Sports Illustrated, Vol. 15, No. 6

In Robert Cantwell’s August 7, 1961, Sports Illustrated article about Lisa Lane, he stated, “Where, in the history of this ancient sport (or in what other activity, for that matter), have brains and beauty been so intriguingly combined?” The quote is characteristic of the tone of the rest of his article, which meditates upon Lane’s physical appearance as much as her accomplishments and the challenges she faced in her chess career. Lane, the 1959 and 1966 U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, learned to play chess at age 19. She quickly rose to the top ranks of American women’s chess, competing in the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship only two years after taking up chess. However, Lane stopped competing in chess tournaments at age 30, only briefly returning to the world of chess in 1971 to publicly play a game against an IBM chess computer, which she won. Of the computer she stated, “It did not…appear to resent losing to a woman as do many human male players.”