Juggling Chess Olympiad Preparation and Commentary Gig in India: The Other Side of America’s Only General Irina Krush

The other side of the one and only American Grandmaster Irina Krush NEW DELHI: For most of its history, US women’s chess has had a very simple relationship with the Olympic stage. He had none. Not once, in more than four decades of trying, has the United States women’s team finished among the medals at the team chess biennial.Then in 2002, Susan Polgar changed her allegiance from Hungary to the United States. Two years later, after leaving the top competition to raise her two sons, she sat on Board 1 in Calvià, Mallorca, and guided a young, unheralded American team to silver, second behind China and ahead of the Russian juggernaut that had dominated women’s chess for a generation.It was the first medal of any color ever won by the country in the women’s category.A bronze followed in Dresden four years later in 2008. And then, after a 16-year, career-swallowing wait, bronze again, this time in Budapest, a tournament where India finally broke through for gold. Three medals in two decades sort of represented three different eras of American chess.However, the one name that appears on the scoresheet every time is that of Irina Krushova, the first and to this day the only woman to win the title of Grandmaster (GM) while playing for the United States.“I was kind of the main player of my generation,” Krush, currently playing in her record-breaking 13th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, said with a small, knowing smile during an exclusive interaction with TimesofIndia.com.

A little girl from Soviet Ukraine

The story does not begin in America. Krush was born in Odessa, then Soviet Ukraine, and came to Brooklyn with her parents when she was five years old. Her father, an amateur player of real quality, taught her the moves.Her first tournament against adults followed when she was six, at the Manhattan Chess Club. She made her first appearance for the United States at the World Youth Championships in Poland at seven. At the age of 11, she was already competing at the US Women’s Championship.She won it at age 14 in 1998. Still, after nearly three decades, she remains the youngest champion in the event’s history.

Younger Irina Krush (photo by Zeljka Malobabic)

Krush’s association with India is also long. She fondly remembers playing against the young chess prodigy Koner Humpy. In the last few years, her association with India has also included a new part of her profession in chess broadcasting and commentary in the Global Chess League (GCL), a league she participated in during its inaugural 2023 season in Dubai, on a roster built around Magnus Carlsen.

You don’t want to look like a fool on a team with Magnus.

GM Irina Krush

“It was a chance to play on the same team as Magnus and it was like a very special opportunity,” added Krush. “I definitely thought it was the highlight of my chess career.But peak in her narrative has never been the same as comfortable. “It’s also – you feel the pressure, don’t you? Because you don’t want to look like a fool on a team with Magnus,” she laughed. “There are two sides to this coin. But overall it was a very good experience.”She has not played in the league since then. What she did for the next two seasons is to comment on it, first in Mumbai and more recently in Bengaluru, watching it from the other side of the glass.

Comment costs

This time Krush has arrived in India with the 46th Chess Olympiad thrown at her. For more than two decades, the tournament has been the anchor of her competitive identity, and this year the Games in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, were scheduled to begin just two days after her India schedule ended.However, the commentary booth, for all it gave her, ate right into the time she would have otherwise spent preparing.Asked pointedly if she found any window between broadcasts to play or prepare, she replied: “Not yet. It’s only been a few days, but it’s been so busy. Today we were asked to show up for golf. So I had to get up at 7:45 in the morning, go to it. Then I took another nap, and then I just had to go on a long day of not doing chess for myself at all.”It’s a trade she made with her eyes open, not a complaint disguised as one. She spent months ahead of India trying to shore up the form that the broadcast schedule was about to disrupt.“I spent the summer playing tournaments and I just finished a tournament the day before I got here,” she told the site. “There was definitely an attempt to get me in good game shape.And on the final day, when the commentators were honored on the main stage for being the voice of the league, Krush, who became the Grandmaster in 2013, barely lingered after the ceremony. She left the arena almost immediately, the next challenge, the Olympics in Samarkand, was already waiting.For someone who has spent much of his career playing chess at the highest level, the comment came without formal preparation.“I’ve never done anything special. I have no training in commentating,” she said. “But you know, it kind of comes naturally to me to talk about chess. It’s something that’s very easy to talk about and get excited about. I love watching chess.”

Preparing GM Irina Krush before commentating the game (Photo: Jyotirmoy Halder for TimesofIndia.com)

Her preparation for the stand is not so much learning to commentate, but rather what she has always done with chess: watching the players and their games carefully.“Definitely try to do some preparation,” she said. “So you have ways to fill in, you know, give some context to what’s going on. How are the players doing? So it just takes a little bit of research, you know, figuring out the nuggets that people will be interested in.”But even that preparation changes as the tournament begins to take shape. “In the beginning, you do more general research,” she continued. “And after the players start playing against each other, you’re more interested in what’s going on in this tournament. How are the recent results? Not like a year ago in their other matches.”“As the tournament goes on, you start to focus more. What happened in the first half? How are they doing again? How are they doing overall in the tournament?” Krush continued.“The tournament itself becomes more of a focus than their history before. Because it’s all about now, like, now you’ve seen their current form. So you focus more on that. Looking at the games is the best part.”The trouble comes when the chess stops. “The only challenge is that maybe sometimes you have to fill the time,” she admitted. “You know, the games are over. For me, it’s like, okay, just commenting on things that aren’t that exciting to me. You know, I’m just figuring out what to say.”“But when it comes to chess, it’s the easiest.

Eyes on the Olympics

The United States is among the leading teams in the Women’s Chess Olympiad, with Carissa Yip, Alice Lee, Rose Atwell and Tatev Abrahamyan on the team, along with the most experienced Irina Krush.“It’s like a very nice mix of young players who are really like that, not even at their peak, necessarily, but definitely coming up,” Krush said. “And then, well, like there’s me and Tatev, and we kind of bring a lot of experience to the team. We’ve been playing for 20 years or more in the Olympics.”

Irina Krush (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

That depth, the 42-year-old says, is a product of a sport that bears little resemblance to the one she came up with.“It’s a lot more competitive (now). There’s more motivation to play chess, more opportunities to play,” said the eight-time US women’s champion. “25 years ago, we didn’t have the prizes we have at the US Championships. We didn’t have the America’s Cup. We didn’t have the Cairns Cup. We didn’t have the Cairns Queen Chess Award for the next woman to become a grandmaster in America.”The dividend, she adds, can be seen in the players who are now behind her.“There’s a whole generation of strong girls coming in, with Carissa and Alice kind of being the main ones, but also other young girls that are also close to 2,400,” Krush acknowledged.In Uzbekistan, the U.S. women’s team had a dream come true, but its campaign soon lost momentum. A draw with Uzbekistan was followed by a defeat to India, leaving Krush’s team in 14th place heading into the rest day.

Some secret sauce?

For someone who’s spent two seasons now talking about other people’s games for a living, Krush is unsentimental about what the job actually entails.Asked what advice she would give to someone hoping to follow her into the commentary booth, she doesn’t reach for a formula.ALSO READ: From uplifting a heartbroken team to causing a hotel mess at the Chess Olympiad: Srinath is a man you can count on in India“Honestly, there’s just a lot of people doing it these days, and everyone brings their own thing to it, right? So you have different styles. You can be like a top GM and then start commenting. You can be like a different level enthusiast and make comments,” she concluded, instinctively running her tongue over the outside of her gums again. “So I don’t really have any advice except that I feel like anyone who loves chess and is pretty good at it can do it.