#feministfriday episode 497 | a good chess player
Hi team,
I love stories of women elite chess players. Thank you to the friend and subscriber who sent me this article on Lisa Lane:
“I love to be in the newspapers,” she said. In 2018 she told Emma Baccellieri of SI, “It didn’t bother me. It wasn’t like they said I was beautiful and not a good chess player.”
Lisa Lane might have been the inspiration for Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit: A former chess phenom who died in February, age 90.
Why Lisa Lane left chess behind, very soon after she found it.
IT WASN'T LIKE THEY SAID I WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOT A GOOD CHESS PLAYER. This inspired me to go home last night and lose 5 games on the bounce to a patronising AI on chess dot com who is technically rated 400 points below me.
I know that if I want to actually get better at chess I need to study openings. Well, maybe that's what I need - things often go wrong quite early and then I spend time clawing them back. Anyway, here's a nice little article on Judit Polgár and her openings and style in general:
As a teenager, Polgár has been credited with contributing to the popularity of the opening variation King's Bishop's Gambit. Polgár prefers aggressive openings, playing 1.e4 as White and the Sicilian or King's Indian Defence with black.
The Playing Style of Judit Polgár - Chess.com
While having a strong understanding of positional play, Polgár excels in tactics and is known for an aggressive playing style, striving to maximize the initiative and actively pursuing complications. The former World Champion Garry Kasparov wrote that, based upon her games, "if to 'play like a girl'
Love,
Alex.