The daughter of a Soviet chess master who suddenly married the captain of the U.S. men's chess team seven months ago has won permission from Soviet authorities to emigrate.
Dana Akhmilovskaya, 8, whose mother, Elena, married John Donaldson in a surprise ceremony at the 28th Olympiad in Greece last November, received the news last week, and her mother left Seattle almost immediately for the Soviet Union, Donaldson said this week.He said his wife has not seen her daughter since before the wedding.
"We're both very pleased and thankful," Donaldson said, as reported by UPI. "Things have changed greatly in the Soviet Union - thankfully for the better."
Donaldson, 30, who is among the nation's top chess players, planned to wait for his wife and daughter in London after he appeared in a chess exhibition in Los Angeles and played in the National Open Chess Tournament in Las Vegas last weekend.
Akhmilovskaya and Dana, her daughter by a previous marriage, arrived in London Thursday. The three then flew to Philadelphia, where they are spending three weeks visiting his parents before returning to Seattle in mid-July.
"They have never met Dana and are pretty anxious to spend some time with her and and Elena," he said.
Donaldson and Akhmilovskaya met during a chess match in Cuba in 1985. They managed to avoid attracting attention while maintaining their relationship at two other international competitions in 1986. They decided to marry last fall.
Akhmilovskaya has applied for status as a permanent resident and said she plans to participate in chess competitions for the United States.
-LEARNING THE ROPES - There is no greater opportunity for the aspiring young grandmaster than to be taken on as a second to a principal of world championship caliber, but there is also the hazard of becoming awestruck.
It is wonderful to be exposed to the extraordinary range of strategies of a great player and to get a close look at the almost unbelievable effort that he can put into overnight adjournment analysis, especially if he is desperate to pull out a draw or hungry not to let a victory get away.
And, in fact, the thoroughness of his tactical analysis in the critical moments of the game, which can be seen in the late-night dissection sessions after the day's play, would come as a revelation.
But to get that close to a great chess mind can also be intimidating. Can you have any confidence the next time you are paired against him in a tournament?
One player who has managed to avoid the psychological trap is the Seattle grandmaster Yasser Seirawan.
After completing his stint as second to Victor Korchnoi of Switzerland for his world title challenge in 1981, Seirawan has continued to slug it out on level terms with his principal year after year.
Indeed, in their last encounter in the eighth round of the Fourth World Cup Tournament that ended in April in Barcelona, it seems very much as though Seirawan was carried to defeat by overconfidence.
-IF YOU LOSE - It is remarkable when you think of it - nobody (with only an exception or two that this department has ever seen in a half century) makes excuses for winning a game.
When you lose, it's the flu or even the opponent's dandruff that is to blame, as the late director of the Manhattan Chess Club, Hans Beliner, related years ago about a player whose anonymity he kindly preserved.
But when you win, no explanation is required.
Part of the reason is that you deserve to win, so everything is in order when you do. What goes unobserved is the presence of the very same conditions that would have been your excuse had you been defeated.
-CONGRATULATIONS to the solvers! - Jim Turner, Raeburn Kennard, Nathan Kennard, Erick DeMillard, David D. Kirk, Raymond Linner, Wendell R. Hurst, Paul R. Lindeman, Covert Copier, Ardean Watts, Hal Harmon, Ken Frost, Hal Knight, Dean Thompson, Robert Tanner, Mel Puller, Kay Lundstrom, Mark H. Timothy, Mark Stranger, Allan Nicholas, Michael Marsch, William D. Rice, Ann Neil, Alan E. Brown, Joan Nay, Brian Griffith, John Nielson, Edwin O. Smith, Harold Rosenberg.