AThe Evening Sun Hanover, Pennsylvania Thursday, May 11, 1961 - Page 34
Lisa Lane Hasn't Met Her Match
New York (AP) — Every college girl dreams of meeting a white knight. Lisa Lane did.
Now, four years later, Lisa's romance is still as bright as that white knight moving across her chessboard.
Lisa is U.S. Women's Chess Champion, an animated 23-year-old brunette in 3-inch heels and a size 8 dress who can play chess, study chess, talk chess and still have plenty of energy left to checkmate popular misconceptions about the game and the people who play it.
For one thing, Lisa says, all chess players aren't elderly. The U.S. Men's Champion, Bobby Fischer, is younger than Lisa.
They aren't all anti-social —
“I have a social life. I have my chess friends — we have 30-30 parties (30 moves in 30 minutes) and non-chess friends — we go to movies and plays.”
They aren't all patient —
“If I go anywhere and have to wait in line, I can't stand it.”
Or all brilliant —
“I'm not a genius. What chess really takes is a logical mind.”
But, says Lisa, it is true that most chess players are men: “I a man knows how to play chess he'll usually teach it to his son. It's not likely that he's going to teach a daughter.” But she sees no reason why chess should remain a man's game.
More Man Power
“Chess should be interesting to women because it's one sport in which women can compete with men without a handicap such as a physical sport gives you. It's mental, so you compete on the same level.
“And playing chess is a good way to meet men. Look at the ratio — at the last U.S. Open there were 180 men and 12 women.”
Lisa first saw a chess game in 1957 while a freshman match major at Temple University in her home town, Philadelphia. She'd gone to a coffee house on a date and the boy sat down at a chessboard.
“I couldn't figure out what was going on and it intrigued me.” Lisa remembers. “He taught me the moves and within a month I could beat him.”
That fall, Lisa asked Attilio Di Camillo, a chess master, to teach her.
Not long after, he told her that if she really wanted to study she could be the next U.S. Women's Champion.
The Next Move
Right away Lisa started playing in tournaments.
In March she became Philadelphia women's champion. In August she did so well in the U.S. Open that the U.S. Chess Federation rated her an expert (next highest to master). And in 1959 she became queen of the nation's chessboards by winning the U.S. Women's Championship Tournament.
Lisa and Mrs. Gisella Gresser, who came in second, also won the right to play in the International Chess Federation's Challengers Tournament for women in Yugoslavia this fall. The winner there will challenge the women's world champ, Elizabeth Bykova of Russia, to a 13-game match.
Foreign Rivals
Lisa is already getting butterflies about the Challengers. “I know I'm the best women player in the U.S. but I have no idea how I'll stack up in international competition.”
The U.S. Chess Federation would like to arrange a match between Lisa and Yugoslavia's red-headed champ, Milunka Lazarevich, before the Challengers Tournament, but hasn't been able to raise the necessary money.
Finances are a problem for Lisa, too, since she doesn't want to take time away from her chess books right now to get a job. (Lisa moved here in February to be near more good chess players, but finds she spends most of her time studying.)
She Looks Ahead
She has received a $1,000 grant from the People-to-People Sports Foundation, works as a part-time editor for Chess Life Magazine and gives exhibitions for clubs and schools, where she plays 15 to 20 people at once, running from board to board.
“One of my best assets is my power of concentration,” Lisa says. “What you really need to be a good chess player is to be able to visualize what will occur after you make moves. You should consider three or four or five moves ahead and keep all the little pictures of the various positions in your mind.”
In a contest where Lisa is usually pitted against a man, how does she feel about losing?
“If I lose I really feel crushed, no matter who I'm playing. I am a poor loser. At first I can't even look at my opponent.”
And winning?
“When I beat a man, I don't know what to say to him. It must be very humiliating. I feel sorry for him.
“But I never feel this way during a game.”
