Biography of Jennifer Shahade

Jennifer Shahade (born December 31, 1980) is an American chess player and two time U.S. women’s chess champion. Her FIDE rating is currently the 5th highest for all women in her country. In 1998, she became the first (and so far only) female to win the U.S. Junior Open. Then, a few years later, in 2002, she won the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship in Seattle, Washington. The following year, although she did not repeat as U.S. Women’s Champion, she did well enough to earn her second of three required International Master norms.

Then, in 2004, she returned to the top spot among U.S. women chessplayers by winning the U.S. Women’s Championship that year in a 7 player invitational round robin. Shahade lives in Brooklyn and has earned a degree in Comparative Literature at New York University. She also regularly annotates games for Mig Greengard’s website, ChessNinja.com.