X Chess Part II: A Battle of the Sexes February 6, 2012
Posted by Administrator in : chess,feminism,poker,video , 2 commentsThose of you who follow me on twitter know I’ve been traveling at a rapid pace this winter. From the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas to the Borgata Winter Open to New York for the premiere of the X Chess Championships, this season has been all about go, go, go. I have so much more to tell you but for now, check out Episode II of Extreme “X Chess” Championships and let me know what you think.
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From Atlantic City to London October 10, 2011
Posted by Administrator in : chess,food,poker,travel , add a comment
Since returning from Saint Louis for the World Chess Hall of Fame Opening, I’ve been on the move a lot. First I hit Atlantic City for a few days for the WPT Borgata Poker Open. On my first night there, I won a satellite into the $3500 Main Event.
Collusion is rampant in live super satellites and it is very tricky to draw the line between lack of incentives toward taking risks and actual cheating. On the softer end of the spectrum, if you have a friendly dynamic with the table throughout a super-satellite, players with large stacks may fold to you in spots where they have correct odds but gain very little from calling a shove or three-betting (re-raising) a minraise. This is certainly not cheating but it does point to some inherent flaws with live supers. This tournament was pretty extreme though, as one entire table folded to the big blind for over an hour. The situation got so out of hand that the tournament directors redrew for seats.
The Borgata Main was a grueling, deep-stacked event and some of my tables were quite tough. Mostly I felt happy that I combined long stretches of patience (we played ten-handed for most of the event) with well-timed aggression. However, in my latest piece for PokerStars Women, I touch on a poorly played hand against David Williams and how I was able to recover quickly from “Mistake Tilt.” This type of tilt refers to be really hard on yourself when you make an error in-game. I was made more aware of how destructive it can be in the excellent book, The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler and Barry Carter.
After being eliminated from the Main, I stayed for a guest spot at the Borgata Poker Blog. I enjoyed reporting quick profiles and hand recaps, including an online turned live pro that doesn’t fit the typical profile, a controversial hand and the final two women in the tournament.
Soon after AC, I was off to London for a short trip. Not much time for much sight-seeing or boozing as I booked a slew of meetings, PokerStars Women interviews as well as quality poker time. On the chess end, I met some great people including Sabrina Chevannes of the Chevannes Chess Academy and Malcolm Pein, organizer of one the greatest chess events in the World, the London Chess Classic.
Sabrina Chevannes with Magnus Carlsen. Let the record state I made her pose with him!
I also got in touch with some people who have common interests in the artistic side of chess, including Etan Itfeld, owner of Tenderpixel Gallery and organizer of the Mind Sports Games and Tom Hackney, an artist who paints abstractions based on chess games.
At the London Bridge and Games Shop signing a copy of Play Like a Girl
I’m going to write up my British Chess Adventures in an article in Chess Life Magazine, so look out for that.
I busted the £550 PS Women Live Event in London in disappointing fashion but had some interesting experiences and will be writing a piece on it for PokerStars Women. I was happy to see Jan Combes aka JamJars take down the event for £8,700. Earlier this year, when I could still play on PokerStars I beat her to win a package to the EPT Madrid Ladies Event and felt a twinge of sympathy since she started that battle with a significant chip lead. She was radiant as she took down this London event and I thought it was cute that she posed for the winner’s photo (by Mickey May) with her son. Congrats.
I’m really into twitter these days (the max length I can be funny at is 140 characters), so follow me there as well as my sister accounts, USChess & The Grindettes.
Greg, Daniel and I are also going to be unveiling episodes for a new reality chess TV show in the next weeks and if you follow us at XtremeChessChamps you won’t miss a thing. On that note, I leave you with the host of our new show, Kacie Marie, with a quickie chess refresher.
Autumn Means Running September 17, 2011
Posted by Jennifer in : art,chess,feminism,poker , 2 comments
Autumn invigorates me to a comical extent. I actually find myself spontaneously running in heels from place to place during this season. The energy was useful last week as I just got back from the opening of the fabulous new World Chess Hall of Fame in Saint Louis. I also hosted commentary for a special team event in honor of the opening, K v Q: A Battle of the Sexes. The kings toppled the queens by a large margin, but it was still a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed commenting on the chess 960 (Fischer Random) games. I wrote a piece for CLO elaborating on my own experiences with chess 960.
Crowning the exciting chess week in Saint Louis was the unveiling of the chess Merit badge for the Boy Scouts. With over a million scouts across the US, I really believe this could push chess over the tipping point. Play Like a Girl was mentioned in a recent BBC article about glass ceilings yet to be shattered, and I hope the Girl Scouts will take the cue and start chessing as well!
I’m also staying pretty active in poker. Recent articles for PokerStars Women include an interview with Canadian pro Xuan Liu and a feature on women of the Big Game. (which happens to be my all-time favorite poker TV show.) I also contributed a photo essay to Woman Poker Player about PokerFairyTale. Finally, The Grindettes have a new facebook and twitter page so please follow both!
Sadly, since Black Friday I haven’t been able to play much internet poker, though I did win an online MTT. Tomorrow I’m off to the Borgata for a few events in conjunction with the WPT event there. It looks like I’ll also be doing some guest work for the Borgata Poker Blog, so keep your eyes open for my writing and my chip counts 
Enjoy my favorite season!
A Poker Life After Vegas August 9, 2011
Posted by Jennifer in : feminism,poker,travel , add a comment 
It took me a while to recover from the whirlwind of poker play, socializing and hard work at the World Series of Poker. An absolutely unforgettable experience. Check out my article on PokerStars Women for an in-depth account of my Main Event. I also played in a lot of women’s poker tournaments in Vegas and met some incredible female poker crushers, including the lovely ladies aka the Grindettes, Katie Stone, Katie Dozier & Jamie Kerstetter.
While in Vegas, I thought about some of the things I’m doing right and other things I need to do to take my game to the next level. Frankly, because of Black Friday I frequently wandered the halls of the Rio, wondering: “What’s Next?” Playing online was always my main poker activity. Would I quit poker after WSOP, despite feeling more connected and passionate about the game than ever before? Happily, I think I’ve found enough projects & plans to stay pretty involved in the world of poker for at least the rest of the year. Look for more details as the summer turns to autumn. And if you haven’t already done so, watch Cin I, Cin II and Goldilocks on Poker Fairytale. Those projects express more deeply in images & sounds than I can in words and that’s why Daniel and I made them. This may be my favorite:
Cin II from Poker Fairy Tale on Vimeo.
Poker Fairytale is Live! July 5, 2011
Posted by Jennifer in : art,feminism,poker , 2 commentsPoker Fairytale is up and running and I am in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. Life is good. Check out one of my favorite videos below and look for an essay about the site on this blog soon.
Goldilocks from Poker Fairy Tale on Vimeo.
Madrid Gallery: From Poker to El Prado May 31, 2011
Posted by Jennifer in : poker,travel , 1 comment so farIn May, I traveled to Madrid for the European Poker Tour Women’s Live package I won on PokerStars. During my stay in Madrid, I played a little poker and spent the rest of the time meeting new people and exploring the beautiful Spanish capital. Living it up felt mandatory–my Stars bankroll was direct deposited into my account the day before my flight. Full Tilt players are sadly, still waiting for their money. It was bittersweet when I picked up what would most likely be my last PokerStars gift bag, which included a paperback copy of Victoria Coren’s book For Richer or Poorer, a hot pink hoodie and a stuffed shark holding two aces in his fins. PokerStars sure knows how to do swag. For a full trip report, read my piece on PokerStars Women, and see photos from the trip below.
Poker, Chess & Black Friday April 18, 2011
Posted by Jennifer in : chess,poker , add a commentWith just an hour to go till the 2011 US Chess Championships kicked off in Saint Louis, I logged on to twitter to promote the live coverage on uschesschamps.com one last time. I saw a feed bloated with panicked tweets from the poker industry. Poker players are known to be dramatic, but just a few minutes of reading the monstrous twoplustwo thread and links on mainstream media outlets, I realized the gravity of the situation–Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker were no longer accepting US customers, while the owners were indicted for bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. I rushed outside to make some calls and arrange for a cashout from Poker Stars. Whether it would help or not, I had no idea but I might as well get in the queue.
One of the most exciting moments in chess was coinciding with one of the ugliest in poker, quickly coined “Black Friday.” I had to get my mind back on the 64 squares so I shut out my sadness and joined GM Maurice Ashley in calling the play of 24 of the best chess minds in America.
They were playing at the beautiful Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, the host of the US Championship and the US Women’s Championship for the past three years. Many of the players in the competition had also dabbled in poker, hoping to follow the example of players such as original November niner, Ylon Schwartz and chess prodigy turned poker phenom Jeff Sarwer. A number of chessplayers had great success switching to poker, while just as many others had failed. But this time, chess players were having all the fun. As the most important and richest chess competition in the nation got underway, another tribe of gamesplayers was in panic mode.
It’s not just online poker that I’ll miss- I have a gut feeling that it will be back sooner than we think. I am terribly sad for all the professional players who have lost their incomes overnight, with no warning and just before tax day. I am also deeply saddened about Poker Stars in particular. Oftentimes when I told members of the poker industry about my accomplishments in chess and writing, I felt eyes glazing over—models and athletes dabbling in poker were stories, a chess master & author with books like Chess Bitch and Play Like a Girl was predictable. I’d seen disinterest by so many in the poker world that I was not terribly optimistic when I applied for a writing gig for Poker Stars Women, an initiative to bring more females into the game. So I was thrilled when Poker Stars did hire me as a member of the new writing team. The positive reinforcement leaked into my game, as I began to play better than ever, going deep in the Sunday Million several times in a row, and qualifying for a package to the Ladies PCA event in the beautiful Atlantis resort. I was spending more and more time on Poker Stars. When I was done with my “real work” for the day, I enjoyed nothing more than to log in and join my favorite tournaments. I looked forward to Sundays all week.
Poker Stars was the sponsor of one of the greatest innovations in American chess, the US Chess League. Some may call that previous statement biased, as the United States Chess League, now in its sixth season, was founded by my brother, an online poker pro and a Supernova on Stars. But the facts support my claim-the USCL featured the dozens of the strongest players in the country, from World #7 Hikaru Nakamura to reigning US Women’s Champion Irina Krush. The exciting structure and convenient schedule of the USCL also brought players many players out of retirement, including GM Patrick Wolff, who recently started a Bay Area hedge fund called Grandmaster Capital Management.
My heart dropped when I saw Poker Stars on the list of shut down sites and Isai Scheinberg on list of the indicted. Poker Stars’ readiness to support chess, women in poker along with aggressive anti-cheating measures and top-notch customer support gave me a soft spot for the company. I didn’t care if other players said the games on Stars were tougher than on other sites- it meant more to me to win there.
It’s always been clear to me that both chess and poker are games of skill. Listening to Shaun Deeb on timing tells is as fascinating to me as American World Championship candidate Gata Kamsky’s thought process in evaluating a knight sacrifice. Great poker and chessplayers go to creative depths to inch past their opposition, and such detail-oriented analysis has helped me as an artist and a thinker.
Games like chess and poker challenge us to confront our weaknesses. If I play a chess game or a hand badly, I have no one to blame but myself, and the hand history or game score is a reminder. One of my own weaknesses in both games is a discomfort with tension-my raises veer toward oversize and my chess style is very aggressive, in some cases overly so. As a chronic self-analyzer, I was always good at identifying such leaks, but the challenge was to fix them before tendency turned into habit.
Without trivializing the financial and logistical hardships that many players and members of the poker industry now face, I’m sure opportunities lay beyond the black clouds. Draconian legislation can do a lot of damage, but it can’t erase the vast online poker market. This may be a good time for me to learn to enjoy tension.
Vamos! My 2011 Schedule March 22, 2011
Posted by Jennifer in : books,chess,poker,travel , add a comment
On tap for me in 2011 is a fun combination of book events, poker tourneys and chess promotion. Hope to see some of you and stay posted on my twitter.
San Francisco, CA, March 29th, 5:15-6:15, Mechanics Institute Play Like a Girl!: Tactics by 9 Queens lecture and book signing. Copies of Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess and Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport will also be available. More information at chessclub.org.
Fremont, CA, April 1st, 5:30-9- simultaneous, book signing and lecture at the North Cal House of Chess.
Tucson, Arizona, April 2, 2-5 PM- 4th Annual 9 Queens Chess Fest and Play Like a Girl book signing at Hotel Congress. Shahade will play the red queen (a role she has always cherished) in a re-enactment of Lewis Carroll’s chess game in Through the Looking Glass.
Saint Louis, Missouri, April 14-28- Shahade will host live commentary with GM Maurice Ashley at the 2011 US Chess Championships and US Women’s Chess Championships, uschesschamps.com
Madrid, Spain, May 11-12- European Poker Tour Ladies Event
Las Vegas, Nevada, July- World Series of Poker Main Event
Saint Louis, Missouri, September 8th- Grand Opening of the World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum plus live commentary by Shahade at special event TBA
Sunday Five Million on PokerStars March 4, 2011
Posted by Jennifer in : poker , add a commentWho’s playing the Sunday Five Million on PokerStars? I’ve cashed in four out of the past five Sunday Millions, so I’m super-excited about continuing my streak, and maybe even learning to drive if I win that Lambourghini Gallado.
PokerStars.tv Interview January 24, 2011
Posted by Administrator in : feminism,poker,travel , add a commentWhile at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, I gave an interview for PokerStars.tv. I’m pretty happy with it but all that stuff about building my online bankroll sounds so serious and mature, I should have just said I was going to win the Sunday Million!
