Counterplay / Readers Respond
MAKING THE TOUGH CHOICE NAKAMURA WINS GIBRALTAR / SO FINISHES SECOND AT TATA STEEL APRIL 2015 Cr Career 7 ossroads
FM ALISA MELEKHINA is currently balancing her law and chess careers. Inside, she interviews
three other lifelong chess players wrestling with this same dilemma.
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I found FM Melekhina’s article in April (“Career Crossroads”) about top players making a choice between chess and their careers quite interesting. But what about the rest of us? I had noticed many
par al lels between GM Jim Tarjan’s article in January (“Reconnecting
with Caissa”) and my departure from chess. I was an active expert/master in high school and college, but then dropped out of chess shortly after starting a full-time career and finding that I preferred to use my precious weekend time for other activities, not sitting down in front of a board all weekend after sitting at a desk in the office all week. On occasion during my 20-year absence, I have thought about coming back to the game. But many of the same obstacles which caused me to leave still remain. Like GM Tarjan, I am not fond of the two-rounds-a-day pace which is the norm for week- end Swiss tournaments. At the expert/ master level, weeknight club play can leave you bored playing the same few players of equivalent strength. Online play is now an option, but going against a faceless opponent doesn’t appeal to me. But there is one thing that might bring me
back: my nine-year-old son has started playing in rated tournaments this year. Going to tourna- ments together may be enough motivation for me to dust off the cobwebs and return to the game. Brian DeSousa Orange, California
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POST MORTEM In the June 2015 issue, author Dylan McClain’s name was misspelled in the article “March Mateness.” 8 July 2015 | Chess Life
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