Chouchanik Airapetian
By Jamie Duif Calvin

Chouchanik Airapetian |
The US Championship has long had a tradition of inviting a few amateurs, usually
the winners of the US Junior Championship and the US Open. This year with a
historically large prize fund of $250,000, the America's Foundation for Chess
also expanded the field to 64 players, many of whom could qualify by a strong
performance at one of several "national heritage" events.
Airapetian scored 5 out of 7 at the 2004 Chicago Open, qualifying her for
a US Championship invitation that was open to either a man or a woman. (By
the way, other players with 5 in the Chicago event included soon to be US Champion
GM Nakamura and the winner of the Larsen Prize, GM Alex Fishbein.)
How did she do at the Championship itself? Just fine! She started out ranked
60th out of 64, and finished in 54th place, ahead of two men and eight women.
Five of these players, including both of the men, were rated higher than Airapetian
at the start of the event.
In the last three years several women have achieved historic milestones in
America. In 2002, Laura Ross became the highest rated 13 year old, male or
female, in the US. In 2003, GM Susan Polgar won the US blitz Championship in
a field that included five other grandmasters (all male). And now in 2004 Airapetian
has become the first US woman to earn a gender-neutral invitation to the national
championship.
It perhaps says something about just how far we've come that these accomplishments
went largely unnoticed!
The making of a chess player
Recently I had a very nice conversation with Chouchan (this nickname, pronounced
"Shoushan", means "water lily," which is what her husband
calls her). She told me that her father had died when she was only six years
old. When her mother was putting away the father's things, she found a wooden
chess set in a box, which she left out. What her mother did not know at first,
though, is that Chouchan would sneak the pieces out of the box and play with
them like dolls!

Chouchan playing in a tournament at the age of ten
This went on for several weeks. Then one day the mother found some of the
pieces in the girl's room, hidden under her pillow. She asked her daughter
if she would like to learn to play the game of chess. Chouchan says she was
amazed. She loved the little pieces, and she said, "There's a game that
goes with them, too?" It is interesting to note that Karpov has a similar
story, except that he played toy soldiers with the pieces from his parent's
set!
So Chouchan learned to play. Her mother thought her younger sister Marina
might like to play, too. But instead, she opened up the wooden box and began
to pretend that the chess set was a piano! And today Marina is a professional
musician. So the girls are very creative, and their mother is very supportive
of their talents. When Chouchan was only 7 or 8, her mother would spend long
hours waiting for her at chess tournaments. She worked hard to make sure that
Chouchan had the right coaches and the best opportunities to continue to play
chess.

In 1992, at the age of 18, Chouchan became the Yerevan champion.
In the above picture she is in Tigran Petrosian's Chess House.
The family left Armenia in the early 90s, when things were very difficult
politically and economically. They moved to Germany, where Sena and Marina
still live. Chouchan speaks Armenian, German, English, Russian, and a little
Spanish. Later, Chouchan married a boy she had known in Armenia, and she and
her husband moved to the United States. They now live in Seattle where Chouchan
is a chess coach at several elementary schools. They have one son, who is now
two years old.

Chouchan, her mother Sena and sister Marina portrayed in a German newspaper
Chouchan says that she has actually become a much better player since her
son was born. She knows that many women give up chess when they have children,
but she has found that she has bits of quiet time throughout the day, and she
uses these to study. She also plays a lot of Internet chess.
In the above newspaper clipping Chouchan is playing in the 2002 US Championship
in Seattle. "This picture is the funniest one since my opponent's reaction
to my move," she said. "It was a great advertisement for the AF4C
since it is the first championship where women and men were competing together
for the title. Among the spectators are my friends and my husband in the middle,
hiding his smile by covering his mouth.
When she was a girl in Armenia, her mother took her to a children's chess
club where there were many coaches, known as Khalikyan Hovik's Chess Club.
The kids there could just play for fun, or they could get lessons. So the coaches
could find the really promising players, or the ones who had a strong desire
to learn more, but the kids who just wanted to play for fun were also welcome.
Chouchan hopes to start a similar club in the United States. Her dream is use
chess to build a bridge between kids around the world by offering international
open tournaments for junior players.

Her collection of chess pins
She thinks that one of the things that has kept chess from becoming more popular
in the US is that there is this great divide between professional and amateur
players, almost like two different worlds. The one place where it is different
is on the Internet, but there the teaching is more formal. So she thinks it
would be good for both amateurs and professionals if, at least at the kids'
level, there was more mixing.
Chouchan said for example that even at the recent US Championship, she really
enjoyed the fact that on the rest days the players went to a local school.
She said she had a slow start at the event, which is typical for her. But then
when she saw the kids, they were all asking "How are you doing? Are you
winning a lot?" and she felt it really inspired her! She felt she had
to focus and play well in order to meet the kids' expectations!

Helping kids to become champions: Chouchan on the back right
She thinks that girls do need extra encouragement to play, at least
while they are such a small minority. But she doesn't feel it has to be a cash
prize, if the boys feel that is unfair. Just something like a medal for the
best girl could be very effective, especially for school age children. She
says sometimes in a tournament you will have 200 boys and 10 girls. If a girl
comes in 15th, Chouchan feels it can help keep her playing if she gets a special
mention.

Chouchan with her husband, Ararat Agaian (left) and GM
Varuzhan Akobian. This picture was taken after the last round of the Chicago
Open 2004 with Var's cellphone. So it is brought to us thanks to modern technology!
On the other hand, she believes absolutely that women can and will play as
well as men, especially as more enter the game. She predicts that a woman will
win the overall US Championship in five years!
Links

Thinking about the future of women's chess: Jamie
Duif Calvin