Lisa Lane

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Lisa Lane Hickey (born April 25, 1938 in Philadelphia) was an American chess player. Her combination of good looks and chess-playing ability made her an international celebrity, even though she never achieved the title of chess master. Her photo appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, making her the first of only two chess players to appear on its cover (the other, Bobby Fischer, in 1972). There were articles about her in Look, Newsweek, The New Yorker and many other magazines.

She won her first U.S. Women's Chess Championship in 1959 at the age of 21, just two years after she began playing the game. She held this title until 1962, losing it to Gisela Kahn Gresser. Lane had an Elo rating of 2002, a low expert rating, from the United States Chess Federation as of the end of 1961.^[1] In 1963, Lane opened her own chess club, The Queen's Pawn Chess Emporium in New York City. In 1966, she shared the U.S. Women's Chess Champion title with Gresser.

She married Neil Hickey, editor-at-large of the Columbia Journalism Review, who was a friend of Bobby Fischer and assisted Fischer in some chess articles. (Despite her friendship with him, Fischer was not impressed with Lane's, or any woman's, chess playing abilities: "They're all fish. Lisa, you might say, is the best of the American fish.")

According to two-time U. S. Women's Chess Champion Jennifer Shadade (author of Chess Bitch, a book about women chess players), Lisa quit the game partly because she was annoyed with being identified as a chess player. "It got to be embarrassing, constantly being introduced as a chess champion at parties." On her fame, Hickey said, "I guess I was good copy. I don't think the things I did in chess forty years ago are the most important things in my life."

Today, Lisa owns a natural food business, Earthlore, in Pawling, New York.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Lisa Lane at ChessGames.com
• Lisa Lane, US Women's Champion [1]