Anya Corke
English chess player
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anya Sun Corke (born 12 September 1990 in California, USA) is an American-born English chess player holding the title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She played for Hong Kong, where she was the top ranked chess player, until 2009.[2]
12 September 1990
Anya Corke, Warsaw 2013 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | Anya Sun Corke 12 September 1990 California, United States |
| Chess career | |
| Country | Hong Kong (until 2009) England (since 2009)[1] |
| Title | Woman Grandmaster (2004) |
| Peak rating | 2301 (October 2008) |
Career
Corke earned the WGM title with her performance in the 36th Chess Olympiad, playing for the Hong Kong men's team.[3][4]
She was the 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008 Hong Kong National Champion (for men and women), one of the youngest national champions ever at the age of 13 years and 9 months.
She was the British Junior Under-11 Champion in 2002[5] and the Under-12 Champion in 2003,[6] the first girl to win either of these age groups. In 2004, she became joint British U-14 Champion.[7]
In December 2004, she won the Asian Youth Girls U-14 Championship in Singapore.[8]
In August 2005, she jointly won with Alisa Melekhina and Abby Marshall the second annual Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls under-19.[9]
Corke represented the England Women's team at the 2012 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey,[10][11] and the 2013 European Team Championship in Warsaw, Poland.[12]
Personal life and education
In 2013, Corke graduated from Wellesley College summa cum laude with a B.A. in Russian and Philosophy.[13][14]
In 2014, she started a Ph.D. program in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University.[15] She obtained an M.A. and M.Phil Slavic Languages and Literatures (specializing in Russian).[16]
In 2019, Corke started the J.D. program at Yale Law School.[17]
Corke is married and lives in the United States with her husband.[18]
Media
Her photograph was misappropriated by supporters of Barisan Nasional, the ruling political party of Malaysia, to depict the victim in a controversy alleging sexual misconduct by the son of Lim Guan Eng, who is one of the leaders of DAP, a Malaysian opposition party.[19] DAP and their supporters then contacted Anya Corke to obtain an official denial that she knows Lim Guan Eng's son; she confirmed that the allegations were false, and that the photo was used without her knowledge or consent.[20][21] The original photo used in this controversy was stolen from an article on the website ChessBase News, and had the chess board cropped out.[22]
