NEW YORK (WABC) -- A little more than a year ago, Mariangel Vargas, left her native Colombia and with her family made a dangerous walk across Mexico, eventually coming to New York City.

Now, at the age of 11, she has transplanted and transformed herself into a very different person - a budding chess master - one of the best in the country for her age group.

Vargas says there is just something she just loves about chess.

"When I win," she says.

And Vargas wins a lot. She only started about a year ago, right after she and her family came here after a long and perilous journey from Colombia because gang members there threatened to kill her mother.

She spoke no English then - and still feels more comfortable talking in Spanish.

"I was scared. We walked from Mexico. I remember the plants we walked through were filled with thorns," Vargas says. She and her family now stay in a nearby hotel - just making it to school every day can be a struggle. She worries about the city moving her family out of the area and away from the school she loves.

Russ Makovsky runs a group called 'The Gift of Chess' and says many migrant children find a place for themselves in a game that has no language barrier - and now instead of being a migrant, she is a New Yorker.

Vargas is already ranked in the top 50 in the country for girls her age.

Fourteen months ago she couldn't name the pieces on a chess board.

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11-year-old migrant from Colombia transforms into chess prodigy - WABC-TV