Kamari Barth has always enjoyed puzzles, so each time she sits at a chess board she considers it just another one to solve.
“I like the strategy,” she said. “I like to see it. I can see it in my brain. It’s just really fun to play.”
The 12-year-old Sheridan girl took up the game two years ago and has quickly excelled to the point that the Sheridan Chess Association selected her to compete in the Susan Polgar Girls’ Invitational last month.
The national event is an invitation-only chess tournament for young female players.
“We're really proud of her for going, knowing that it was going to be tough competition,” SCA member Dan Casey said. “She worked so hard.”
Barth's family also says she's the first from Wyoming to compete in the tournament.
More Than A Board Game
Barth began playing in a homeschool chess club when she was 10.
She considered it a fun board game and enjoyed going up against her dad at home. About six months after she took up playing though, Kamari learned about grandmasters, the highest title a chess player can earn, and began to get more serious.
“I realized that it’s not just a board game,” she said. “It's a big thing. It's a sport. I want to get really good at this game.”
She began playing on the ChessKid app, and when her skills surpassed her dad’s, she joined the Sheridan Chess Association. The club is off for the summer but meets Thursday nights at the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library during the rest of the year.
“Personally, I think it really speaks to how her brain works,” father Jim Barth said. “She's really good with math and numbers, and so chess really highlights some of that with the strategy and movement of pieces.”
Kamari doesn’t keep track of how many hours a week she spends on the game, but says she usually plays at least once per day.
“Some days it's like, ‘I really want to do chess a lot today,’” she said. “Some days it's like, ‘I’ll just play a game and relax,’ but it really depends on how I'm feeling, if I want to learn more or just play a game and then rest.”
Kamari Barth, right, shakes hands with an opponent during the Susan Polgar Girls' Chess Tournament Invitational, held June 21-25. She's the first Wyoming girl to compete in the tournament. (Courtesy Photo) 
Kamari Barth is pictured after she promoted a pawn to queen to win her match against an opponent from Washington, DC. It was her lone win of the tournament. She also visited the World Chess Hall of Fame. (Courtesy Photo) 
Kamari Barth met tournament founder and chess grandmaster Susan Polgar during the event. (Courtesy Photo)
The Next Move
Sheridan has had a strong chess community throughout the years, making it a great place for newcomers to learn. Prior to COVID, the club had 150 chess players.
It started back up about four years ago, and now averages 40 people — 10 adults and 30 kids. Players in the club range in age from 6 to 84.
“We’re very supportive of trying to get kids to play this, because it takes away from a lot of the electronic games,” Casey said. “It's really good for mental development, not only for kids, but seniors as well, to keep their brains active. It just transcends age in a way. If a kid is sharp and has played for a few years, a lot of times they can beat many adults.”
The SCA hosts a youth tournament, which Kamari has participated in.
It also has hosted the state tournament the last two years and began hosting an annual tournament each spring when the club reformed after COVID that has attracted participants from across the country in addition to some international players, as well as a handful of grandmasters.
“It's been growing every year,” he said. “Getting grandmasters at any chess event in Wyoming is unbelievable, because there’s not even a grandmaster in Wyoming,” Casey said.
The Sheridan Chess Association tries to send deserving young players to national tournaments when it can. So when it found out about the tournament, club officials decided Kamari was the perfect choice. They sponsored the trip and helped her train beforehand.
“We have quite a few girls in the club, and we had sponsored another girl who went to nationals,” Casey said. “Kamari is young in her chess playing but you can see her improvement from basically month to month in the chess club. She loves playing the game and has a very good analytical mind so she's very good at visualization.”
Learning The Fried Liver
To prepare, she played multiple chess games, including some against her 9-year-old brother.
She also worked with Casey, who taught her a few opening attacks such as the Fish Hook Trap, Italian Opening and Fried Liver, an aggressive chess opening that involves sacrificing a knight to attack the opponent's king. The latter quickly became her favorite.
“Kamari and I sat down, and I taught her the Fried Liver Attack,” Casey said. “She likes to attack, and she liked the name. It's a pretty aggressive opening that I learned when I was probably Kamari’s age. It's a lot of fun, especially against opponents not prepared for it.”
Casey also had Kamari do chess puzzles every day to better her chess tactics by improving pattern recognition and awareness.
“I like doing puzzles online instead of on paper, because I can say, ‘Yes, that was the correct move,’ she said. “And then you can see where all the pieces are. On paper you're doing it mostly in your head.”
She also did her own research, as Sheridan has the sixth-largest chess book collection in the nation, with more than 1,000 DVDs and chess books. The collection was donated from SCA members and from the community. The SCA also purchased some of the items available.
“Anybody in Wyoming can check them out through their public library, which is nice,” Casey said.
Heading into the tournament Casey told Kamari if she won just one game that would be an impressive feat, and if she didn’t win “then you went and had a great time and got a lot of experience because you're playing against the top 50 girl chess players in the United States.”
Queen Of Chess
Susan Polgar is an American chess grandmaster and four-time world champion of the game. She founded the Susan Polgar Foundation to promote chess for young people of all ages, but especially girls, throughout the United States.
One of the tournaments she created was the Susan Polgar Girls’ Invitational, the first all-girls event approved by the U.S. Chess Federation. The tournament aims to promote chess among girls, with prizes and scholarships awarded to winners.
“She was the very first female Grandmaster, and so her passion is to try and get more girls interested and involved in playing chess,” Jim said.
“It worked and the camaraderie and care that each girl there showed for one another — they could sit down and they could play a game, one would win, one would learn and then they were still friendly — was really beautiful to see.”
The tournament was June 21-25 in St. Louis, Missouri, and featured players from around the U.S. Kamari faced players from a variety of states including Oregon, Illinois, Indiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Kansas and Washington, D.C.
“I was very nervous, because this was my first time going to a chess tournament,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don't know what I'm doing,’ but I eventually got the hang of it.”
Participants must be younger than 19 to compete.
“I went against an 8-year-old and she beat me,” she said. “It's crazy to see that young kids are playing chess really well.”
Kamari played six long games, and then seven blitz games. Long games refer to tournament games with significant time controls, while blitz games are fast-paced, with much shorter time limits.
Long games allow for deep strategic thinking and meticulous planning, whereas blitz games emphasize speed and quick tactical calculations.
“I won one game and that was what I wanted to accomplish,” Kamari said. “It was really fun and cool to see all these other girls that love chess as much as I do,” she said. “I learned a lot. I wrote down my moves, and I could go to a grandmaster, and he reviewed my game with me and gave me some tips on what to do differently.”
One of the biggest things she took away from the tournament was the need to take her time.
“I was rushing a bit and when I made my move, I realized, ‘Oh no, I shouldn't have made that move, because now she's going to do this,’” she said. “I should take my time and look at all of the board instead of just one bit.”
Kamari plans to continue studying and playing the game to improve her skills. She hopes to compete in more chess tournaments in the future, and possibly return to the Susan Polgar event as an alumni.
“It was fun to watch her grow while we were there and just try something new,” Jim said. “Hopefully we'll see her do some other U.S. [Chess Federation] tournaments, then she'll get an official ranking that she can continue working on.”
