kicking puppies is bad

I was looking at the October Issue of Chess Life and Irina Krush was on the cover, again.

I get it. There aren’t a lot of hot women who play chess (or at least there aren’t many hot women that play chess *really* well). In fact, there appears to be only one hot woman who plays chess *really* well: Irina Krush **. So she graces the cover of Chess Life at least 11 months a year (for those of you who actually take my journal seriously, this is a gross exaggeration).The covers of Chess Life go something like: Irina Krush, Irina Krush, Irina Krush, Some Random Old Prematurely Balding Unhygenic Guy with large goiters and an acne problem, Irina Krush, Irina Krush, Irina Krush. And she is good at chess. She is *amazingly* good. And she is *way* smarter than I am. And she is *way* better at chess than I will *ever* be. I’m definately *not* saying they should put me on the cover of Chess Life. In fact, that would be ridiculous – I don’t even really play chess. And to a certain extent I understand why they continue to put her there. Judging by the few months that Irina is not on the cover, chess players are apparently really unattractive people.

But come on – the truth is that on the April 2007 list, Krush had a FIDE Rating of 2478, 11th best among active female players. So there are LOTS of other people who could (should?) grace the cover of chess life. And the only reason they keep putting her there is because she isn’t fugly. And I’m sick of it. I want the fugly old guys back. Chess is supposed to be one of those domains where it doesn’t matter if you have facial tics and slightly resemble Winston Churchill on one of his bad days or if it appears that your neck shouldn’t be able to support your head. Your intellect is supposed to finally trump your appearence. And continuing to feature Irina Krush is killing that.

** It is possible that Jennifer Shahade counts as a hot excellent female chess player as well. But it was much easier to take her seriously before she wrote Chess Bitch and was featured on its cover wearing a hot pink wig and fuzzy pink gloves.