Seville, 1987

I have a lot of chess-related anecdotes, but my favorite one isn’t even mine.

It’s a family story.

1987, Seville. My parents were there on their honey moon. At the same time, The Chess World Championship was taking place in a theater: Kárpov vs Kaspárov.

Being keen-chess fans, the newly-weds decided to go along.

At that time, my mom was simply stunning. On the night in question, she was wearing a tight red dress, high heels, with Ferrari red lips and long black curly hair.

Inside the theater, you could hear a pin drop and the silence was broken by the sound of my mother’s heels. Kárpov turned his head and his eyes fixed upon her, lingering there for a few seconds.

A security guard abruptly intervened, pleading with my mom to be more discreet.

In the end, Kaspárov manged to refocus and win the match.

Maybe he was inspired, maybe Kárpov was having a bad day… in my family, we all like to say that it was my mom’s fault. And I choose to believe it.