Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. women's chess champion, appears March 29 at the Mechanics Institute Chess Club. Shahade will give a talk, and sign her new book Play Like a Girl! Tactics by 9 Queens.
Play Like a Girl! is an anthology of combinations played by female masters, going back to the first women's world champions Menchik and Rudenko, and including the current and youngest champion Hou Yifan.
"The tough thing is you really need a huge mass of games to find good combinations," said Shahade, "and the older players have fewer games in the databases." Shahade said she could have made it a research project to find undiscovered games by the older players, but Play Like a Girl! is meant primarily to be an inspiring collection for girls and women.
Play Like a Girl! is Shahade's second book, and she keeps her job as the editor of Chess Life Online, but she is increasingly involved in video production. Shahade and national master Abby Marshall starred in a video trailer for Play Like a Girl!, in which cosmetics containers are used as chess pieces.
"People might think the makeup chess is ditzy," Shahade said, "but, in fact, it's much harder to play this way. In one case, we started making some random moves to get some sort of shot, and it was almost impossible to remember what was what." Shahade said it reminded her of the study that showed grandmasters and average players have equal difficulty remembering random positions, but when a chess position includes recognizable patterns, strong players remember many more features.
"It's funny that I actually had all that stuff lying around my house, with the exception of a few lipsticks that I bought at the nearby drugstore," Shahade said. "A woman just accumulates a lot of that junk. Some of it I use, but much of it was in random makeup bags that I hadn't opened in years. I guess I knew subconsciously that I'd need all of it one day for a makeup chess set!"
The royalties from Play Like a Girl! will go to the non-profit organization 9 Queens. According to its website, 9 Queens is dedicated to extending the benefits of chess to those who need it most, especially girls at at-risk youth.
After her evening at Mechanics on March 29, Shahade will perform a simultaneous exhibition at the NorCal House of Chess on April 1. Then she'll head to Arizona for the Tucson Chess Fest, a 9 Queens event. "A mini West Coast book tour!" she said.
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