Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport Read online

  My next game against Irina was at the 1998 U.S. Women’s Championship, where Irina and I were among the favorites. We both won our first two games, and were to play in round three. I was nervous. I knew this game would likely decide the tournament winner. Irina was well prepared, choosing a variation I had never seen before. Once again, she attacked me with verve. This time she was successful, sacrificing a Bishop to break open my King’s protection. I was forced to resign on move twenty-three. This was the beginning of a brilliant tournament streak for the fourteen-year-old Irina. She won eight games, drawing one and losing none. Anna Hahn and I, who were the second- and third-place finishers, went shopping together afterwards, a slim consolation for me. For months, I had been training daily for the event, and was dreaming of winning. Anna must have felt the same way:

  “I’m happy at least,” she said, “that I scored the one draw against her.” After such an amazing result, I imagined that Irina would be flooded with interview requests, invitations to strong tournaments, as well as lucrative sponsorships. I was jealous and worried that everyone would write off my own potential. I realized that I would have to work harder in order to get attention as a female chessplayer in America.

  Irina Krush. (Photo by Jennifer Shahade.)

  Irina and I first became friends as roommates in a junior competition in 1999 in Armenia, where we stayed up late, giving each other romantic as well as chess advice. However, I didn’t consider her a close friend till 2002 in Bled, Slovenia, when we played together on the American Women’s Olympic team. Through the three weeks of intense chess matches and parties with players from all over the world, Irina and I supported each other in the mornings before the game, and gossiped at night. When we came back to New York, Irina posed for me in all pink, on my roof, for a photo series I was compiling. Later I enlarged and hung the photos of her and other friends and family members—including my mother, father, and brother—along with pink Christmas lights for a pink party at my place. For the occasion, my friend Mikey, a videogame programmer and expert chessplayer, spray-painted me a chess set with pale pink representing white and fuchsia representing black. Irina, who doesn’t like large crowds or noisy atmospheres, did not come. Irina and I do hang out regularly, usually one-on-one or with her boyfriend, Pascal, trading books and playing basketball at the courts in my neighborhood. While our friendship is still grounded in our competitive past, our relationship off the board has eclipsed our chess rivalry, and I root for Irina in every game except those she plays against me.

  In high school, I liked playing boys, and liked even more to score upset wins against experienced male players. On day trips to New York City, I would play, and usually win, against the macho men at Washington Square Park. I knew I would win most games, but they usually didn’t.

  A crowd would gather to watch me defeat the hustlers. They would often squirm, curse, or refuse to pay me. I was used to playing against men, had no female rivals in my school or in Philadelphia, and had never played in an all-women’s tournament.

  Then I was invited to be one of two female representatives in the World Youth Festival in Guarapuava, a small, landlocked town in southern Brazil. It was 1995 and I was about to turn fifteen.

  My father and brother accompanied me on this, my first international trip where teenagers from five continents were gathering to crown World Youth Champions: Girls’ Under 16; Girls’ Under 18; Boys’ Under 16; and Boys’ Under 18. Right away I understood that this trip was going to be about more than chess. My brother and I visited a local school, where the students crowded around us to get our addresses and to practice a few English phrases. They invited us to their gym class, where they outclassed us in soccer and we introduced them to full-court basketball. After the rounds, players went to the Frog, a disco where samba and salsa played all night. Till then, my experiences in dancing had been limited to awkward school parties and bar mitzvahs. After an initial few days of being shy, I began to open up and enthusiastically participated in the festivities. Much older, beautiful Brazilian men flirted with me—apparently they found my freckled skin and blue eyes exotic. One player joked to me, “Latin men love gringas.” I was very inexperienced at the time. In an elaborate matchmaking game on the dance floor I was paired with a Brazilian version of the model Fabio. I was too confused to understand that I was supposed to go over and dance with him, and ended up inadvertently ignoring his advance. For months afterward, my friends back home teased me for tastes I picked up in Brazil, such as collecting samba music and developing crushes on Latino boys.

  In spite of the good times, I was intensely nervous. I had never before competed in such a prestigious competition. Before the first match, I lay on my bed and read 200 Brilliant Endgames, filled with studies, brilliant positions not from real games, but composed from scratch to show off the artistic elements of chess. The aesthetic, often paradoxical, solutions inspired me and calmed my nerves. It became my pre-game routine for the tournament.

  In the first round, I won a complicated attacking game, then won the second game as well, against a girl from Estonia, a country I’d never heard of before then. My most memorable game was with Martha Fierro, a charming Ecuadorian master whom I had admired since we met two years before at a tournament in Washington, D.C. Facing Martha now in Brazil, I surprised myself with my own strength, sacrificing with confidence—first a pawn, later a Bishop, and finally a Rook in order to force checkmate. It was my best game to date and my first victory over a master. For the first time I saw how winning could be an end in itself.

  In the second half of the tournament, I faltered, losing several games in a row. It was hard for me to understand why because I wasn’t playing terribly: my opponents were just outplaying me as well as choosing openings that they thought would make me uncomfortable. Probably they had studied my games from the first half of the event. In one particularly frustrating game against the German participant, I lost without even realizing where I had gone wrong. The string of losses deflated my ego, which had ballooned after my great start.

  In the United States, many tournaments are held in hotel ballrooms, where the florescent lighting and frigid air-conditioning create a sterile atmosphere. The ratio of males to females at such events is usually about ten to one. Now I had something to compare with that—an exotic locale with interesting teenagers from all over the world, including excellent female competition. After that tournament my father predicted that I would become a master within a year. And I did.

  In retrospect, I can see that my time in Brazil was formative, deepening my passion both for chess and for living. Ever since, I have taken chess seriously and played in dozens of two-week tournaments in cities ranging from Istanbul, Budapest, Curaçao, and Honolulu to drab sites in the suburbs of Boston or Denver. The expenses for most international events are covered by the host city or country or the United States Federation, while many American tournaments are paid for by the players.

  The large majority of the tournaments in which I play include males and females in the same section. The few restricted to women I’ve found quite enjoyable. Anna Hahn, 2003 U.S. Women’s Champion, echoes my feelings: “I consider myself incredibly lucky to have gotten the opportunity to play in women’s tournaments.” In Anna’s case, playing in women’s events has little to do with winning prize money. After graduating with a degree in computer science from Penn University, Anna has moved to New York, where she has worked in lucrative jobs such as programming at Goldman Sachs and trading on Asian markets. Anna thinks that she would be a weaker player without having played in separate women’s events such as Olympiads or World Championships. “I don’t consider these experiences degrading or detrimental to my chess in the least,” she says. “You have to judge results based on the quality of your play and your performance. It doesn’t matter whether you are playing against women or men.”

  My experience training with women has generally been positive. In preparation for the 2004 Olympiad, Susan Polgar, Rusudan Goletiani, Anna Zatons
kih, Irina Krush, and I met eight times for week long training sessions. At one of these sessions, held in midtown Manhattan at the New York Athletic Club, we all raced to solve two-dozen deceptively simple-looking positions involving only a few pieces: Rooks, pawns, and Kings. We had only a few minutes to solve each, after which our trainer for the day, Michael Khodarkovsky, would set up a different problem and reset the clocks. The stress of wondering if I was getting the answers right heightened when I saw my teammate Anna quickly and confidently filling her paper with variations. As it turned out, I got a decent number right, though not as many as Anna.

  The Dream Team: Anna Zatonskih, Rusa Golentiani, Susan Polgar, Jennifer Shahade, and Irina Krush.

  Hungry after this intense mental workout, the team went out for Greek food, when Michael announced something so astonishing that I assumed it was a joke or an empty promise: the great champion Garry Kasparov (whom Michael had worked with in the past) had agreed to work with the women’s Olympic team starting with a session a few months later, in the summer of 2003. As it turned out, Michael was serious. It would be Garry’s first outing as a coach. Garry’s motivation is still not clear to me, though my best guess is that he wanted to help boost the stature of chess in America to a respectable level—like in Spain, Holland, or Russia—and thought that the Dream Team members were good candidates for instigating such a change.

  When I arrived in West Orange, New Jersey, a ritzy suburb of New York, it seemed surreal that I would be analyzing with Kasparov in a couple of hours. Excited anticipation mixed with nervous apprehension. Garry was known to make sexist comments when interviewed. Would he be condescending about the level of my play? Would I be offended by any of his sexist remarks? All of us, even Susan Polgar, were nervous. Garry entered the conference room, dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt—I had only before seen him in a suit. When he asked who was going to demonstrate her games first, I avoided eye contact with anyone who might latch onto a glance and cajole me to the front. It was Irina Krush who bravely stepped up to show him a game, an exciting Sicilian. Kasparov’s eyes lit up when the position became complicated, and rattled off variations at high speed. He slowed down whenever he felt we weren’t following—typical of his behavior at the training session, which was attentive and charming. “You see the position clearly many moves ahead,” was his compliment to Anna Zatonskih, adding,

  “I know many top male grandmasters who can’t do that.” The focus of the session was our games, and Garry seemed genuinely interested in our repertoires, especially our response to Queen pawn openings: “What is there to do against d4?” he asked.

  During breaks, we became acquainted with Garry Kasparov, who was perceptive in conversation. In one instance, some of the members at the table were making sexist, unfunny jokes about men with several wives. I have no poker face and was grimacing—Garry came to my defense: “I don’t think Jennifer likes that!” He noted that “women are starting to reach the highest level in chess, a reflection of their entrance in other fields.” When I asked Garry Kasparov his opinion of women’s tournaments, he thought they could actually accelerate the progress of women and thus increase the chance “to create ten Judit Polgars.” I asked Kasparov why his comments were so different from the often-sexist remarks I had read in the press. He claimed that journalists tend to distort what he says. It could also be that Kasparov is sensitive enough not to insult women at a women’s chess training session. Or he could have changed his mind, in view of the recent crop of young women talents, and his first-ever loss to Judit Polgar, which he simply described to me as “a loss to one of the strongest players in the world.”

  The ratings needed to become a grandmaster or an international master are about 200 points higher than those for the corresponding women’s titles. British author Cathy Forbes, an outspoken feminist who once held the title of master herself, objects violently to special titles, convinced that “in the titles ‘women’s grandmaster’ and ‘women’s world champion’ women is just a euphemism for ‘inferior.’”

  Supporters argue that special titles keep more women in the game. Tournament organizers can offer room, board, and pocket money for women GMs and IMs thus encouraging women to play. Some feel that since fewer women have a realistic chance of becoming traditional grandmasters, having the women’s title gives them a prestigious award to shoot for. This argument has been undermined in recent years because of the increasing number of women who are meeting the requirements for regular titles. There are now more than fifty women who are international masters or grandmasters and dozens more with one or two norms toward their full titles.

  Irina Krush, who became a regular international master at sixteen, finds gender-based titles insulting. She has no problem with separate women’s tournaments, but as for the WGM title—awarded to her without her knowledge—she told me, “I have no interest in this title.” Cathy Forbes, who is stridently against women’s titles, concedes that stripping proud recipients of their titles would be unfair, so she proposes, “Women grandmasters should take matters into their own hands, and revoke their titles.” So far, no volunteers have come forward.

  Though I only occasionally participate in women’s events, I have often been disappointed by my results in them. Since I was fifteen years old, I have dreamed of winning the U.S. Championship, where ten of the country’s top women meet in a round-robin tournament. In my first attempt, as a sixteen-year-old, I played well, tying for fourth place. Three times after that, in 1998 (third place), 1999 (second place), and 2000 (third place), I came within reach of the title. Each time I either choked or another player would start to win game after game, leaving me behind.

  In one game, played in the 2000 tournament, I played well in the opening (my favorite Dragon variation) and middlegame against National Master Olga Sagalchik. Transposing into a winning endgame, I realized that this win with black would put me back in the running for first place. I played quickly and confidently despite having more than a half hour to finish the game. Then my heart dropped. One of my rapidly played moves was an enormous error, allowing Olga to achieve a draw. I was inconsolable after this disaster. I tried commiserating with family and friends, but it only made me feel worse. Stronger than sadness was a feeling of incompetence—my brain felt like a machine doomed to malfunction at just the crucial moment. To ease the pain of such disappointments, I believe that accepting how painful it is to lose is the best solution. Sometimes, hanging out with non-chessplayers helps. Trying to deny the importance of the result by staring at the mirror and shouting that it’s just a game, or drinking a bottle of wine, just delays or even exacerbates the pain, which is inevitable for a serious chessplayer.

  In the summer of 2001, I was informed that the next U.S. Championship was to be held in Seattle. The prize fund had doubled, and for the first time men and women were to play in the same field. The top-scoring woman would win a large prize and the title of U.S. Women’s Champion. The new format had been designed by American Foundation for Chess, a non-profit organization based in Seattle. I was determined to train harder than ever for the tournament during my summer break from university. I had just moved to a new apartment in Brooklyn. I slept in a tiny room just wide enough for my bed. A huge backyard, a rarity in New York, compensated me for the lack of space. I studied chess intensively, often outside, working for at least four hours a day, and also got into good physical shape, playing basketball and lifting weights. I was feeling good and on top of my game. In August, I had a disappointing result. After playing well in a tournament in Boston, I blundered in a crucial last-round game. I decided to take a week off from training.

  My fall semester at NYU had just started when September 11 happened. I was devastated, but also compelled to examine my life in larger terms. I was questioning my devotion to chess, which had seemed much more important just a week before. A few days after 9/11, classes resumed and I began a challenging schedule, including courses in Spanish literature and journalism. I was further distracted by the pr
ocess of moving out of my miniscule apartment into a much larger space just two blocks away. The one-week hiatus in August turned into months of half-hearted attempts to reopen my chess books.

  Nevertheless, come 2002 I was in better spirits. I had just celebrated my twenty-first birthday (New Year’s Eve) in my new loft apartment in Brooklyn, my semester had ended, and I was able to refocus my energy on chess. I arrived in Seattle a day early to relax, explore, and look over some of my openings. I liked the vibe of Seattle, which reminded of my hometown, Philadelphia, but was less used to how new and spacious everything was. I had never seen such a clean city. A man dressed up enough for a business lunch asked me for a spare dollar. I soon found evidence of Seattle’s less-glossy side. Capitol Hill, a hip, commercial neighborhood, was filled with tattoo parlors and secondhand-clothing and music shops, in which I pined over a pricey red leather jacket, and bought This Is Hardcore, an album by a Brit-pop band, Pulp. The songs soon became some of my favorites; they are forever entwined with my experiences in Seattle.

  Before the first round, I had mixed feelings about the men and women’s championships being combined. I was excited about playing with the best men in the country, but wondered how the new format would affect my chances. Players ranked higher than I often intimidated me.

  In the first round I played against Gennady Sagalchik, a grandmaster and the husband of Olga, whom I had blundered against in the previous championship. I had spent the morning searching through the two million games in my computer database. First I looked at Gennady’s games (of which there were 250), and then I studied the opening positions that I thought I might get. I worked till thirty minutes before the game. Then I left my gleaming white Westin hotel room, which was slowly becoming littered with coffee cups and newspapers. I walked the mile to the tournament hall in the convention center, just adjacent to Seattle’s signature Space Needle. My preparation was successful, and I achieved a great position in the middlegame. At a critical moment, I made a mistake and gave away most of my advantage, but Gennady had become rattled, used up all his time, and lost. It was my first serious tournament victory over a GM.