Jessica Lauser
Jessica T. Lauser /LAWser/ is a visually-impaired American chess player and the current, 4-time reigning U.S. Blind Chess Champion. (She recently won this event, by default, when no other players showed up, for the 2021 U.S. Blind Championship, held October 30th-31st, in Pittsburgh.) Born at just 24 weeks’ gestation, she experienced a common complication affecting micro-preemies, called ROP or retinopathy of prematurity, causing permanent vision-loss during her first few months of life. ROP (and subsequent cataracts) left Lauser effectively blind in one eye, with limited usable sight in the other; it is the same  eye condition affecting musician Stevie Wonder. First learning chess at age 7, Lauser became more involved with it, at age 12, as a means to combat incessant teasing by classmates, in the 7th and 8th grades, soon earning her the nickname, “Chessica”, before she later took up formal tournament play, as an adult. Most notably making history by becoming the first-ever (and so far only) woman to win the national championship for blind and visually-impaired players, she's done so, four years in a row (2018, 2019, and 2020, and 2021, by default). Lauser received dual Bachelor’s  degrees from San Francisco State University and the University of Alaska Anchorage, while working various jobs, predominantly clerical in nature. Likewise, she has qualified, eight times out of eight attempts, so far, to play for medals and titles representing the United States, in world events for the blind, overseas. In November 2020, she joined Team USA which took part in the 1st FIDE Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities. The team, initially seeded 39th in this event, finished tied for tenth in the world, placing sixteenth on tiebreaks. Her next such event is the upcoming 4th FIDE World Championship for  People with Disabilities, set to take place, November 4th through 14th, online. An avid competitor, having played 305 USCF-rated tournaments, so far, Lauser presently enjoys current national rankings on eight Top 100 lists, in the U.S.—among the exclusively fully-sighted—while regularly frequenting chess sites, online, including Chess.com, Lichess, ICC, and the FIDE Online Arena. She currently resides in Missouri.