Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport

by Jennifer Shahade

  Bain did not play well. She lost game after game and finished with just 3.5 points out of 15. Elizaveta Bykova won the tournament and went on to defeat Rudenko for the world championship title. In a series of letters written to David Lawson—American organizer, chessplayer, and author of Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess—Mary Bain reveals that her poor showing wrecked her emotionally. Depressed, she was unable to eat or sleep for days. She gives her opponents no credit for her defeats, saying: “I am not being outplayed, I simply beat myself.” Compounding her misery was news from America that Eisenhower had won the 1952 election over Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. After this, Bain was so despondent that she “collapsed in my room and cried like a child,” signing one letter “Good for nothing Mary.” But Bain didn’t blame herself alone.

  She was livid that the American Chess Federation offered her neither financial nor psychological support. “My sendoff was cruel. I was told that I was not going to represent the USA and USCF but Zone Number Four.6 No use complaining…” She also had no second to help her analyze adjourned games, which usually resumed the following day: “When I have an adjourned game I stay up all night and then make the worst move.” Ideally, Mary would be sleeping soundly, while her trainer would work through the night, and then supply her with a thorough analysis in the morning. British Master Golombek sympathized with Bain, pointing out, “It is very sad that a great country like the USA should have such a weak chess federation.” Perhaps the worst insult was that the Soviet Federation had been willing to pay all expenses for her second, but Bain had not been told this until it was too late to arrange.

  Bain and Gresser were both trounced by the Soviets, who were simply better players. Their reactions to their poor showings were diametrically opposed. Gresser looked at the chess world with detached curiosity and gentle derision. Happy to dip in and out of the elite chess world, Gresser was content with her position in the U.S. chess circuit and comfortable in her Park Avenue penthouse. Her talent brought her to the top of the U.S. women’s chess circuit, but without assiduous work, she couldn’t hope or expect to reach the top of the world. She never believed that losing a game reflected poorly on her character or intellect, both of which were nourished from other sources.

  Bain was more focused on her own chess potential, which frustrated her because she was unable to unleash it. She was furious with herself and the U.S. Chess Federation for being under-prepared. Bain may have overreacted, causing her to spiral downward faster.

  Many players have trouble striking that fine balance between debilitating despair and nonchalance. “If it doesn’t hurt, there’s something wrong,” said American Grandmaster Joel Benjamin, who expects to be in pain after losing a crucial game. However, professionalism requires that even the most distraught players pick themselves up after a tough loss and get ready to play their next game at full strength.

  My own experience in finding the appropriate emotional involvement with the game has been an ongoing struggle. As a teenager, my identity was closely intertwined with my chess results and rating, so a poor result would set me back for days, or even weeks, leaving me in a state of near depression. I vividly remember feeling the world was over after losing a crucial game in the U.S. Championship of 1998. A perceptive observer berated me: “You put too much pressure on yourself,” suggesting, “Your results will improve if you relax and allow your talent to show.” His advice was accurate, but it would take a while for me to implement it.

  After winning my first U.S. Women’s Chess Championship in 2002, gaining my first IM norm and performing much better than even I expected, many people asked me how I had prepared. The truth was that I had not studied much chess, but instead had had four days of raucous fun celebrating the New Year with my friends in Brooklyn. We went to house parties, drank coffee all day, and planned decadent art projects. Entering the tournament in Seattle, I was happier than I’d ever been. I was more relaxed playing than I had been in the past, knowing that if I lost I’d still be happy. It retrospect, I see that the superior play I exhibited in that event had been hidden inside me for years.

  The emotion attached to my chess results loosened after Seattle. I still feel pain when I lose, but it usually goes away within a few hours. This might now detract from my performances, because knowing that I would feel bad if I lost motivated me to study. However, I am thankful that I don’t care as much as I did when I was sixteen.

  How much a player identifies with results depends as much on disposition as chess strength. At weekend tournaments, it is common to see grown amateurs knocking their heads against walls or young beginners crying uncontrollably. Professionals, though, can often calmly pick up the pieces, even after the most excruciating losses. Some even channel their disappointment into renewed vigor for following rounds, like Garry Kasparov, who is renowned for recovering from losses by crushing his next opponent.

  Though elite players may appear to be less sensitive to the visceral pain of losing, they care more than novices. Their intellects are fully engaged and thus fully on the line. Furthermore, their livelihoods are dependent on their results.

  American chess pioneers Bain, Gresser, and Karff did not have professional approaches to the game, either in disposition or lifestyle. A further reason for their mediocre results may have been their ages. By the time all three were playing in the post-war world championships, they were in their forties and fifties. The peak years of their careers would have been in the l940s, but the war precluded international championships during this time.

  The grueling nature of contemporary chess rewards youth, which is why most top players consider it to be more a sport than an art or science. Women’s chess is even more extremely skewed toward youth. One reason may be that older women are likely to retire after starting families. Another is that the bar for the standard of the best female chess players is rising so rapidly that young players begin with far higher ambitions than their predecessors. Adjournments were phased out in the 1980s, all but disappearing by the late 1990s. Time controls have shortened, and women jog and lift weights before tournaments in order to prepare physically for the grueling pace of an event. The next bright light of women’s chess in America after Bain, Gresser, and Karff was an outspoken upstart from Philadelphia, young enough to be the daughter of her competitors.

  “Each move seems to be weighted with some cosmic significance to her,” wrote Robert Cantwell, a reporter for Sports Illustrated. “At such moments she seems…beautifully serious, or seriously beautiful, a side of feminine loveliness that Hollywood has rather neglected.”

  The woman so memorably described was Lisa Lane. Lane got hooked on chess as a nineteen-year-old and became U.S. Women’s Champion just two years later in 1959, edging out veteran players Karff and Gresser.

  Lisa was not surprised by her success. Nor was she overwhelmed by the spate of journalists who began to call her for interviews. Young, ambitious, and arrogant, Lisa felt she was entitled. “I’m the most important American chessplayer. People will be attracted to the game by a young, pretty girl.” Lisa believed she deserved all the recognition and support she got, since she was “bringing publicity and ultimately money” to the game.

  Lisa Lane. (Photo by John G. Zimmerman, courtesy Sports Illustrated.)

  Born in Philadelphia, Lisa had a difficult childhood. She did not know her father, and her mother worked two jobs. Lisa had to stay with foster families as a schoolgirl: she did poorly in school and dropped out, and then she moved from low-paying job to low-paying job. Anxious to continue her education, after dating an older, well-educated man, Lisa enrolled at Temple University, where she began a special program in which she would complete her high-school diploma while beginning her college coursework.

  At the same time, Lisa discovered chess while on a date in the Artists’ Hut, a bohemian coffeeshop in downtown Philadelphia. She began to play there regularly, and was discovered by an active player, who introduced her to Attilio Di Camilo, a charismatic Italian-Ame
rican master, who was also a passionate and affordable coach. Di Camilo started to coach Lisa in the mornings. When “Di-cam” was asked why he only charged his students two dollars an hour for lessons, he responded: “When I teach, I learn more than my students.” Di Camilo was impressed by Lisa’s talent and assured her that, with hard work, she could become U.S. champion in two years—a dead-on prophesy. Lisa was soon a chess addict, dropping her studies at Temple to concentrate on the game. She worked up to twelve hours a day at chess, often staying up until three or four in the morning analyzing or playing at the club.

  Because of her volatile temper and fiery personality, Lisa was involved in scrapes and scandals. The details of one after-game dispute were murky, but Lisa was quoted in Sports Illustrated as saying, “I never hit that guy with an ashtray!”

  Lisa’s defiant attitude made her all the more exciting to the press. Lisa declared, “I hate anyone who beats me.”

  “If talent alone won championships, I’d be world champion now.” Lisa was obsessed with chess and eschewed talk of politics: “I don’t care what’s going on in the world.”

  “Her main role in the chess world is social. She is pleasant to look upon,” was the double-edged compliment of one American master. Certainly, Lisa had scores of suitors, which seemed to amuse her: “I get a lot of love letters from other chessplayers,” she said to a New York Times reporter. “I read them, I laugh, and then I file them. Letters from grandmasters go on top.”

  Lisa’s victory in the U.S. Championship in December 1959 earned her invitations to the Olympiad in the Netherlands and to the World Championship in Vrnjacka Banja, a mountain resort in Yugoslavia, both held in the fall of 1963. In preparation for these events and with the help of a public sports grant, Lisa moved from Philadelphia to Greenwich Village in New York City, the center of American chess activity. She amassed a huge collection of chess books and studied day and night. She also studied Russian at the nearby New School so that she could read Soviet chess magazines.

  The media hoopla over Lisa, articles in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, the dailies such as the Post and the Sun, along with chess magazines, scared her Russian opponents, who were reportedly just as afraid of Lisa as they were of better-established foreign contenders. Their fears were unjustified: Lisa only tied for twelfth out of eighteen players in Vrnjacka Banja.7 It was becoming clear that Lisa had a way to go before she could be a serious competitor for the world crown.

  Lisa stayed in Europe for the rest of the winter, having received an invitation to the prestigious Chess Congress (challengers’ section) in Hastings, England. In a shocking move, Lisa dropped out midway through the tournament after two losses and a draw. Her explanation was that she was “too much in love” to continue play. When Lisa left New York in October for her European chess tour, she had abandoned a burgeoning romance with Neil Hickey, a journalist who interviewed her for the American Weekly. Hickey wrote passionately about Lisa’s “lissome beauty,” which “confounds all customary notions of bookish, brainy females.” Clearly, Hickey’s article reflected feelings deeper than the detached admiration of a reporter. Lisa was missing Neil and quit the tournament to return to New York. “I could not concentrate—my thoughts kept wandering.”

  Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic had a field day with the story, joking that Lisa Lane had “flipp[ed] her chessboard.” Another wrote that it was understandable for a brilliant girl to give up the game, “especially if she really was in love.” Lisa’s return to normalcy, a state in which girls put love above chess, elicited bemused pleasure from the public. There was little outrage at the breach of sportsmanship it is to quit a tournament in the middle of an event, or sadness over the declining interest of such a dynamic talent.

  In fact, Lisa was not done with chess. Two years later she caused a stir when she was overlooked for the 1963 Olympic Team in favor of Mary Bain and Gisela Gresser.8 The Associated Press ran a story on Lisa’s reaction with the cheeky headline “Scorned Woman Gets Something Off Her Chess.” Lisa had assumed that since she was the first runner-up in the 1962 U.S. Championship (to Gresser) and the second highest-ranked player in the country, she would be selected for the team. Lisa was only able to think of one explanation for being left out: “They were sore from all the publicity I’ve been getting. Everywhere I go, people want to take my picture and get interviews with me.” The wealthy Gresser assured reporters that she was happy about any press coverage chess got, though she admitted that selection was based on factors other than merit, such as the player’s being able to meet expenses. This explanation enraged Lisa. “Since when did you have to be a millionairess,” Lisa fumed, “to represent your country in sport?”

  Lisa Lane. (Photo courtesy Chess Magazine.)

  Lisa’s approach to chess had changed by the time she made her next attempt in the Women’s World Championship in 1964. Having opened a chess club, The Queen’s Pawn in Greenwich Village, Lane played blitz chess for hours every night, but gave up the nightly grind of studying chess books: “This time I am preparing by not preparing.” Again she had a bad result—twelfth out of eighteen. Soon after this, The Queen’s Pawn closed, and Lisa disappeared from chess.

  Lisa has been called the “Bobby Fischer of women’s chess,” a tempting comparison. Both were good-looking, defiant, eccentric, and magnets for a press that till then was uninterested in the chess world. Like Fischer, Lane suddenly dropped out of chess and has not played since the late 1960s. Bobby did not have kind words for Lisa or for any woman in chess. “There isn’t a woman in the world I couldn’t give Knights odd to and still beat,” he said in an interview with Harper’s. In Newsweek, Bobby Fischer used different words to express the same sentiment: “They can’t concentrate, they don’t have stamina, and they aren’t creative. They’re all fish [an ineffective chessplayer]. Lisa, you might say, is the best of the American fish.”9 Fischer concluded that women should not be allowed in open tournaments. Lane retorted that adults like herself shouldn’t have to play with children like Bobby.

  As similair as their personas were, Lisa and Bobby’s accomplishments were not comparable. While Bobby’s strength made him one of the best players of all time, Lisa Lane’s standard did not even place her in the top ranks of women.

  Diana Lanni. (Photo by Val Zemitis.)

  Lisa, still married to Neil Hickey, runs a metaphysical store, where spiritual items and books are sold, in upstate New York. I called to see if she wanted to chat. Lisa had not played chess in decades, but her competitive streak was still intact—she commented that a young woman player had bragged that she could easily defeat Lisa Lane. “I think it’s absurd to compare the women players of today with those of my generation. It’s like comparing apples with oranges. Chess was different then, women were different then.” I assured Lisa that I was not the person who said that, but still Lisa did not want to meet me in person for an interview. She no longer has any interest in fame and has completely abandoned her former identity as a chessplayer. She seems to have nothing but bitter feelings toward the game. What Lane values most in her life now is directly opposed to what was written about her in the press: “I got a lot of attention from the press,” she reminds me, remarking wryly, “I guess I was good copy.” “I don’t think the things I did in chess forty years ago are the most important things in my life.” Lisa quit chess partly because she was annoyed with being identified as a chessplayer. “It got embarrassing—constantly being introduced as a chess champion at parties.” The fame brought on by Lisa’s shockingly blunt speech, beauty, and skill no longer seem important to her.

  Lisa Lane had a relatively short career on the professional circuit, but her wild ways, tough-luck history, and glamorous lifestyle made an impression on girls and women who read about her in the press. Diana Lanni was one of these. Superficially, she was similar to Lisa. Both were born to troubled, working-class American families. Lanni, like Lisa, was beautiful, which proved to be a mixed blessing.

  Diana’s father
showed her Lisa’s press clippings, and Diana saw how much fun Lisa had had with chess. “My dad pointed out that women were such novelties in the chess world, that if I spent a few good years of work, I could travel the world, and achieve rock-star status.” It wasn’t until Diana graduated from high school and left home that she took her father’s advice. Grateful to her father for introducing her to chess, Diana describes an otherwise terrible relationship with her dad. “Having such a poor father figure and seeing my mom struggle so much made me a feminist very fast.”

  Immediately after high school, Diana found herself in a series of unsavory jobs, including “the drudgery of $1.60-an-hour retail work” at Lord & Taylor’s. One night Diana went with a couple of friends to a strip club in Washington, D.C. The owners encouraged the girls to audition, and they complied. Diana was offered a job. “We dared each other to try it out for a while.” Diana did, and ended up making four times as much stripping as she did at her various day jobs. Setting up a Christmas display at Lord & Taylor’s with a chess set, Diana remembered how her father had encouraged her to pursue chess. Soon thereafter she became friends with a strong player who was moving to Miami. Frustrated with all her jobs in D.C., she went with him to Miami, telling all her friends that she was “running away with chess.”

  Her stay in Miami was disastrous. Diana got heavily involved in alcohol and cocaine. “I drank my brains out.” In Miami, Diana took another job as a topless dancer, but she found that stripping in D.C. was far different from in Miami. “In D.C. we stripped for government officials, but my job in Miami was far seedier. We were encouraged to hustle for drinks, ordering the most expensive drinks on the menu, and then charging men fifty dollars for them.”