the top 10 women in Europe in her category;
- in 2021 she is the first in the initial classification of the European Under 16 Hybrid Championship.
She is currently 3th in Spain Absolute Women 18 and younger. She also bronze in the Spanish mixed pairs championship, together with GM Miguel Santos.
The secret of her success lies mainly in her rapid learning and analytical skills. She started to get passionate about chess when she was a child and, as she tells us in our exclusive interview: “…..I was drawn to those pieces my mother tried to teach my brother Ethan chess with, to the point that she gave me bigger ones to entertain me. But instead I took hers and put them in my mouth. It must have been at that moment that chess began to “live in me”..”
Since then she also had many other passions such as dance, music, skating, piano and flute, singing, painting or basketball; but in the end “….you have to choose, and I chose chess”.
She remembers that her mother Eva decided to enroll her brother in a club and that she also wanted to join. “…Since I had known how to read and write for a long time, they left me and there I began to attend lessons with Tony López, at the Fundación CajaCanarias Club (in Santa Cruz de Tenerife), which continues to be my Club to this day…”. She was only 5 years old and soon started playing championships, becaming the Champion of Tenerife U10 almost at the beginning, when she was 6 years old.
And tell us, anyone trained you?
“ Yes, in fact shortly after, I went to Technification classes with IM Adalberto Villavicencio, in addition to GM Reynaldo Vera. Later with GM Oleg Korneev and later on with my usual coach and chess club director, GM José Luis Fernández.
In recent years I have made great progress in the hands of IM Julio Alonso Bouza.“
How many hours do you study and play a day?
“The truth is that is not easy to determine it, because it is difficult to combine with my studies, right now with 2nd year of Baccalaureate that requires many hours; as well as with the championships. In addition, I also participate in many tournaments outside the island. So, I try to train 1 hour a day or watch some chess at least every day; and when I’m in a tournament I can easily spend between 8-9 hours a day in front of a chessboard.”
We’ve all had idols as kids and so we ask her too. Her response, as always, appears much more mature than her age:
“I have not much of an idol, which does not mean that I do not admire certain players.
To give an example, at this moment I could highlight the Spanish GM Jaime Santos Latasa, who is in constant progression”.
Our last question is about her future and her dream! Where do you see yourself in 5 years? She is smiling and says: “I would like to continue enjoying and progressing in chess, in addition to studying Law. I see myself studying and advancing. The truth is that I would like to become Grand Master. And I hope to get it between now and then.”
Good Adhara! Arona Chess Club thanks you for your time and, in the next future, for the kind availability at managing the “simul” at our inauguration day, on next May 27th.
And we are sure that Adhara’s star will shine and fly higher so, we wish her all the best…. “VAMOS MUCHACHA!“
Article and interview by Sergio Alessandro, with the kind collaboration of Eva Redondo Terrón – Limited reproduction
gracias, vamos!