The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20050308193808/http://batgirl.atspace.com:80/LisaLaneNewYorker.html
n hearing that Miss Lisa Lane, who more than once has been called the world's most glamorous chess player, was about to fly to Russia to compete in the Women's Candidates Tournament, which is being held to find a challenger for the women's champion of the world,Nona Gaprindashvili of the U.S.S.R., we dropped in at the Queen's Pawn Chess Emporium to pay her a visit. The Emporium is a chess shop and chess parlor on Sheridan Square in the Village. It was started last February by Miss Lane who was United States women's champion in 1959 and 1960, and it has a sign outside that says "Chess" in six languages. In the window are chess sets of ivory, olivewood and alabaster, a magnetic set for travelers and a set with pieces moldes in the shape of covered wagons, scouts and Indians. A large board hanging vertically has a chess problem on it. Inside the shop are rows of chess tables, each with two chairs. At a counter on one side, beverages and pastries are sold. Some of Miss Lane's trophies decorate a mantel. The shop used to sell paperbacks, and once the merchandise was disposed of, the shelves were converted into paneling. Miss Lane, it developed, had done a lot of the carpentry herself. For playing, the rates are fifty cents for the first hour and thirty cents for each hour thereafter. Chess lessons are given by Sonja Graf, who is the current United States women's champion.
When we entered the Emporium, it was filled with the whir of an air-conditioner and with chess noises - cries of "Check!" and the ominous slapping of pieces into new positions on the boards. Miss Lane, wearing a navy-blue bodice with gold buttons and a pleated white jersey skirt was munching on a sandwich in the rear. "I'm wearing a half-wig," she told us. "I'm too busy packing and getting settled here I don't have to get my hair done." The phone rang, and as she went off to answer it, she introduced a pair of strangers to each other. They shook hands and sat down at the board. "Excess baggage is two dollars and forty-three cents a pound," she said when she returned. "I've got to take along extras - my Newports and cosmetics." She lit one of her Newports. "Also presents." When she was in Yugoslavia, where the Women's Candidates Tournament was held in 1961, she explain, the other players had pressed gifts on her, but, having been unaware of the custom, she had not taken along any gifts for them.
On this trip, she will be armed with Kennedy half-dollar key chains and World's Fair souvenirs . Miss Lane went on to tell us that she became eligible for the 1964 Women's Candidates Tournament by finishing second in the 1962 United States Women's Championship. A Women's Candidates Tournament is held about every three years and this year's is being held at the Black Sea resort of Sukhumi. There will be one other American representative - Mrs. Gisela Kahn Gresser, who won the 1962 United States Women's Championship. Sometime in 1965, the winner of the Women's Candidates Tournament will have a shot at Miss Gaprindashvili. In the Women's Candidates Tournament that was held in Yugoslavia, there were seventeen players, and Miss Lane and Mrs. Gresser tied for eleventh place; Miss Lane was not pleased. |
"This time, I'm preparing by not preparing," she said, stamping out her Newport. "I haven't played in a tournament since 1962. That summer, I was chess pro at Grossinger's.
Lately, I've been playing five-minute and seven-minute chess with local male experts; barring a checkmate, the loser is the one whose time runs out first. In Yugoslavia, I found that games aren't won by brilliance - they're lost by blunders. It's the tension. In one game, a player from the Netherlands suddenly had her queen snipped off the board by a Russian. She ran off the stage in tears." Miss Lane played a game with Miss Gaprindashvili, the eventual winner, and it was a draw. "I blundered in the opening," she said, lightning another Newport. She reached over to a table and rapidly moved pieces about. "This was the bit, " she said. "I should have castled instead of moving the queen's pawn. I had to move the bishop back when Gaprindashvili moved her queen and I lost a tempo."
Miss Lane got up to talk to a man watching one of the games, and a woman with cury gray hair and wearing glasses, a blouse and slacks came over. "I'm Sonja Graf," she said. "I was born in Munich but when I was in Argentina in 1939, as the German women's champion, Goebbels would not allow me to play for Germany. So the Argentines made me a flag with the word "Libre" on it, and I played under that."
Miss Lane returned. "We discourage kibitzing," she said. "It's bad for the players'egos. Both players have to give permission before a kibitzer can start hanging around. A kibitzer simply keep from making comments. There was a chess homicide in the Village a few years ago. The argument wasn't between players but between a player and a kibitzer."
"When you play chess, your whole body works," observed Miss Graf. "Your feet tremble. My God, I can hear my heart pound two tables away! Against Menchik, when she was world champion, I had a won game, but I found the three stupidest moves you could think of and lost."
Miss Lane remarked that one Russian player in Yugoslavia did noisy breathing exercises when it was her opponent's turn to move. "She hated smoke, and she'd open the doors wide, and we would all rush for our coats," she recalled. Another Russian player endlessly peeled an apple with the skin spiraling. "It was very distracting," Miss Lane said, with a tiny shudder.
"Najdorf!" exclaimed Miss Graf, referring to the Argentine Grandmaster. "My God! He would kick you under the table. He would grab the clock and shake it under your face!"
"Sh-h-h!" said somebody at a nearby table. "we're trying to concentrate."
|
