Ep. 45 A Woman Grandmaster Uses CHESS & POKER To WIN | “Jungleman” Dan Cates and Jennifer Shahade

Jennifer Shahade grew up in a family of gamers. Her brother is IM Greg Shahade is founder of the PRO Chess League and the US Chess School, while her mother, Dr. Sally Solomon (1940-2013), was an avid bridge and poker player. Her father, FM Michael Shahade is a four-time state champion and taught her chess at five. Jennifer did not take to the game right away, gravitating instead to acting and writing. When she got back into it in high school, she fell in love and quickly improved, becoming a National Master at the age of 16, and the first female to win the US Junior Open. She went on to win two US Chess Women’s Championship titles and a Silver Olympic medal.

Jennifer’s joint passion for games and art led to dozens of creative projects through her career, including authoring Chess Queens, which chronicles the true stories of the top women players in history, intertwined with Jennifer’s own life. She’s also the host of two award-winning podcasts, the GRID and Ladies Knight. The show is a game within a game, as Jen fills out the entire 169 grid of possible poker hands, with no repeats.

Jennifer is the MindSports Ambassador at PokerStars and loves to show how games like poker and chess can help anyone make better decisions. Her titles include a Championship belt at the Open Face High Roller Championship in Prague. Jennifer fights to make games more inclusive through her work with US Chess Women, where she helps bring chess to girls, gender minorities and women. She’s also an ambassador for Poker Power, an organization that aims to “flip the table” and teach one million women poker.

Here is what you can expect on this week’s show!
0:50 What is a Grandmaster
3:10 Authoring books is kind of a big deal
9:50 Battling Artificial Intelligence
12:54 Does chess have more drama than poker?
15:24 Scandals
32:34 Life skills learned from chess and poker
40:26 Parallels between poker and chess
50:35 Making games and the world more inclusionary
1:01:35 Does poker hold a mirror to rising inequality?
1:09:30 Hula Hooping

▬ Winning the Game of Life ▬▬▬▬▬▬
Check out other “Winning the Game of Life” episodes: ► https://www.youtube.com/c/WinningTheGameofLife

Connect with Jennifer Shahade:
Twitter: @JenShahade
Instagram: @jenshahade

Follow “Jungleman” Dan Cates on social:
Websites: https://www.wtgol.com
Instagram: @wtgolpodcast
@thedancates
Twitter: @junglemandan