13.09.2021

Yuri Loza: Most chess players are normal

“Dear ladies, when your husband (friend, buddy, boyfriend or casual acquaintance) once again is glued to the computer with a shooter game, advise him to play chess instead. If he tells you that this is an occupation for boring pensioners with low potency, you can argue that practically all great chess players, in addition to being smart and talented, are also quite sexy.

When in the thirties of the last century the third world chess champion, the sultry Cuban Jose Raul Capablanca, visited the USSR, there was a larger crowd of women at his hotel’s door than later at the hotel where Brad Pitt stayed. Unlike the cute American, the handsome Capablanca was well versed in theatre, music, ballet and visual arts. He spoke five languages ​ and was a brilliant conversationalist. He played chess better than anyone else.
And as far as the "boring pensioners" are concerned, the eighth world champion Mikhail Tal was extremely popular with the ladies and was known for his novels. In addition to the fact that he was officially married three times, among the women he conquered were actress Larisa Sobolevskaya, pianist Bella Davidovich, dancer Mira Koltsova and many others. Of course, it was not love affairs that made him the idol of millions - Tal is known as a master of the combination game with a unique romantic style and incredible intuition. Journalists called him a wizard, pirate, chess Paganini, almost an alien. 

After the American Robert Fischer became the eleventh world champion in 1972, the name Bobby was recognized as the most popular among new-borns in the United States, and chess musicals were staged on Broadway. But there is no doubt that Fischer not only raised the popularity of chess throughout the world, but also increased the fees of chess players dozens of times, making the best of them very wealthy people.
Among the outstanding chess players are singers and musicians, physicists and mathematicians, writers and diplomats, which is confirmed by their numerous books and brilliant interviews.
True, the great writer Vladimir Nabokov in his novel "The Luzhin Defence " shows a genius chess player who’s a little bit off but, after all, Nabokov is a writer of a fiction. Even though the hero of the novel had a prototype, in real life most chess players are normal. And Nabokov himself loved chess and was a recognized chess composer (as the compilers of chess puzzles are called).
So, if your husband (friend, buddy, boyfriend or casual acquaintance) spends more time studying this ancient and beautiful game instead of shooting, you can safely say that he would become much smarter, and therefore more attractive person".