Once upon a time on wooden boards (1)

Creative: Anna Muzychuk

Let’s start with a piece of wisdom from a famous chess celebrity and thinker, Nigel Short, whom we believe to be an expert in such kinds of questions. His answer sounds pretty convincing: we’re just hardwired differently. We should certainly retain an opportunity of accusing a person of sexism for a natural and obvious statement, in case we see some benefits. But for the scope of this article I’d rather satisfy the curiosity of those readers who wonder how differently hardwired creatures handle the new reality.

Female players are traditionally - what an irony - regarded as the ugly ducklings of chess, and men enjoy the benefits of their "superior" ability to concentrate on one thing. But the new Covid-flavoured lifestyle has led to some corrections of this perception. While we can see how the wires in men’s brains keep sending the same signal, pushing them towards online tournaments, and some professionals might feel uncertain and lost, women… well, pictures are better than words, aren’t they?

I have known Anna Muzychuk for a lifetime as a very ambitious top level sportsman highly focused on chess, and I was quite impressed by her suddenly revealing great talent in painting. However, remembering her games, like the masterpiece against Ori Kobo in Gibraltar, which brought her a beauty prize, does not make her creativity on canvas too surprising for me.

Anna Muzychuk – working on a drawing

"My artistic abilities are a bit exaggerated?!" Anna says. I hardly think so. [Click to enlarge]

"I don't draw often, though I love drawing," she told me. [Click to enlarge]

I can't resist: Nigel, how about your drawing skills?

In the 3rd leg of Women’s Chess Grand Prix that took place in March in Lausanne, Anna didn’t succeed in joining the prize winners. But I must give her my personal beauty prize for the game with which I’d like to start my review of the tournament.

Since the Corona crisis impacted our lives and destroyed our tournaments I decided to occupy myself with something useful - creating educational chess videos on YouTube. This video I specially dedicated to one of my best lifetime friends - Annushka. It's a game which once more proves that creativity is the word to describe her best.

The tournament was won by GM Nana Dzagnide, who shared the first place with Aleksandra Goryachkina but was better on coefficients. The turning point of the tournament for Nana was a rather lucky victory over Anna Muzychuk in round five. This roller-coaster game, with some mutual mistakes, would change the tournament fate for both players.

Endgame magic

Recently Anna was in Hamburg and recorded a session of Endgame Magic with GM Karsten Müller in the ChessBase video studio. Magical!

About the author

Elisabeth Pähtz (or Paehtz – rhymes with "Rates") is a German WGM and men's IM, currently rated 2473, making her the strongest female player in the country. Elisabeth (or Elli, or Lizzy) was trained in chess from early childhood by her father, GM Thomas Pähtz.

At the age of nine years she won her first German Championship in the under-11 age group. In 1999 she became Germany's women's chess champion. In 2002 Pähtz became the Youth World Champion in the under-18 age group, and in 2004 the U20 Junior World Champion. As one of the greatest German new-generation talents Pähtz was the subject of a large media interest when growing up. Among other things it was reported that she was likely to fail high school mathematics. Her own explanation for this is that she is an intuitive player, not a universal genius. Elisabeth holds the FIDE titles of International Master and Woman Grandmaster. She is an active streamer on YouTube.

Part two in this series describes the inspiring chess talent of GM Nana Dzagnide, and gives you an insight into her baking skills. After that Aleksandra Goryachkina, Zhansaya Abdumalik and Koneru Humpy, three of the strongest, certainly most talented female players in the world.