Q&A with Masterman Queens Chess Club

As members of the new Masterman chess club trickle into the Zoom call on a snowy afternoon in early February, they're met with an intriguing icebreaker question: “What chess piece most describes you and why?”

The vastly different choices of the club members and their explanations give insight into the personality of each member. Some members identified with the important but often overlooked queen, others with the bishop for its uniqueness, a few with the rook for its straightforwardness, and still others with the underestimated but crucial pawn.

The student behind this new club is Marisa Maisano (8-3). She has been playing chess since elementary school and started Masterman Queens earlier this year to encourage more girls to build their own confidence through playing chess.

Mikaela Orenstein (6-2) helps Marisa with leading lessons at Masterman Queens. Like Marisa, she has been playing chess from a very young age—about 5 years old. I interviewed Marisa and Mikaela on the new club and about their experiences in chess.

Why did you decide to learn chess in the first place?

Marisa: “I started playing chess in first grade... I had originally gotten interested because over the summer I had gone on a vacation to the Dominican Republic, and at the resort they had one of those giant chess boards, and being a curious six year old, I was like ‘Hey, Dad, what’s that?’ And so he showed me, ‘… This is a knight, this is a rook…’ I went to my first tournament in May of first grade, and I ended up getting a silver medal. So I was in first grade and I played third and fourth graders.”

Why did you decide to start Masterman Queens?

Marisa: Over quarantine, there’s been online classes for girls around the country with the Women’s Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade… and they were one of the reasons that inspired me… [Another reason was] the Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, of course, and there was a big boom [in interest in chess]. I actually got interviewed for a New York Times article about my view on the show and what I thought about more girls getting into the game. When I was doing that, I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I should help more girls get into the game at Masterman,’ because on our Masterman chess team there’s about 4 or 5 girls and there’s like 10-15 boys, so I figured, [I’d] try and promote it, so that’s basically where it went from there.”

Can you tell me about Jennifer Shahade and her visit to Masterman Queens?

Marisa: “Jennifer Shahade, she went to Masterman, she’s from Philadelphia… and she’s always been a big role model to me because, since she’s from Philadelphia she would come to a lot of our tournaments. When she started the girls’ classes she was teaching all these lessons, and when I started my club, I was like, ‘Maybe she would want to come teach a lesson.’ So when she came, she showed some clips from the Queen’s Gambit and went over the chess parts. When Beth [character from Queen’s Gambit] was first learning, there [were] some beginner games and so she kind of went over how they got to this position and what we can do to prevent this from happening… And then we did some puzzles, and then we had a little Q&A with her.”

What does a typical meeting at Masterman Queens look like?

Marisa: “Well, we’ve only had two meetings, so we’re still figuring out the fine details, but we basically come in, we have a little introduction, and then I have another person helping me—Mikaela Orenstein—she’s in 6th grade, she’s a very strong player. Since I have about 30 members, I like to split it up a little, so I’ll take half and she’ll take the other half and we just go through basic chess strategy, like, controlling the center and attacking moves, and also defensive [moves], and looking for threats, and attacks, and forks, and pins, and discoveries and all that kind of stuff.”