Medina Parrilla earns ‘Expert’ Rating
Since of the age of 12, Medina Parrilla has been a scholastic sensation and has a case full of trophies and accolades to prove it. Pages of The Chess Drum are replete with stories of her exploits. Now on the verge of graduating high school, she is embarking on perhaps the pivotal point in her chess career.
Parrilla, who has already won a scholarship to University of Texas-Dallas, will hopefully continue her progress in chess. She has led her schools to several championships and has represented the U.S. at the Youth Championships on two occasions. She is now added another “unofficial” accolade by breaking the 2000 rating barrier in the U.S. Chess Federation. This barrier puts a player above the class level and declares one an “Expert,” a honor that only the upper 4% of players in the country have.
Parrilla becomes the first female of African descent to accomplish this in over 25 years since Baraka Shabazz. On her heels is Darrian Robinson and perhaps a slew of other young female players. No Black woman has ever earned the Master’s title (2200 rating) in the USCF and she could be the first.
Congratulations Medina!!
Blacq Kueen !
You go girl!
Hey lil Sista, Congrats on your achievements. I also want to offer any training in software, you may already have or need to obtain. Look into items like winboard, cdb, Chessbase, Bookup, and Chess Arts 3.0. There also a great many e-books that will load right into Chessbase. I am familiar with utilizing all of the aforementioned and would love to encourage you in your pursuit of making history. Congrats lils sis. Coach Rene’ and The Chess Gym!
Love to read about and see such successes — I am so proud of the work you have done.
Congratulations!
Congrats Medina!… I was trying to find out her actual rating, but USCF doesn’t have her as a current member.
Medina’s new rating will be 2004 after the next publishing, unless of course she plays before then.
She has been a USCF member for 9 years.
Thanks Frank…There must be a glitch on the USCF website. It shows her only playing in 2 touraments..
The way it works now is that your rating is published once it is posted. For example, if you make 2200 and immediately go back under, you should get your USCF Master’s certificate. In the old days, we had to wait until it was in the supplement, but that was the paper system.
Medina Parrilla: https://main.uschess.org/assets/msa_joomla/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?12782436
Medina Parrilla just started her freshman year at University of Texas at Dallas. She will be seeing a bit of Amon Simutowe who is starting graduate school there. Below is a picture of Medina and her freshman classmates on the UTD chess team.
University of Texas at Dallas Chess Club
(2009 freshman class)
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Congrats on your scholatic pursues, your accomplishments in chess are very impressive. Im curious… what is your next move is!
She once told me math and physics, but that was a few years back.