At just 13, Nottinghamshire's Amisha Parmar is rated England's number one female chess player for her age group. The Queen She represents her country internationally and played in last year's World Girls Under 12 Championship but Amisha says it can be hard to keep her opponents in check: "It's nice to represent the country, but it's difficult to stay the top person." Her coach for the last four years and vice-chairman of West Nottingham Chess Club, David Levens, is full of praise for the young master:
 | | Amisha Parmar |
"Amisha is now an exceptionally strong player, she's not just a good girl player she's an exceptionally strong player full stop." The Knights However, Amisha is just one of several players from West Nottingham Chess Club making a name for herself on the national and international stage. There's also Lateefah Messam-Sparks, she's just finished second in both the British Under 14 Girls Championship and the British Under 13 Girls Championship. Balvinder Grewal, led Nottingham High School to this year's National Schools Championship (four of the six players in the team were from West Nottingham Chess Club) was equal second in the National Junior Squad Young Masters event in July. Then there's Toby Thurgood and Eric Williamson who have just qualified for the England Junior Squad. Stalemate Chess is the world's favourite game. However, despite the game's world popularity and obvious strength in the county chess coach David wishes the game received the press it deserves. "The saddest thing about chess is that it is probably the most played game in the world but in the UK its publicity is nil as it is not regarded as a sport here." "There's a competition for schoolchildren called the British Land UK Chess Challenge and last year it attracted 72,000 entries. If a tennis competition attracted that number of people it'd be headline news." Is chess cool? However, Amisha and friends aren't alone in their passion for Kings, Queens and pawns. Chart stars Madonna and Moby are both said to be keen on the game, while Lennox Lewis famously plays chess as part of his build up to heavyweight boxing bouts. U2 frontman Bono also wanted to be a professional chess player and admits to still being obsessed by the game.
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