Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport Page 19
Disclaiming his interview as “humorously sexist” is typical of Frederic Friedel, who knows that the way ChessBase presents women is over the top and leaves the site open to criticism. Therefore, the presentations are done in such a light-hearted way that any critics are likely to be called “Feminazis”—moral crusaders out to win an argument, while stunting the development of chess.
As ChessBase became more popular, more readers mailed in complaints to the site, which Frederic published, along with his responses. One reader wrote, “I’m just tired of seeing ChessBase objectifying female chessplayers. I don’t think that is the best way to make chess more popular or for that matter to attract more women to this male-dominated sport.” In response to the criticism, Frederic asked a litany of questions, “You really want us to become one of the boring run-of-the-mill sites that the world ignores? You really want chess to stay permanently out of the mainstream? Restricted to studious people with no interest in the many non-chess aspects of human life?”
Frederic thought sexy news items would actually increase female interest in the game, since “it eliminates the century-old cliché that chess is a game played by boring old fogies and women’s chess by elderly matrons. They see that perfectly normal—in fact, pretty—girls participate in the game.” He continues, “In every area of human life and entertainment the media celebrates beautiful women,” but that can depress adolescent girls, whose self-esteems dip when they read fashion magazines.
Irina Krush and Jennifer Shahade, Viewing Room Gallery, New York, 2003. (Photo by Paul Truong.)
I think that chess can do better than imitate the worst aspects of mainstream culture. There are ways to show that chessplayers can be hip and attractive without stooping to bikini shots and measurements. In conversation with Friedel, I expressed my disapproval with some of the content of his site. He attacked me: “Aren’t you interested in promoting chess?” and then challenged me: “I thought that you would understand chess needs promoting, with all the wigs you wear.” Friedel was referring to a match I played with Irina Krush in the Viewing Room art gallery (also covered on ChessBase), in which we wore white and black outfits, from our shoes to pageboy wigs. I considered the event both a chess match and a performance. The atmosphere was festive. There were a dozen brightly colored abstract paintings on the walls. Spectators from art and chess circles sipped wine, ate cookies, and mingled as Irina and I played.
The two-game match was competitive despite the artistic focus of the event. Irina won the first game convincingly, while I fought back from a losing position in the second, tying the match. Usually when non-chessplayers come to tournaments, they are struck by the oddness of two people sitting down, staring at the chessboard for hours on end. I wanted our event to highlight that strangeness. Two young girls all dressed up, staring at a chessboard instead of the camera.
It’s not all black and white, as Grandmaster Susan Polgar points out: “We all have different limits as to how far it is acceptable to promote chess through feminine beauty.” Promoting young and attractive women chessplayers is not in itself objectionable. After all, much of Garry Kasparov’s fame in the mainstream press is because of his confident swagger, good looks, and luminous energy. However, there is a line with him and other male players that one dares not cross. Journalists and fans don’t go around commenting on the size of Kasparov’s cock. In the chess world, the sexuality of the top male players is private and implied, while discussion of a woman’s sexuality is open to all.
10
Checkmate Around the World
Some people call me ‘bitch’ for playing with boys all the time. But it’s the only way I can get proper training; so they can call me names until they get tired—they always do.
— Linda Nangwale from Zambia
I am in Budapest, Hungary, losing game after game in the August 2003 edition of the monthly “First Saturday” tournaments. I came in the hopes of earning my third norm toward the international master title. My living conditions are more suitable to socializing than competing against seasoned grandmasters. I am staying in a dingy hostel with college students on their summer breaks and Japanese teenagers on whirlwind tours of Europe. All-night revelers awaken me at all hours. I decide that since I can’t sleep, I might as well join the fun.
I’ve become friends with a waiter in a nearby restaurant called Noa, which serves fancy salads and sandwiches to well-heeled tourists and stylish Europeans. In Hungary, chess is popular and the best players are national heroes, so when my waiter, Arpi, started talking with me, I mentioned that I was here for a chess tournament, and also to conduct some interviews. Arpi immediately began to gossip about the two top players in Hungary, Judit Polgar and Peter Leko. Arpi is tall and blond and has movie-star good looks. I can’t help but think that this wild and charismatic twenty-four-year-old would be successful—even famous—if he lived in more prosperous circumstances. In Budapest he seems exhausted from working double shifts and he expresses his disquiet by self-destructing. When we go out, he tends to order a shot of tequila, a beer, and a double espresso. In between gulps of this fatal combination he puffs one cigarette after another. Arpi yearns to live in North America. He seems jaded by the sentiment that his beloved Budapest is irreparably corrupt. While waiting tables at a break-neck pace, he points out some muscled, tattooed men, who are sipping beers at a nearby table. Arpi whispers, “They are part of the mafia that protects this place—they never pay for anything.”
In Hungary, corruption is also evident in the top tiers of chess, since resources are so limited. It is rumored that unscrupulous and desperate professionals can sometimes buy the coveted final IM and GM norms, which will secure invitations and respect for them. Opponents with nothing special to gain from a win are sometimes willing to accept a fee to lose on purpose. When some of my American chess friends heard I was going to Budapest, one advised me not to play in the tournament because of its poor reputation, while another joked: “Make sure to bring enough money to buy your last IM norm.”
When in Budapest, I never once encountered anyone being offered the opportunity to buy norms and suspect that it must have been the crooked practices of just a few chessplayers that gave rise to the myth that Budapest is a “norm factory.”
Several chessplayers from Iceland, the United States, and Russia told me stories of another kind of Hungarian swindle. An Icelandic master was drunk at a bar when a beautiful Hungarian girl asked if he would buy her some champagne. He obliged. Thirty minutes later, he was shocked to find that the bill came to $500. When he explained that he didn’t have the cash on hand, a few friendly members of the mafia escorted him to an ATM machine. An American chessplayer, who had fallen for a similar con, tried calling the police. They laughed and told him, “There is nothing to be done.” Arpi just shook his head knowingly when I told him about the refusal of the police to intervene. “To get any kind of justice here,” he said, “you have to go back to the mafia.” It is hard for Arpi to imagine that anyone would choose to live in Budapest. He says derisively of the post-Cold War influx of Asian immigrants: “Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants who couldn’t get into America or Western Europe come here.”
Budapest is the center of the chess universe, a prime destination for ambitious young players. It is close to major tournaments in the Czech Republic and Germany and not too far from Russia, Holland, and Spain. Every month, world-class tournaments are held on the second floor of a non-descript building on Budapest’s antique row, where the Budapest Chess Club is housed. Players from five continents regularly come to the spacious club with big windows and sturdy furniture to chase their final grandmaster and international master norms. For Vietnamese Hoang Trang Tranh (Trang is the given name), the tenth-rated woman player in the world and former Asian champion (2000), Budapest is an ideal place to live. Hoang Trang earned two grandmaster norms in First Saturday tournaments in 1999 and 2000, and also reached a rating near 2500, the minimum requirement for the GM title. She expected the GM title to f
ollow quickly. But in the past couple of years, her rating has dropped and the final norm has proved elusive. Now that her results are improving again, Hoang Trang feels that she is coming out of her slump.
Hoang Trang. (Photo by Arvind Aaron.)
Trang and I meet at Europa, a café on a bustling street in Budapest. Trang is a petite, upbeat twenty-three-year-old, who speaks in a soft voice. Wearing small glasses, she arrives dressed in a trendy jean jacket and maroon dress decorated with printed elephants, which her mother brought from Thailand. She cannot devote much time to shopping since she spends four to six hours a day studying chess, and another few hours on the administration of her family’s two businesses, in chess training and trade. “My mother works in commerce between Vietnam and Hungary, and she always knows how to pick good clothes for me.”
Europa is an apt, if somewhat forced, name for this posh Hungarian café. Hungary was not yet fully European. (On May 1, 2004, Hungary was accepted into the European Union, with partial privileges to start.) But the international crowd, rich pastries, and plush surroundings are decidedly post-communist. From a sumptuous selection, Trang selects a slice of cake with raspberries along with peach tea. I am on my third cup of coffee of the day, at which Trang marvels: “Coffee has always been repellent to me, though I wish I liked it.”
Hoang Trang is reflective about the differences between us. About fifteen minutes after settling down across a white marble table from each other, Hoang Trang confesses that she is bewildered by my note-taking. Apparently, I had not made my intentions completely clear. I felt slightly guilty that she did not understand I was eager to grill her on her life and opinions. She thought I just wanted to hang out. Trang explained that I look like I go out a lot, shop a lot, lounge in coffee shops, lifestyle choices that are special treats for her: “Usually I am too serious to meet up casually with friends, but my boyfriend urged me to come meet you. He said, ‘Hang out with the American girl! Enjoy yourself!’”
Recently, Hoang Trang met her first serious boyfriend when doing administrative work for her parents. He is a Vietnamese foreign-exchange student in architecture, who, according to Trang, identifies himself as an artist: “He is not as serious as I am. He only applies himself when he’s really interested, in which case he will spend all day and night working. I, on the other hand, study chess every day, whether or not I feel inspired. He does what he wants to do, and I do what I need to do.” To Trang, being Vietnamese is as important to her identity as being a chessplayer. “I need a boyfriend who is Vietnamese more than a chessplayer, because in any relationship, problems will arise. Being from the same culture makes them easier to overcome.”
The government supports chess in Vietnam. Trang describes a typical schedule for Vietnamese chess school as grueling. The morning begins at 6:00 a.m. with two hours of running, followed by eight hours of chess with a break for lunch. Trang thinks the system sometimes puts too much pressure on players, which can be detrimental to results. Her father, also her main coach, is more relaxed. “My father understands that a chessplayer who is sitting down to play obviously wants to win.”
Trang’s father, Hoang Minh Chuong, emphasizes the psychological aspects of the game. For a while, Trang experienced some difficulties playing against women. “I realized at some point that my chess was suffering because when I played against male players I would work very hard, but against women players, even though I thought I was playing my best, deep down inside I thought that I should beat them pretty easily because I played so well against men. My father told me then that I have to add 100 points to a woman’s rating in my mind when I play. I did this, and the problem was solved. Now I automatically respect women as serious, worthy opponents.”
Haong Trang’s career goals are as focused as her lifestyle. In addition to earning her final norm for the grandmaster title, Hoang Trang strives for the ultimate women’s crown: “A player of my level obviously dreams of being world champion. Without such high ambitions, I would not be where I am now.” Though Hoang Trang has spent equal time in Budapest and Vietnam since she was eight years old, she has never seriously considered representing Hungary in international competitions: “Hoang Thang Trang of Hungary just doesn’t sound right.”
Trang doesn’t think there is anything particularly Vietnamese about her style. “I don’t play as an Asian, or Vietnamese, or as a woman. I have my own personal style.” However, Trang describes her approach to chess as professional, and is baffled by the tendency of some Western players to drink and party after games: “Asian players don’t go out after the games. We stay at our hotel rooms, prepare for the games, and play. We take it more seriously, probably because of the government helping us.” The support of a government is similar to family support. Either way, material conditions are satisfied and training is arranged. The danger is that all these resources can generate enormous pressure to win, making players nervous, or causing them to burn out.
In Vietnam, Hoang Trang is widely known. She has been elected one of the top ten sportspeople of the year six times. In 1998, when she became the Girls’ World Champion, she was chosen as second sportsperson of the year, just behind a champion in wushu, a Chinese martial art. In 2000, when she won the Asian Women’s Championship, she was third place. The population of Vietnam is approximately eighty-one million. Whenever she returns home, customs officials stop her at the airport to inquire about her tournament schedule. She enjoys the recognition, but she assures me, “I don’t play chess with the goal of being famous.”
Hoang Trang is the most successful Vietnamese woman chessplayer. Living in centralized Hungary allows Hoang to compete with players from all over the world, but still enjoy the disciplined support of her father, and the recognition from her home country. Hoang Trang plays chess not just for herself, but also for Vietnam. She thrives on the pressure. Beneath her soft voice, small frame, and polite manners is a character strong enough to withstand the demands to achieve from her country, her family, and from herself. “When people around the world hear about Vietnam, they hear about war or strife. It makes me proud to represent my country in a positive way.”
In Ecuador, recognition for Martha Fierro reached an unprecedented height. For three years in the late 1990s, her likeness, appearing in an advertisement for margarine, was plastered on buses all over the capital city, Quito. Ecuador is a small country on the west coast of South America, but it has the strongest women’s team on the continent and Martha is the leader of that team.
Although Martha grew up in Ecuador, with Spanish as her first language, she was born in Rhode Island, which allowed her automatic entry into the U.S. and the opportunity to apply for citizenship. But Martha has never considered switching her allegiance. “I have in Ecuador what I would never get in the United States: the love of the people.”
Martha has sparkling eyes and a warm smile. Charm seems to flow from her singsong voice and graceful step. At tournaments she is always ready to laugh and talk with anyone from a grandmaster to a young novice. When I was just thirteen years old, I played in a tournament in Washington, D.C., that Martha also attended. I admired Martha straight away. At the time I was just starting to take chess seriously and was competing in one of the lower boards of the tournament. I was excited when Martha, a master, came from the top boards to check out my games. Between rounds, she introduced herself to me and suggested improvements for my game. She told me stories about her international success and gossiped about the best players in the world. Martha couldn’t get enough of the game. After rounds, she could usually be found playing casual blitz games with friends. She would tease her male opponents relentlessly. “Oh no, you’re going to lose to a girl! Has that ever happened to you before?” or announce, “Time to attack!” before pounding down an aggressive move.
Martha Fierro. (Photo by Jennifer Shahade.)
Martha did not always love chess so much. When she learned the moves from her mother as a thirteen-year-old, she was not so enthusiastic. She liked to travel, and enj
oyed the attention she got as one of just a few female players. After playing in more tournaments, she says, “I began to become addicted to the game itself. I would play every day from six p.m. until one a.m. All I wanted was to win the Ecuadorian National Women’s Championship.” She reached that goal in 1992, and went on to win the national title every year for the next decade. Now Martha “cannot imagine a life without chess. I would probably not have traveled to a tenth of the places I’ve been. Most likely, I would have a common life.”
In 1994 Martha began to represent Ecuador for the Pan-American Championships in which players from all over North, Central, and South America participate. She won the event and repeated the feat for the next four years. By the fifth time, Martha was becoming blasé about winning the title. This feeling was in direct contrast with that of her Ecuadorian fans, who hailed her as a heroine. The media hounded her for interviews, and fans clamored for autographs. “For me it did not seem hard to win the Pan-American Championship. Though I was happy to give autographs to my fans in Ecuador, I felt guilty. Maybe if I won the world championship I would feel as though I deserved all the attention.”
Martha was more proud of her international accomplishments. She won a silver medal for her individual performance at the 1996 Olympiad and became a WGM, one of only three women in South America to hold the title. Martha was invited to an elegant banquet in her hometown of Guayaquil, a port city, the second most populous in Ecuador after capital, Quito. The Ecuadorian political and sporting elite was all there to determine the best sportspeople of the 1997. Martha was delighted just to be invited, but was stunned when she was called to the stage to receive the award as number-one sportsperson of the year, ahead of Jefferson Perez, the 1996 Olympic gold-medal winner in race-walking. Martha recalls, “That evening was one of the highlights of my life. I was so happy when I went up to the podium, I could barely remember the names of the people I had to thank.”