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MY BEST MOVE


HEATHER FLEWELLING


CLASS-A TOURNAMENT PLAYER


POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER IN ASTRONOMY


my best move was to take this job in Hawaii!—I have a wonderful job, I live in paradise, and I have the means to travel to chess tournaments on the mainland! There are very few women in the sci-


I


ences and fewer still in chess. In both chess and the sciences, girls lose interest in middle school. In contrast, I started to play chess with my friends in high school. Why was I different? I had good mentors. When I was a teenager, I looked up to


both my dad and Alexey Root (1989 U.S. Women’s Champion, and a regular at our chess club). I feel like the support of my family and role models such as Alexey Root gave me what I needed to become a scientist and a chess player. For this reason, my first win against


my father in a rated game was important to me and gives rise to My Best Move. The game itself is terrible, but it was very influ- ential for me. Compared to my expert-rated opponent, I was inexperienced. In the dia- grammed position, I was down in material. I won, not because of my brilliance, but because my dad blundered and I saw how to take advantage of his mistake.


Dear ol’ dad Michael Flewelling (2028) Heather Flewelling (1401) Action - Fri., Houston, Texas, 07.22.1994


am a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Astronomy, working on the imaging processing pipeline for the Pan-STARRS telescopes. In life,





Why was I different? I had good mentors.


This is the position before White’s 18th


move at which point my dad left for 15 minutes to take a phone call. I sat there, looking at my game, imagining all the ways my dad would win, all the while being very annoyed that I had lost material so quickly. This is a terrible attitude to have at the board. After my dad returned, he played ...


18. Qe2? Perhaps because I’d already been staring


at the board for so long, I realized he had made a blunder. There are all kinds of tactics allowing different forks and pins. Here, I found what I consider My Best Move:


18. ... Nxe3! This is better than 18. ... Nhg3 otherwise


WHITE TO PLAY 72 October 2014 | Chess Life


he’d only lose the Exchange when he would have two pieces for a rook and two pawns.


it.


20. Qxg2 Nf4 21. Qf3 Qxh3 22. Qxh3 Nxh3+ 23. Kf1 Bxc3 I want to trade off pieces and simplify.


24. bxc3 f5 25. Nf3 Rae8 26. Rab1 b6 27. d4 Re7 28. Nh4 Rfe8! 29. Kg2 Nf4+ 30. Kf3 Re3+ 31. Kf2 Nd3+, White resigned.


My first time beating an expert! And in


a rated game! This game was a game of firsts for me.


It was my first win against my dad, the first game I annotated, and the first I memorized. It taught me to never give up, even when I am down.


Whose Best Move would you like to see? Write to us at letters@uschess.org.


19. Rfc1 Nxg2 Stronger is 19. ... Bd4, but I didn’t see





PHOTO: JASON CHU


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