Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport Page 14
Unlike Xie Jun, whose ascent to World Champion was swift, Zhu suffered a number of setbacks on her way to the top. At the 2000 World Championship, held in New Delhi, India, she failed to survive the first round of the knockout. She was upset by American teenager Irina Krush, who, after drawing the first game, dispatched Zhu in an unbalanced game that could have gone either way. “I was so excited after this game,” Irina told me “that I threw up afterward.” Early in the following year Zhu Chen was awarded the grandmaster title, becoming the eighth woman to be so honored, and the second Asian woman.
Zhu Chen and Irina Krush. (Photo by Jennifer Shahade.)
A year later Zhu Chen had another chance to capture the ultimate title at the 2001 World Women’s Championship. She arrived in frigid Moscow with high hopes for the tournament that was to be held in a majestic hall in the Kremlin. Zhu was the highest-rated Chinese woman there, since Xie Jun chose not to defend her title for reasons she did not reveal. I had also qualified and was paired against a young Russian, Alexandra Kosteniuk, in the first round. I lost the match, 0-2. My sole consolation after this disappointing loss was in watching Alexandra handily dispose of all her opponents that followed me. Among Alexandra’s victims were Almira Skripchenko, the reigning European champion; Hoang Trang, an international master from Vietnam; and Xu Yuhua, another of the new wave of Chinese stars.
Meanwhile, Chen was tearing through her half of the field, defeating two Georgians in back-to-back rounds—first the young Nino Khursitdze and then the legendary Maya Chiburdanidze.
The final match between Kosteniuk and Zhu was dramatic and entertaining. Seventeen-year-old Kosteniuk, a native Muscovite and crowd favorite, has been featured in dozens of fashion magazines, including Vogue. Tagged “the Anna Kournikova of chess,” Alexandra has an image similar to that of the famous tennis star. Her picture was in photo galleries all over the Internet. The two striking young women exchanged blows while the chess world followed the event in Moscow and on the Internet. To the satisfaction of chess fans there were no short draws that so often detract from the entertainment value of world championship matches. For the first eight games the women exchanged victories—first one, then the other—until Chen finally broke through with consecutive wins. The title was hers. Seventeen years after Zhu Chen first learned to play chess, her dream of ultimate glory was realized. Another Chinese woman was champion of the world.
I had occasion to speak with Chen in the summer of 2002, at the closing ceremony of a friendly match between the American and Chinese teams in Shanghai. Held in a ballroom on the top floor of our luxury hotel, we had a spectacular view of Shanghai’s recently developed Pudong skyline, with buildings designed in futuristic shapes such as rockets and cylinders. We were feasting on an eight-course meal of crispy duck, shark-fin soup, and peeled shrimp. As is the custom in high-end dining in China, no rice was served so that diners have room for the rich meats and sauces. As I was musing upon this, Zhu Chen commented, “Sometimes you have to wonder why we are eating this fabulous meal while other people are starving. I hope to use my position as Women’s World Champion to help less fortunate people in my country and around the world.” As our conversation continued, Chen frequently expressed her devotion to helping the less-fortunate and bridging cultures through her power as a champion. Zhu Chen also showed her playful side when she sang a lively rendition of “Que Sera, Sera” to the delight of her proud mother, who was sitting with us. Chen belted out the lyric: “My mother told me, Que Sera, Sera whatever will be, will be, the future’s not mine to see…” Chen’s own mother could hardly have seen that her daughter’s future would be as the Women’s World Champion of chess.
Thoughtful and playful, Zhu is at once controlled and wildly impulsive. She has demonstrated how disciplined she can be by enduring the rigors of the Chinese chess school. Her chess control contrasts with her lifestyle, in which she frequently defies convention. Once she shaved off all her hair. In FIDE’s official yearbook, the photos of the women’s world champions throughout history include a black-and-white shot of a bald Zhu. An outraged woman remarked to me, “She looks like a concentration-camp victim!” I disagreed with this perception. Many women shave their heads to make a statement, including Indian feminist Adhuriti Roy, writer of the best-selling novel God of Small Things.She shaved her head after being elected one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” because she didn’t want to be seen as “some pretty girl who wrote a book.”5 American chess coach and expert Elizabeth Vicary has shaved her head twice. The first time she was a senior at Columbia University, and was shocked at how differently people addressed and treated her. “Before people would listen to me just because I was pretty—after shaving my head, I learned to be a better conversationalist.” Roy and Vicary both chose to abandon the conventional standards of feminine beauty, even though they would benefit from these standards. Wondering about Zhu’s motives for her impulsive act, I asked if she were taking some kind of feminist stand, but she assured me that she “wasn’t trying to make any statement” and “just got bored of the same haircut.” A little later, after thinking it over silently, she told me, “Shaving off all my hair is an expression of my individuality, and you can also see this in my chess career.”
Zhu Chen’s patriotism sometimes conflicts with her free-spirited nature. Zhu Chen believes in the future of chess in China: “Chess history always follows the great nations. China is destined to become the next great chess dynasty.” However, she chose to marry a grandmaster from Qatar, Mohamad Al-Modiahki, whom she first met at an Asian youth tournament in Malaysia in 1994. Although she and Al-Modiahki shared no common language, according to Chen, they were able to communicate over the chessboard. “There are many combinations with the King and Queen that are quite beautiful.”6 Since then, Zhu Chen has gained a good command of English, a language in which Al-Modiahki is also fluent. Chen’s mother did not approve of the marriage and tried to convince her daughter to find a nice Chinese man, but her efforts were in vain. “Nothing,” said Chen, “could have stopped our marriage.” Like Zhu’s mother, Al-Modiahki’s parents also believed that the many cultural, racial, and geographical differences were insurmountable, and Zhu refers to the familial disapproval as a “cold war.” There were certainly no financial restrictions to stop their relationship. Like many citizens of Qatar, Al-Modiahki is heir to a great oil fortune.
Zhu’s relationship with Al-Modiahki is featured prominently in her first book, published in May 2003, an autobiography, the title of which translates, Lay [the] Piece Without Regrets: Waits and Dreams of a Mermaid.7 Zhu Chen is as optimistic about love as she is about chess. “Chess is a good way to bridge different cultures in a peaceful way, and my relationship with Modhaki is a great example of this. Love can defeat any resistance.”
As impressive as the individual personal triumphs of Zhu Chen and Xie Jun were, even more striking was the proliferation of Chinese women chessplayers, many of whom were playing at the level of international masters or even grandmasters. By the late 1980s their performances in the Olympiads were already beginning to attract worldwide attention.
In the 1988 Olympiad in Thessaloniki, it was the Polgars and the Soviets who grabbed all the headlines. Quietly, though, the Chinese women were gaining ground, finishing a respectable fourth. Two years later in Novi Sad they had climbed to third, bringing the first Olympic chess medal home to China.
The 1992 Olympiad in Manila was held just after the break up of the Soviet Union. For the first time the fourteen newly created republics could field their own teams. World-class players from Georgia and Ukraine and Russia, who had been left out of the powerful Soviet teams, could now participate. As a result, the tournament fielded more top-flight teams than ever, despite the absence of the Polgars. The Chinese team got off to an excellent start, in first place after ten rounds. However, the team faltered in the closing rounds, having to settle for the bronze medal once again. Hoping for gold or silver, a disappointed Xie Jun conso
led herself by remembering that this was probably the strongest field ever assembled for an Olympiad. “Viewed in that light,” she concluded, “bronze was not bad at all.” In the 1996 Olympiad in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, China came ever so close, narrowly missing the gold medal, which went to Georgia.
In 1998, the Olympiad was held in Russia. With great performances by Xie on first-board and Zhu on second, China finally won gold ahead of Georgia (silver) and Russia (bronze). In the 2000 Istanbul Olympiad, they easily won again, clinching first place before the last two rounds were even played. The stars of the Istanbul team were Xie Jun, who held down board one, and Zhu Chen, who posted a performance rating of 2700, gaining the top individual performance of the women’s Olympiad. As the twenty-first century arrived, the dominance of China’s women’s team was clearly established.
Xu Yuhua. (Photo by Jennifer Shahade.)
In the 2002 Bled Olympiad in Slovenia, Xie Jun, who had just had a baby, did not participate. Because of China’s deep and strong women’s chess tradition, a pool of seven Chinese women who played at or above the international master level (around 2400 Elo) was available to provide Xie’s replacement. The Chinese team was still top-seed. If the size of the women’s teams were increased to five or six players, the Chinese women’s team would be an even bigger favorite. Nevertheless, without the experienced Jun on the Bled team, the road to a “three-peat” was not going to be easy The Russian, Georgian, and Polish teams all presented serious challenges to the Chinese. Even the United States, ranked eleventh going into the tournament, delivered a shocking blow to the Chinese squad. It was round five, and our usually optimistic coach, Ilya Gurevich, having studied our positions on the board after the first two hours, was convinced that we were destined to lose the match, 0-3. On first board, Irina Krush was playing against Xu Yuhua, a woman in her mid-twenties. Yuhua is free-spirited, which once got her temporarily kicked off the Chinese team, and stylish, wearing clothes such as a red blouse with the word “Only” stitched in silver sequins. Yuhua had earned her share of the limelight by twice winning the prestigious World Women’s Cup championships. In each victory, she won $16,000, prevailing over her compatriots as well as the best European women players. In her game against Irina, Yuhua chose a tame but solid system, leaving Irina few chances for counterplay. It looked as though Yuhua would slowly squeeze her way to a victory. Then the nearly unthinkable happened. Yuhua gave up an exchange for free, trading her Rook for a Bishop with no compensation, an error that most coffee-shop players would be stunned to commit. A few moves later, Xu resigned.
Meanwhile on board two, I was mounting an attack against Wang Pin that she could thwart with her best play. The correct move for Wang was to neglect her own development and play a rash-looking Queen move. To my delight, she played the incorrect move, allowing my attack to crash through.
Both Wang Pin and Xu Yuhua had blundered, allowing us to win the match 2-1, to the surprise of everyone in attendance. In spite of this stumble, the Chinese women were once again triumphant, winning their third consecutive Olympic gold.
Our small victory in Bled provided sweet revenge for what had happened to us earlier in the summer of 2002, a few months before the Olympiad. We’d been invited to Shanghai to play in a friendly summit match between the men’s and women’s Chinese teams. Irina Krush, Elena Donaldson, and I represented the American women.
Our Chinese hosts could not have been more hospitable. We stayed in a beautiful hotel, were treated to lavish banquets and parties, and ate dumplings on a cruise down the Yangtze River. The generosity of the Chinese Federation appeared to be boundless—that is until the competition was underway and they posted the wrong pairings. The United States players thought they were playing different opponents. As a result, members of our team were studying the wrong games for their upcoming matches, putting us at a serious disadvantage. The visiting U.S. officials were flexible and cooperative in their efforts to set things right, but the Chinese wouldn’t budge until they finally had no choice but to admit their error. One of the officials had been especially friendly and cheerful until then, graciously insisting that we call her Abigail, because her Chinese name might be too difficult to pronounce. I can still see the anger on her no-longer-smiling face as she glared at the e-mail that forced her to admit that the U.S. team had been misled.
The chess did not go as hoped for the American women. Xie Jun played with the Chinese men, so we would not have to face her. But we did not fare well against the others. I lost both of my games with Wang Pin, and was promptly benched. Elena Donaldson managed one draw and half a point from her two games against Wang Pin. Irina Krush scored 1 out of 4 against Zhu Chen. This gave the women a grand total of 1.5 points to the 6.5 points for our opponents.
The American men did better, but once again a Chinese woman undid us. Xie Jun scored a crucial win against Grandmaster Alexander Shabalov in the last round. She played the most aggressive defense against 1.d4, the King’s Indian. Shabalov achieved a good position, but committed an error, which Xie Jun pounced on, going on to sacrifice all her pieces while stripping his King of all defenses. This victory clinched the match for the Chinese. Joking about Xie Jun’s participation in the match, one player complained, “It’s not fair. Two players against one!” Xie Jun, at the time, was eight months pregnant.
The skills of Chinese women chessplayers are mystifying to the rest of the world. “What are they doing to those girls?” asked Woman International Master Anna Hahn. “Everything about them is different,” notes another top female player, “from the way they shake hands to the tiger balm.” Before games, Xu Yuhua and Wang Pin like to rub tiger balm on their temples, releasing an intense odor. Before one of our games I asked Wang Pin for a dip. She laughed, then handed over the container of transparent balm.
Westerners are often unaccustomed to or even intimidated by what they view as exotic Eastern culture. Likewise, some Easterners feel the same about Westerners. In her book, Xie Jun reveals how foreign her first Western opponent, Jorg Hickl, an international master from Germany, appeared to her. “I felt very nervous…there he sat, a foreigner with a different coloring of the eyes and hair, with a high nose of a type I had rarely seen before. Maybe I was the first Asian girl he had ever played.” After the game, which finished in an exciting draw, Xie really wanted to discuss the game with Jorg, but they had no language in common. Xie was determined to learn English, so that she could communicate with her opponents. It is unfortunate that verbal communication between Chinese and Western teams is often limited, but at least there is chess to help transcend language barriers. Once at the 1999 World Youth Championship in Yerevan, Armenia, I played against a Chinese girl, Kuang Yinghui. Our game, which ended in a draw, was interesting and long, lasting for six hours. Although we couldn’t talk to each other, our communication over the chessboard connected us without words. We walked home together amidst tanks on the dark boulevards of Yerevan on that day in autumn, the season of Armenia’s independence day. After a few minutes Yinghui grabbed my arm and began to sing in Chinese. We skipped together arm-in-arm the whole way back to our hotel.
There is a controversy about whether the difference between the cultures of East and West extends to styles of playing chess. Many trainers and players have insisted that “the Chinese play more like computers.” I myself used to be under the vague impression that Chinese players blundered less frequently than most, that is, until Bled, when both Wang Pin and Xu Yuhua made huge errors that turned winning positions into losses. One trainer even told me that the Chinese school won’t reach the level of the Russian school because “despite having the same intense training and fighting spirit, they lack creativity.” Such spurious claims, in my opinion, are rooted in the same kind of thinking that assumes that “all Asians are good at math.” Some Westerners even claim that Asians look so much alike to them that it is difficult to recognize individuals. One American grandmaster joked that when playing against a Chinese opponent, he could actually be play
ing against several opponents—his opponent could get up from the table every few moves and switch with another teammate.
“I would never be able to notice!”
The idea that the Chinese fight hard and long without blundering while Western players fill their games with blunders and brilliancies appear’s to be based on little more than prejudice and anecdotal evidence. I decided to undertake a thorough study of the games of Chinese women to see if any playing-style patterns would emerge. After examining dozens of games involving Chinese women, it became clear to me that their styles varied widely. Xu Yuhua plays deep positional chess. Zhu Chen has a minimalist style, is a tough fighter, and often pulls out wins in even positions. Xie Jun is an aggressive tactician and the most well-rounded—and, ultimately, the strongest Chinese woman player. I also compared the games of the two teenage stars of the 2002 Bled Olympiad, one from China, the other, Russia. With an amazing score of 10/11, seventeen-year-old Zhao Xue wore a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and a sly smile to her games. She ruthlessly posted point after point. “My only regret in my first Olympiad is losing one game.”8
Tatiana Konsitseva, a sixteen-year-old Russian, who wore her long, light-brown hair in a ponytail and played with a poker face, finished with a score of 10.5/12. These fantastic results earned Xue and Tatiana the gold and silver medals for the best performance ratings of the entire Olympiad. In looking at their games I noticed that one of the women played with a fierce attitude and a fearless attacking style, crushing her opponents. In an equal position she lost a drawn position with a rash exchange sacrifice. The other player’s games had fewer fireworks, but showed off her fighting spirit by often picking up points when her opponents faltered in equal positions. Throughout the tournament, she made nary a blunder. The blunder-free games were those of Kosintseva. The more creative games were Xue Zhao’s. In this case, the style of play could not be predicted from the national origin of the player.