Most Beautiful Girl I ever played a Chess Game against

Fate dealt me a cruel hand during the first round I played at the US Amateur Team Championship East last weekend, when I was paired against a young woman who became the most beautiful girl I had ever played a chess game against.

Worst yet, although she had the unimpressive rating of 1054 and I figured that the game would be over in about 12 moves, she gave me a good fight. I was really worried.

Alanna Katz, the Most Beautiful Girl I Ever played a chess game against

I set an opening trap for her on move 6 which most players fall into, but she failed to fall.

Then, she started to trade down into an endgame. I was really worried.

I went into a deep think. Fortunately, I found a way to snatch a pawn which not many would have seen.

So, I came out alright. The extra pawn enabled me to beat her up in an endgame in 48 moves.

She did not fail to win a prize, however. She won a chess clock for having the best platform shoes.

Here is the game:


[Event "US Amateur Team East"]
[Site "Parsippany NJ USA"]
[Date "2001.02.17"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Katz, Alanna"]
[Black "Sloan, Sam"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C40"]
[WhiteElo "1054"]
[BlackElo "1921"]
[PlyCount "96"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nxe5 Qf6 4. d4 d6 5. Nc4 fxe4 6. Nc3 Qf7 7. d5 Nf6 8. f3
exf3 9. Qxf3 Bg4 10. Qf2 Be7 11. Bd3 O-O 12. O-O Nbd7 13. Bg5 Nc5 14. Bf5 Qh5
15. Qh4 Qxh4 16. Bxh4 Bxf5 17. Rxf5 Nxd5 18. Nxd5 Bxh4 19. Raf1 Ne6 20. g3 Rxf5
21. Rxf5 Bd8 22. c3 c6 23. Nde3 d5 24. Ne5 Bb6 25. Kf2 Nc5 26. Ke2 Re8 27. N5g4
Na4 28. h4 Nxb2 29. Kd2 Re4 30. Rg5 Bxe3+ 31. Nxe3 Nc4+ 32. Nxc4 Rxc4 33. Re5
Re4 34. Rxe4 dxe4 35. Ke3 Kf7 36. Kxe4 Ke6 37. c4 b5 38. Kd4 Kd6 39. c5+ Ke6
40. g4 a5 41. a3 g6 42. g5 Kf5 43. Ke3 Ke5 44. Kf3 Kd5 45. Kf4 b4 46. axb4 axb4
47. h5 b3 48. hxg6 hxg6 0-1

I don't suppose you would want to see her picture, would you?

Sam Sloan

UPDATE: Alanna Katz is apparently quite happy about the publicity I gave her. Her ICC handle is DrEaMgUrL704 and, if you look at her fingerlinks, you will see that she quotes my article about her. Also, she shouted on ICC yesterday "Sam Sloan made me famous", even though in reality I only sent my letter about her by e-mail to about 1700 addresses.

Her rating on ICC is 1789 and her all time best is 2110, so, as I suspected, she is really much stronger than her USCF rating.

To see her ICC fingerlinks, go to The Internet Chess Club, http://www.chessclub.com, download Blitzin, logon as a guest, and type finger DrEaMgUrL704

Sam Sloan

FURTHER UPDATE: There have been dozens of commments on this article. Here are a few of them:

On 26 Feb 2001 21:53:25 GMT, in rec.games.chess.misc ablue892@aol.com (ABlue892) wrote:

I have found that ICC ratings have little relationship to USCF ratings, and are often much higher (although not in my case). Alanna only scored .5/6 at the USATE, but the draw was against a 1900+ and allowed us to win a crucial match. She was also clearly won in her last game but let it slip away. I don't know about her being MUCH stronger, but she is young and still improving so who knows. In addition her brother is an expert, and she has a fairly well reknowned coach. As far as her being famous, well, once you've got Sam Sloan's attention, that's a given, isn't it? :

Here are links:

Sam Sloan's Chess Page

My Home Page

Contact address - please send e-mail to the following address: Sloan@ishipress.com