SLEO Hosting All-Girls simul with Grandmaster Jeffrey Xiong

SLEO's Background

SLEO’s chess branch was founded a little more than a year ago by a small group of students that shared a passion in chess and teaching. In recent months, the hard work of the organization's branch leaders, members, volunteers, and organizers have helped us come so far. SLEO has held official rates tournaments, promoted themselves to wider audiences, held simuls with grandmasters, and so much more.

Organization Goals

Alongside inspiring and promoting chess overall within the St. Louis region, one of SLEO’s other goals has been to promote female presence in chess. In the US Chess Federation, only around 13% of players are women, and in other regions of the world, that number is even lower. SLEO’s chess branch is nearly exactly split between female and male members, and this goal has risen on the organization's priority list after stabilizing and further expanding into regions of St. Louis.

Event Details

On October 12th, SLEO will be hosting an all girls simultaneous exhibition with chess grandmaster Jeffrey Xiong, from 6 pm-8 pm. Jeffrey Xiong is the fourth youngest player to qualify for the grandmaster title in the United States at age 14 years and 10 months, won the world junior chess championship in 2016, tied for first in the U.S. masters chess championship in 2018 and was a quarterfinalist in the 2019 FIDE world cup. He has come to St. Louis for multiple tournaments in the past, and last year, he played a simul against SLEO’s students, teachers, and members. This year, we welcome him back for another SLEO-hosted simul taking place at 975 N Spoede Rd, St. Louis MO, 63146 Briarcliff Club House. The event is aimed towards SLEO’s goal of promoting the presence of girls in chess, all ages are welcome.

RSVP is not required. But if you want to let us know you are coming, please RSVP by clicking the button below.

Note: The flyer above was designed by Vera Ewing.