Photograph by Ryan Olein

Queen's Night: Alicia Fulk won the CalChess State Scholastic Championship in a division that included older players--and boys.

Public Citizen

This Girl's Home Is Her Castle

By Tai Moses

Alicia Fulk purses her lips, considering the question just put to her by a reporter: what does she like most about playing chess? The 13-year-old student and state chess champ makes a decisive move: "The trophies," she says with a smile. "I never used to get trophies before, and now I do, so it's kind of special."

Alicia's winning streak began inauspiciously in January, at the Sojourner Truth chess tournament in Palo Alto, an all-girls' competition where she placed fourth after a tie-breaker. While there she also met chess coach Riley Hughes.

With Hughes' mentoring, Alicia then went on to compete in three co-ed tournaments: the Peninsula Scholastic Championship--where she tied for first place among 7th-and-8th-graders, and the Young People's Scholastic in Berkeley, where she took home a first-place trophy.

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, Alicia won the biggie: first place in the CalChess State Scholastic Championship, which was held on March 26-28. It was her third year competing in the CalChess tournament, and the victory is fresh in her mind.

"It was a really cool feeling," she says with a gleam in her hazel eyes. "The other times before I never got a trophy or to be top ten, so it was pretty cool."

I ask to see the trophy and Alicia leaves the room and returns with an armful of trophies that she arrays on the floor. Two are nearly half as tall as the eighth-grader.

"This year," her mother Cindy says, "she got real serious. She really applied herself and studied her books every day."

Alicia's mother and father taught her how to play when she was 4 or 5 years old; although, says father Bill, she wasn't a prodigy. "It didn't catch on real quick," he recalls. "But by the time she was 9 or 10 we realized that she had some pretty good talent." She joined a chess club at Barnes & Noble and, he says, "right away she was one of the best players there, especially for her age."

Once a week, coach Hughes comes to her house. The two play for an hour or so and he gives her reading assignments for the week. "I have this book that I study, on combinations and tactics," she explains. "I'll see things I wouldn't normally see, so I have a slight advantage."

As for Hughes, he sees something special in Alicia. "I have 95 students and out of those she's the hardest worker," the coach says proudly. Does he often see this kind of determination in his girl students?

"I don't see it in boys," he says. "She wants to win ... She wants to beat the boys. It's a huge motivator for her."

There are more girls in the scholastic competitions, Hughes says, but chess is still a male-dominated game.

At the tournaments, Alicia says, "there's only a few girls, and there's a lot of boys--so it's kind of cool if you're a girl and you win, because they don't expect you to be that good."

At CalChess, Cindy says, "boys were really encouraging her.

Alicia hasn't decided how far she's going to go with chess. For now, she is looking forward to building her trophy collection. But she also likes to read and write, play computer games, kayak and collect rocks. There are even those rare times when she doesn't feel like playing chess.

"Everyone takes breaks once in a while," she says philosophically. "That's pretty normal, I guess."

I ask Alicia if she still plays chess with her parents. Since her dad is sitting right next to her on the couch, she's too diplomatic to say that playing with the folks is boring. She just grins and shakes her head no.

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