Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport

by Jennifer Shahade

  Her new recognition resulted in sponsorship from the telephone company Bell South, which paid for her airline tickets and gave her a monthly stipend. A bank also sponsored her. With firm financial backing, Martha was able to travel around the world, playing in tournament after tournament.

  Martha has a close friendship with Antoaneta Stefanova, with whom she shares a jet-setting lifestyle. Martha manages to take her games seriously while flitting around the tournament hall, keeping track of where the party is each night. Martha finds that she can enjoy the nightlife more when she is abroad than in Ecuador, where she is too likely to be recognized, even in the darkest discotheques. “And then they ask me: ‘Why aren’t you studying chess?’”

  “I play better when I’m happy. Going out and having a good time before the game and sleeping till the round time is far better than staying up all night worrying about the openings.” Martha claims that she often wins her best games after staying out late. In the 1996 Olympiad in Yerevan, Armenia, where Martha won a silver medal, she had a good time despite the Spartan conditions. “The food was awful, the buildings were dark,” Martha said. Armenia, in the midst of political turmoil at the time, held its presidential elections during the Chess Olympiad. Protestors tried to storm the main square of Yerevan because of an irregularity in the counting of the votes. Tanks, which had been on display for Independence Day festivities, were used to block off the protestors. During the chaos, hotel guests were barred from the streets.

  On that particular night, Martha Fierro and Antoaneta Stefanova, tired of the daily fare of bland meat at their assigned hotel, had gone out to dine at a better hotel. Because of the turmoil they found themselves locked inside the new hotel: “We only brought enough money to eat so we had to spend the night in the lobby. We had no idea what was going on outside. It was scary. But there was a bar so at least we had something to do.” The next day Martha won her game and went on to earn a silver medal for her performance on board one.

  In spite of Martha’s frequent assertions that her freewheeling lifestyle has helped her chess, I get the sense that she herself is not entirely convinced. There were times in her life, says Martha, that she regrets not taking the game more seriously. “In Ecuador we call the years between seventeen and twenty-one the donkey (el burro) years, where young people go crazy. At this time (in the late nineties) I had so much support, I sometimes wish I had tried harder.” When I remind Martha of her claims that partying often improves her performance, she said, “Well, maybe I did need to go out. I never learned to get that balance, where I could go out and prepare well.”

  Martha admires Antoaneta’s ability to balance the demands of having fun and preparing. “If Antoaneta and I go out all night dancing, she will still be at her computer in the morning, even with dark circles under her eyes, preparing for the game.” When I ask Martha how good she might have become had she studied more, she became philosophical: “Who knows if I would have been in the top women players in the world? But at least if I had worked I would have a chance. Without working, there is no chance.”

  Her fame in Ecuador brings with it pressure. Martha tells me that one of the reasons her chess activity has waned in the past few years is the overwhelming feeling that her fans in Ecuador would accept no less than first place. In 2001, at the age of twenty-four, she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where she taught chess to children for two years. Even there, she was recognized by one of the only Ecuadorian families living in Charlotte.

  It didn’t take long for Martha to become bored with Charlotte, where the Hispanic population is small, the nightlife limited, and opportunities to play top-level chess nonexistent. In 2003 she moved to New York City, where her grandparents live. She is now teaching and playing more often. Martha plays in the New York Masters, a weekly event held at the historic Marshall Chess Club, organized by my brother, Greg. Martha has a voracious appetite for the game. Between tournament rounds she will play rapid games, and analyze late into the night. Greg founded the New York Masters to promote chess in America, and he wishes more women played there. He finds Martha’s attitude toward the game refreshing: “It’s rare to find a female player who will never miss a tournament. Martha is so straightforward in her love for the game.”

  “I am here in New York because I am serious about the game,” Martha says. “Without chess I would lead a more common life, in Ecuador, probably married with a stable career.” Her father, Miguel, supported Martha’s chess wholeheartedly in the beginning, paying for her tournament expenses before she found a sponsor. Miguel was brought up in a working-class family, one of seventeen children. When attending university, he met Martha’s mother, also called Martha, who was from a wealthy family and has an infectious personality that has clearly influenced the younger Martha. His burgeoning success as a naval engineer along with wife’s inheritance afforded the whole family a comfortable lifestyle. Unable to underestimate the importance of money, he ultimately wants Martha to have a career more lucrative than chess. Though her family is proud of her fame and success in chess, Martha points out, “To be famous is not the same as to be secure financially. People in Ecuador assume that because I am always in the press, I am making a great living all the time.” The truth is that Martha’s love for the game is what keeps her playing chess: “I could make more money just by using my image in Ecuador, or by teaching chess in Charlotte.”

  Although Martha has a strong allegiance to Ecuador, she acknowledges the problems there, such as racism. For instance, light-skinned men and women are almost always used as models in advertisements. Martha describes her own skin as “very light for Ecuador.” When I press the issue, she reminds me, “In the United States, there is racism—it is only slightly more under the surface.” Martha is relatively privileged, which seems to make her neither proud nor ashamed as she describes to me the fancy private school she attended in her hometown, Guayaquil. Martha is a poster woman for Ecuador, but she is not representative of its average Ecuadorian. Because Martha is relatively well off and famous, she escapes rigid gender roles (an expectation to marry young and raise a family), which restrict many Ecuadorian women. Still, interviewers chide her about her non-traditional lifestyle. When visiting her family in Ecuador recently, Martha gave a radio interview. They insisted on discussing her love life: “They even told me, ‘You better promise me you’ll be married by age thirty!’” Martha, twenty-six at the time, was caught off guard: “What could I do but laugh and agree?”

  For Ecuadorians who are not as renowned or mobile as Martha, becoming an international chessplayer is hardly possible. Martha’s friend and Ecuadorian teammate, Evelyn Moncayo, won the World Girls’ Under 10 Championship in Wisconsin in 1990. Despite this show of talent, Evelyn received few opportunities to compete internationally. Raised by a single mother (her father passed away when she was ten), her family could not afford to send her to tournaments, and Evelyn never managed to attract a regular sponsor or coach. Now twenty-two years old, Evelyn explains that Ecuadorian culture does not mesh well with her goals as an international chess star. “In Ecuador women usually get married by twenty-three or twenty-four. After twenty-six, if you are not married, it is a problem. Before you get married, you should not be out after ten p.m. For a while, it was really difficult, because if I wanted to play in a tournament in a neighboring city or stay at the chess club until late, it was not possible. Now my parents are more accepting. But there is no struggle for boys who want to go to a tournament in a city far away. Their parents will say, ‘No problem!’”

  In 1980, after the Iranian revolution, chess was outlawed in Iran. But Fatemeh Salami, president of the Iranian Women’s Chess Association, assures me that the government permitted chess again after just a few months. Traditionally, strict Muslims prohibit games of chance and gambling, like cards and dice, but permit chess, a game of skill. Fatemeh thinks that the misconception that chess was outlawed for a longer period is typical. “Too many people have an exaggerated sense of the restrictions on w
omen in Iran,” she says: “Iranian girls can do anything—use the Internet, drive their cars, vote, go to parties, play chess. The only thing that irritates many young Iranian women is the hijab.” Hijab is the requirement for all women in Iran, even visitors, to cover their hair and bodies, usually with thick, dark fabric.

  Shadi Paridar (left) and Atousa Pourkashian, Bled Olympiad, 2002. (Photo by Jennifer Shahade.)

  At a tournament in Russia I spotted Shadi Paridar, seventeen at the time, covered in black hijab. Her bubbly personality was evident straightaway. I barely made eye contact when she gave me a huge smile and introduced herself. I asked her for an interview. She asked permission from her supervisor and companion, Fatemeh Salami, who agreed, but only if she could sit in on the interview. When I went to their room later that evening, Shadi was wearing a pink headscarf, which she removed at some point (permitted because there were only girls in the room), revealing short, dark hair.

  Shadi is a four-time Iranian women’s champion, has a WGM title, and has defeated some of the best women players in the world, including Antoaneta Stefanova. Still, she is not ranked among the top fifty women in the world, partly because in Iran, there are few top-flight tournaments or competitors against whom Shadi can test her skills. Today this disadvantage is less relevant than it would have been a decade ago, since Shadi has to up-to-the-minute chess news on the Internet, including live feeds of games from elite tournaments. Shadi can also play casual games with masters all over the world on sites like the Internet Chess Club (The ICC.) Under the nickname “shadishelmo,” Shadi has played more than 2,500 games there. ICC, founded in 1995, has about 30,000 members, among them the majority of active grandmasters (who get free membership).

  In order to qualify for the Olympiad and the World Championship, Shadi participates in the Iranian Women’s Championship, which is a three-part event. In the first leg, three to five hundred Iranian women play in an open tournament. I am surprised and impressed by this number, but Fatemeh is not satisfied with the level of participation. “There are eighteen million women in Iran who are eligible to play in this event. A few hundred is not so many.” The forty top finishers qualify for the second leg, and the final leg consists of twelve. Shadi now prefers to play outside Iran, where she can play against stronger competition, as well as male opponents. Iranian laws prohibit her from playing against men, but there is only one other Iranian girl who is at her level, Atousa Pourkashian.

  Chess is one of the few sports in which Iranian women can compete abroad. Women must wear hijab in the presence of males. Therefore, in Iran, women’s sports like basketball and swimming have all-female referees, and audiences. But outside Iran, these conditions would be impossible to maintain. Along with chess, women can travel internationally for shooting or tae kwon do competitions, in which wearing hijab is also not an impediment to play. When I ask Shadi if she likes wearing hijab, she bursts into hysterical laughter and makes faces at me. When she finally calms down, she says sarcastically: “Oh I just love it. I feel like such a star in this outfit. People look at me and know I am from Iran.” Then she raises her eyebrows and informs me, “I am very bad at wearing hijab, you know.” Pushing down her pink headscarf a few inches and demonstrating: “I wear it like this, but it is supposed to cover all my hair.”

  Shadi and Fatemeh are intent on expressing to me how progressive many Iranian women are. “There are so many young people in Iran now. The government does not want to annoy them, so they are more relaxed about many things than they were in the past. Young people can have parties together. Young people often let a little hair show from

  their hijab, and nothing happens. They can wear hijab in any color. Black is a popular one, but I have orange, pink, and blue. It’s like fashion.”

  Shadi has not found the time for a boyfriend yet. She does like parties and dancing, and when music from a friend’s laptop leaks into our room, she starts dancing. “I like music with a fast beat. No love songs!” When I ask if girls must wear hijab at parties, she winks at me and starts laughing again. “Shadi is always laughing. That is her problem. She is so talented, but not serious enough at chess,” says Fatemeh. Shadi stops giggling to explain: “Of course I am always laughing. My name, Shadi, means happiness.”

  Shadi has performed successfully in Asian girls competitions, winning a gold medal for Under 16 in 2000. She will attend physical education school for free as a result of her performances. She intends to continue her chess studies at university: “Physical education” she says with a laugh, “is not so hard.”

  Shadi understates her devotion to chess with an aloof attitude: “I don’t like chess books. They make me go to sleep.” Still, she has high ambitions. First she aims to become a grandmaster, and then world women’s champion. Then Shadi laughs and declares: “And if after all that I’m still breathing, I will shoot for the overall world championship!”

  I met Linda Nangwale at the 2002 Olympiad in Bled, Slovenia. She stood out from the crowd with her short braids dyed in green, yellow, and red, the colors of the Zambian flag. The striking and confident African woman with her wide smile and open, friendly personality attracted reporters and photographers, who clamored after her. Linda thinks little about her appearance and what she wears, and she told me that in Bled she was hoping to rid herself of vanity. “I only brought along only three pairs of trousers. Many women can’t lay their hands on money without buying clothes. I think that emphasis in clothes in women is related to an inferiority complex, where what is inside is not enough. In chess, an inferiority complex will halt your progress.”

  Linda Nangwale. (Photo by Jennifer Shahade.)

  Just getting someone to teach Linda the rules of chess was a struggle. Every night when her brother and his friends played chess in the backyard, Linda was distracted by the ruckus they made. She was also intrigued by their excitement and was anxious to learn the game. “Chess is a man’s game and you won’t survive an inch on the board,” one of the crew told her. That was the night Linda convinced her brother to teach her the rules. He warned her that chess was boring, but Linda loved it. “I joined the bandwagon of noisemakers behind the house every day. They hammered me easily at first, using fools’ mate.” Fools’ mate is the quickest chess finish in which black checkmates white in two moves. It is actually very rare, since it requires white to play the worst moves possible. I think Linda was actually referring to Scholar’s mate, a four-move checkmate that is far more common.

  “Some people,” Linda said, “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.” Now that she is a strong player, boys from the neighborhood come to her for lessons. “I don’t forget to seek revenge fools’ mate on the unlucky few!”

  Linda’s successes have aroused considerable interest. After winning the 2002 Zambian Women’s Championship, in which there were fifteen participants, Linda said that the local papers “reported on my success, and many men came to my house to see if a woman could really beat them in chess. They lined up around the block.” Linda has a more feminist outlook than most of the women with whom I spoke, maybe because she had to fight so hard to get where she is. Linda’s family life has been troubled. Her mother, Carolyn Tembo, divorced her father, Bebbington Nangwale, in 1989. “My dad,” Linda says, “was a selfish man who loved no one but himself. He hardly ever had time for us.” She describes her mother as an “underpaid secretary,” who worked tirelessly, dying soon after her divorce, leaving Linda and her older brother to take care of their two younger brothers. When Linda’s successes were reported, her father “wanted to play the proud papa,” but Linda was unwilling to forgive his irresponsible behavior. “In my country, men are always trying to take the credit for the accomplishments of their children, while women get the blame if they go astray.” Not reconciled with his children, Bebbington Nangwale died in 2001.

  Linda must tolerate sexist attitudes from society and from
her friends, who frequently inquire about her marriage plans. Her experience with her father has made Linda wary about jumping into a relationship prematurely. She told me: “I’m twenty-one and have no boyfriend or prospects of a boyfriend. People are asking me: ‘What are you doing, girl?’” In response, she says, “What kind of man is going to understand that I’d rather play blitz all night or study the Sicilian than hang out with him?”

  Zambia, located in Southern Africa and bordering Mozambique and South Africa, is one the poorest countries in Africa and has an alarming AIDS rate. One out of four Zambians between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four has AIDS, leaving huge numbers of orphans to fend for themselves. Linda speaks Njanya, one of more than seventy tribal languages in Zambia. She is also fluent in English, so our correspondence has been easy. When her speech does strike me as foreign, it is usually because of its wild exuberance rather than grammatical errors. She sends me e-mails from a computer at an Internet café. They are filled with exclamations: “YIPPEEE! Skirts up! Trousers down!” or “Do men get angry when I beat them? OH YES!!! They actually go mad!” Telling me about the beauty of Zambia’s wildlife and nature, she urges me to visit one day and with childlike affection adds, “It is super, just like you!” Lamenting about the poor state of Zambian healthcare and finances, she says, “It is a harsh situation, and many are afraid to speak out.” Linda, a positive person, who can’t bear to sign-off on such a somber note, closes with, “Despite all this, your brother is so cute!”