Jesse February (born 1997) is a South African

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

player who holds the title of

Woman International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

(WIM, 2016). She is a two-time South African women's chess champion and has also won the African women's chess championship twice, in 2021 and 2024.

Chess career

February earned the title of Woman FIDE Master in 2015, and Woman International Master in 2016. She has represented South Africa in the

Women's Chess Olympiad The Women's Chess Olympiad is an event held by FIDE (the International Chess Federation) since 1957 (every two years since 1972), where national women's teams compete at chess for gold, silver and bronze medals. Since 1976 the Women's Chess Olympia ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

(scoring 4/9 on board three),

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

(6.5/10 on board one),

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

(2/7 on board one). and

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

(6/10 on board one). In 2015, she was crowned U18 girls champion at the South Africa junior closed chess championships, and was selected to play for the national team for the World Youth Chess Championships in Greece that October. In 2015, she also came first in the University Sport South Africa closed chess championships at

Wits University The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The university has its roots in ...

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, and was invited to participate in the World University Chess Championships in Hungary. In 2017 and 2019, she won the Women's section of the

South African Chess Championship The South African Chess Championship was first organised in 1892 by the Cape Town Chess Club. It is now organised by Chess South Africa (CHESSA), the governing body of chess in South Africa. The tournament is normally held every two years. It is ...

. In May 2021, February participated in the Women's African Individual Championship, winning the event with a score of 7/9. With this victory, February is eligible to be awarded the title of

Woman Grandmaster FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

, provided she attains a rating of 2100. She qualified for the

Women's Chess World Cup 2021 The Women's Chess World Cup 2021 was a 103-player single-elimination chess tournament, the first edition of Women's Chess World Cup, that took place in Sochi, Russia, from 12 July to 3 August 2021. It was the inaugural edition of a women's-only ...

held in July, where she was defeated by GM

Valentina Gunina Valentina Evgenyevna Gunina (; born 4 February 1989) is a Russian chess grandmaster. She is the two-time Women's World Blitz Chess Champion (2012 and 2023), has won the Women's European Individual Chess Championship three times (2012, 2014, 20 ...

1.5-0.5 in the first round. February qualified to represent South Africa in the

FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2021 The FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2021 was the second FIDE Online Chess Olympiad, an annual online chess tournament organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) since 2020, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was v ...

where she faced 8 opponents with an average rating exceeding 2000. She finished the event on 2/8(+2=0-6) She qualified for the Women's Grand Swiss 2021 and scored 0.5/11 for a performance rating of 1976. She went on to win the Nelson Mandela Bay Closed tournament in December 2021 with a perfect score of 4/4. February participated in the 2022 South African Women's Chess Championship and finished in second place with a score of 4.5/6, half a point behind Chloe Badenhorst who was crowned the new South African Women's Champion February won the African women's chess championship for the second time in 2024.

Streaming

In late January 2020, February partnered up with

Woman Candidate Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

Rebecca Selkirk Rebecca Joy Selkirk (born 1993), is a South African chess player and Woman Candidate Master. Career Selkirk earned the title of Woman Candidate Master in 2019. She represented South Africa in the 2018 Chess Olympiad on board four, and the 202 ...

to start the HashtagChess channel on the streaming platform

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...

which has amassed a following of over ten thousand as of 2021. On 1 October 2021, February announced that she would be leaving HashtagChess, making Selkirk the sole owner of the channel, to start streaming on her personal Twitch account (Jesse_Feb). The split was amicable with "different career and content creation goals" being cited as the primary reasons. February streamed and conducted interviews with the players during the 2024 Cape Town Chess Masters, an event described as having "raised the standard of chess broadcasting in South Africa".

Coaching

February also works as a professional chess coach in the chess training platform, Cochess, where she offers private chess lessons.

References

External links

* *
Jesse February
chess games at 365Chess.com {{DEFAULTSORT:February, Jesse South African chess players South African female chess players Chess Woman International Masters Chess Olympiad competitors Living people 1997 births Sportspeople from Gqeberha 21st-century South African sportswomen South African Internet celebrities