For most people, chess is just a game.

For Iryna Zenyuk, it's a lifestyle.

Most mornings, Ms. Zenyuk, 23, of Squirrel Hill, wakes up before 6:30 a.m. She spends two hours studying chess with a coach she works with via the Internet before heading off to the labs of Carnegie Mellon University to study renewable energy fuel cells as part of her doctoral program.

In the midst of her academic studies, Ms. Zenyuk also finds time to write about chess. She authors a column on tips for amateur players for chess.com.

All this training, studying and writing about chess have paid off. This week, Ms. Zenyuk, a Woman International Master according to chess's Elo ranking scale, will compete in the Super Bowl of chess matches: the U.S. Women's Chess Championship.

This tournament, running Saturday through Oct. 13 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, brings the U.S. Chess Federation's top 10 women players together. Ms. Zenyuk ranks eighth, and this is her fifth time competing in the national championships.

This is also the first time in recent years the U.S. Women's Chess Championship won't be held in conjunction with the U.S. Chess Championship, a co-ed event, said Tony Rich, executive director of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.

"This event deserves its own spotlight," he said of what traditionally has been a male-dominated sport.

Indeed, Ms. Zenyuk is among the growing number of females competing in chess. Since 1999, the percentage of 21-year-old women members of the U.S. Chess Federation has grown from 1.6 to 8.3 of total enrollment this year. Younger children also have seen an increase: Among 5-year-olds, the number of female members has grown from 18.3 percent in 1999 to 30.8 percent this year.

Seven players in the women's tournament are younger than 28, with the youngest 18, according to the federation. This year's competition also offers the largest prize fund in the history of U.S. Women's Chess -- $64,000, with $15,000 going to the winner.

With all this talent in one place, Ms. Zenyuk expects competition will be fierce. Chess matches at this tournament usually last from three to six hours, she said.

"What is amazing about this field is that [the players] are all very competitive," Mr. Rich said. "A lot of them are at the top of their game."

But for Ms. Zenyuk, the days of stress and intense competition are worth it.

This competition "is very prestigious," she said. "It opens doors for international events."

Ms. Zenyuk didn't arrive at this competitive rank overnight. What is now a passion started out as what she describes as just "a fun experience with family."

As a little girl growing up in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, she got her first taste of chess from her grandfather, who taught her the game's basics by the time she was 5.

At age 7, Ms. Zenyuk got the opportunity to boost her already budding chess skills when her mother started taking her to the chess club at the after-school program where she worked.

When she began attending club meetings, Ms. Zenyuk said, she remembers people at the chess club telling her mother, "This girl is good! Bring her, bring her to chess!"

"It is a wonder I learned anything at chess club because there were so many children running around and making noise," Ms. Zenyuk recalled.

But she did learn, and as a result, she started participating in regional and national chess competitions.

"I loved chess because it gave me the opportunity to travel," she said.

While women's presence in chess may be growing, very few rank in the top 100 chess players, Ms. Zenyuk said.

But none of this intimidated her; she loved competing against, and often beating, the boys she played when she was 7 and 8.

By age 9, family hardships had led to a hiatus in Ms. Zenyuk's young chess career. After her father died, she lived with her aunt in Chernivci, Ukraine, while her mother moved to the United States to make money to support her and her brother.

Because her mother was her biggest motivation to play chess when she was young, Ms. Zenyuk lost her drive to compete when she moved away.

This desire returned when she was 14 and a chess coach visited her school in search of a girl who knew how to play the game.

This time, she said, "I was the pure motivation. I wanted to play. I really wanted to play. It was my goal to be really good in chess."

At 15, Ms. Zenyuk reunited with her mother in America -- a country where her Ukrainian friends said no one knew how to play chess and she would skyrocket to the top.

After losing her first four matches in the United States, Ms. Zenyuk said she remembers saying, "Who told me that in America they don't know how to play chess?"

Undaunted, she kept at it.

"She's worked very, very hard at chess," said Josh Friedel, a longtime friend of Ms. Zenyuk's, who holds the Elo scale's top rank of Grand Master. "She doesn't always have the time for chess, but she does it anyway."

In the past five years, Mr. Friedel said her moves for opening a chess match have improved, and she appears more confident when playing the sport's top competitors.

"She's pretty aggressive. She definitely likes to go for the kill," he said.

If a win at the U.S. Women's Chess Championship still eludes Ms. Zenyuk, she knows there's always next year. She's already qualified for the 2010 tournament.

Doug Oster writes a blog, "Growing With Doug," exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.