Oregon’s 16-year-old ‘Woman Grandmaster’ on her chess goals

Oregon’s reigning – and two time – state champion in is a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton. Zoey Tang has been playing since she was 7 years old and joined a chess club at her small charter school. She was hooked. She recently became the first Oregonian ever to achieve the title of “woman grandmaster.” She joined us to share her thoughts on the title and her goals going forward.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We end today with Oregon’s reigning and two time state champion in chess. Her name is Zoey Tang. She’s only 16 years old, a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton. She recently became the first Oregonian ever to achieve the title of “woman grandmaster.” Zoey, congratulations and welcome to the show.

Zoey Tang: Thank you for having me here.

Miller: Can you tell us about the moment, the match when you achieved this rank?

Tang: So basically, in order to get the title of women’s grandmaster in chess there are a lot of things that have to happen. But prior to this final tournament I played to get the title, I’d already achieved a lot of the requirements. Like, I’d gone the necessary rating. I played two other really good tournaments and got these norms, which are basically is just certification I did well in the tournament. And then going into this third tournament, what would eventually be my third and final norm, I was really hoping to do well because I knew there’s a chance I’d get the norm and get the title, that’s the final norm for the title. And I really wanted to get the title, but also I try not to get my hopes up too high so I wouldn’t interfere with my mentality or whatever.

Miller: Have you found that to be the case, that if you put pressure on yourself, or if you realize what’s at stake, it can be harder to perform well at chess?

Tang: Definitely, because chess is a board game, but also there’s a lot of psychology going on behind the scenes. So having to worry about prizes, results, or just anything off the board is always detrimental to people’s play strength.

Miller: How do you not do that? How do you block everything out and just focus on the game when a lot can be at stake?

Tang: A lot of practice and you also kind of get used to it after being dropped in a bunch of these stressful situations. After a while stuff just stops feeling as high stakes.

Miller: You mean losing teaches you how to lose?

Tang: Yeah, of course.

Miller: Wait, so, but there was a moment when you won that term, that match, so what did it feel like?

Tang: It was amazing because… OK, actually, hang on. It was amazing, but also it was a little bit bittersweet because in that particular tournament, I was very close to winning the entire thing outright, but I ended up tying for first and I finished second on tiebreaks, which was still enough for the third grandmaster, women’s grandmaster norm. I was kind of like, oh, I missed out on the title champion. But then afterwards I was like, oh my gosh, wait, I got women’s grandmaster and the title as well, so that’s really nice.

Miller: Can you put that in perspective? I mean, what does it mean to be a woman grandmaster?

Tang: I think there’s a lot of statistics, like there’s only, I think, at most a few thousand ‒ more likely a few hundred ‒  of us in the world. And having that, it’s the top title in chess. It’s the top female title in chess. So there’s woman grandmaster and below that there’s women’s international master and woman FIDE master, and so on. It’s the highest woman branded title, so it’s really special to have that.

Miller: I’m just curious because I know that there have been over the years, and maybe now, some top female chess players who don’t like the idea of these different categories. The open category, which is open to everybody, which years ago was called the men’s category. That’s changed, but from the 1970s on, there has been this separate category only open to women, to females. How do you feel about that?

Tang: I think the women’s titles depend on your perspective, because they’re very encouraging for a lot of people. I know when I was starting out and I first got my women’s FIDE master title, which is like one of the lower, one of the lower titles and also one of the lower female titles, I was so happy because that’s like, wow, I’ve done so much work and now I have something to show for it. But I also feel like it does very much send kind of implicitly some sort of message that, oh, the woman’s version is worse or whatever. But I think because women can still compete for the open title, as long as our ultimate goal is to get the open grandmaster title, I feel like it’s still a kind of nice thing to have as a stepping stone.

Miller: And that is your goal, to now to move on to the open grandmaster title?

Tang: My goal is to push myself to my limits, see how far I can get, whether that’s international master, grandmaster, we’ll see.

Miller: Hm. Let’s go back a little bit. I was going to say far back, but we can’t go back that far because you’re 16 years old, but how old were you when you played chess for the first time?

Tang: I was 7 years old. I was in second grade, and I started playing chess at my school’s chess club. So my best friend was part of the chess club, and she was like, you should join too. And I’m like, okay, sure, I guess I’ll come along and see what this whole thing is about.

Miller: Do you remember that first day?

Tang: I remember it was a lot of kids, a lot of boards, a lot of pieces, and I remember just having fun because I knew the rules of the game so I could play, and I just played against a bunch of people. I don’t remember exactly if I won or lost. I probably did a lot of both, but yeah, it was fun.

Miller: Is it still fun now that you take it really seriously and you are, I guess, the best chess player in the state? Is it still fun?

Tang: It’s definitely still fun because once you get really good at something, you can enjoy it even more and in chess particularly, because once you get really good you can play more people. Yay!

Miller: How would you describe your playing style?

Tang: Hmm, okay, so when I first started out, and even now, I really enjoyed doing tactics, which is basically you train yourself to be able to visualize many moves ahead and calculate. It’s a skill that can be worked on through tactics and such. I enjoy calculation, attacking. I’d say I’m more of an aggressive player.

Miller: Does that fit into your, just the way you live your life? I mean, can you map out people’s chess styles and do they map with their personalities?

Tang: I think not necessarily. I mean, there’s some people who are very reserved in real life, but over the board they’re like a really good attacker. And there’s also people who are not so kind in real life and they play very positionally over the board, so I don’t think there’s correlation.

Miller: You said that it’s both a mental game or a strategic game, but there’s also a psychological piece to this. How much do players at these higher levels talk to each other, try to mess with each other?

Tang: Oh, let’s see here. I would say, not that much. I mean, because the people I hang out with are usually kids my age and or mature, kind, adults. So we say… We have trash talk, but that’s just for fun and we all know that we’re joking.

Miller: But when you’re playing in the more serious tournaments, that you don’t try to get in folks’ heads?

Tang: I don’t try to.

Miller: And people don’t do it to you. I guess I just have no idea. It’s, the world of high level chess is such a mystery to me that, and I guess I feel like I’ve heard stories about people staring at each other or trying to intimidate one another, but you’re saying that that’s not your experience.

Tang: That’s not my experience. I feel like with the examples of people complaining about, I know at the top level there’s a lot of people complaining about, oh, this guy was doing something suspicious, this other guy was breathing too loud or something like that. I feel like I haven’t had that type of experience, but you do hear reports about it because it’s just, I guess, what counts as a scandal in the chess world.

Miller: Can you tell us about the Puddletown Chess Club that you started in 2022?

Tang: Puddletown Chess was kind of a dream come true, because I’ve always wanted to bring the joy that I found playing chess to more people and especially to more kids in Oregon. So in 2022, I started Puddletown Chess. And basically we started out by hosting monthly tournaments where like a lot of kids in Oregon can have a fun place to play chess, analyze their games, basically have fun. We’ve expanded now. We have a lot of different other offerings. We do seminars. We have training programs, basically just trying to expand chess to as wide of a community as we can reach in Oregon.

Miller: Am I right that you’re a teacher or a coach or a mentor at this point as well?

Tang: Yeah, I teach some of our Puddletown lessons and so I get to teach kids and watch them improve.

Miller: How have you learned to become a teacher? I ask because it does seem like it’s a different skill set in some ways than being good at the thing itself, that you already know.

Tang: I think what helped is I’ve had really good coaches who explain things and often when I’m teaching kids, I sometimes find myself using the same phrases, the same analogy they used. And also it’s something you do from experience. Once you’ve taught a lot of things and you’ve taught many times, then eventually you just get the hang of it and know which ways make the most sense to a beginner.

Miller: Do you like teaching?

Tang: Yeah, it’s very fulfilling.

Miller: What advice would you give to people who’ve never played chess, or maybe they’ve played a little bit, but they’re intimidated by the world of chess?

Tang: I’d say chess is a very friendly game. There’s a very wide level, a wide range of levels, and barring the mean people online who get mad after they lose, in general everyone’s just happy to play a chess game against you, no matter if they win or lose, and just have fun, basically.

Miller: As I noted, you are now Oregon’s two-time state champion in chess. At this point, can you find in-state opponents who will push you to be better?

Tang: Of course, there are… I’m state champion, but there’s still a lot of very strong players here in Oregon and actually I think in two weeks we’ll be having this year’s Oregon championship, so we’ll see if I can keep my title. But I think the issue is that, unfortunately, for our in-state tournaments, there are only a few every year that attract all the big names where all the strong Oregon players will actually, you know they’ll be there to play.

Miller: What are the parts of your game that you know you want to improve?

Tang: I want to improve… Well, this is getting a little bit technical, but I want to improve on my endgame skills. So basically near the ending point of a game where there’s not as many pieces on the board, yeah.

Miller: How to stick the dagger in someone’s heart.

Tang: Yeah, pretty much.

Miller: Zoey Tang, congratulations. It was a pleasure talking with you.

Tang: Thank you for having me here.

Miller: Zoey Tang is a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton. She is 16 years old. She is Oregon’s first and only woman grandmaster.

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