‘CHESSBABY’ ALMIRA HITS THE POKER WORLD
By Diana Mikhailova
Chessbase News
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16.10.2009
Almira Skripchenko is an International Chess Master, rated 2450. She
has won the World U16 title, the European Women’s Championship and a
number of other top events. Originally from Moldova, she now lives in
France and is moving away from chess – to poker. Recently she made
it to the final table at the World Series in Las Vegas. Portrait
and interview.
"ChessBaby" Almira hits the poker world
After the last game of the Paris Championship in July Almira
Skripchenko and I sat down for a dinner and a friendly chat. You would
think that chess would be our usual topic, but this time, our brief
encounter (over her favourite salmon dish) was marked with another
subject, about another game, which consistently draws in ever greater
number of chess players. Poker is the name of the game.
Almira Skripchenko, chess IM and poker player
Almira had just recently returned from Las Vegas, the world’s Mecca
of poker, where she took part in the World Series of Poker. It is like
the Poker world championship and consists of over fifty tournaments.
At the same time the Las Vegas Open was running, with the usual
gathering of elite chess players. A number of well-known names came
to the chess tournament in order to compete on the poker circuit later.
Among them was Grischuk, Van Wely, Fressinet and even Jan Ehlvest,
who told Almira that as in chess it was impossible for him to play
poker against women.
Is it a natural and perhaps worrying trend that so many chess players
are now taking up poker? Not really – the game requires deep knowledge
and understanding at which chess players naturally excel. And poker
is also sometimes about money – and a lot of it, if it is played well.
Almira is one of very few active and successful women in this field.
Since 2008, she has been signed up by one of the most successful poker
teams, the French Winamax. She is under a contract with the company
which offers her the opportunity to play in major poker tournaments.
Amongst poker players she is known as "ChessBaby".
"Play from your house, and enter the court of the royals", ready
the Winamax advertisement that can be found in every poker Magazine
[click to enlarge]. That is Almira looking a bit taken aback at the
man in boxer shorts.
Poker is traditionally associated with gambling, which carries some
pejorative meaning as socially doubtful pastime. However, poker should
also be seen from another aspect: the game demands a deep concentration
and thought, as well as mental creativity. Today it has definitely
become a game of skill, especially at the tournament level.
The financial incentive it offers, which is much more tangible than
in chess, is just an additional bonus.
Almira and Phil Ivey playing together in the World Series 2009. Phil is
a poker legend – the Tiger Woods of this game. He has won seven World
Series of Poker bracelets and will be playing this year’s Main Event
final table in November, fighting for the title of world champion.
The website of the 40th Annual World Series of Poker shows that in the
$2000 No-Limit Hold’em event that took place from June 18 – 20 June in
Las Vegas, Almira Skripchenko made it to the final table and finished
on the seventh place. This involved playing for fourteen hours a day
for three days, battling through a field of 1700 competitors. Almira
and Laurence Grondin were the only two female players to make it
to the final table in all of the World Series. Almira’s wining was
$76,664. We all celebrated this success – until we learned that she
went out on a hand with two kings against two fives, where she was
an 80% favourite to win and fight for the first prize, which was over
$600,000. The opponent got a five on the flop and she was out of the
tournament. Already in March Almira played at the Poker Stars EPT
German Open in Dortmund and in the Poker Stars EPT in Barcelona in
September. She won substantial prizes in both of these events. She is
also playing poker tournaments, fairly successfully, on the Internet.
So it is not be surprising if chess players like her are thinking
seriously about switching their allegiances to poker.
‘Playing just for money is not interesting for me. Of course money is
part of it. But for me the money is a prize for a good performance,
for hard work. Money is not a driving force or a goal in itself. I am
attracted to the game because it is complex and challenging. I have
a different, a chess approach. I play poker with the noble approach
of a chess player.’
Almira is only at the beginning of her poker career. However, she
has been playing chess since the age of six. Her current Elo rating
is 2450 and her noteworthy successes include: World Under 16 Girls’
Champion in 1992; European Woman Champion in 2001; Winner of the
2004 North Urals Cup, the second international super-tournament for
female chess players, where with a half a point ahead she won over the
legendary former World Women’s Champion Maia Chiburdanidze; Winner of
the 2005 Biel Ladies tournament; three times winner of the Ladies’
French Championship. She has represented her native country Moldova
and since 2002 her adopted country France at Women’s Chess Olympiads
playing on the top board.
Born in Chisinau, Moldova, in 1976, Almira comes from a family with
a long chess tradition. Both her parents, a Russian father and an
Armenian mother, were actively involved in the promotion of chess
by playing and coaching, while Moldova was still part of the Soviet
Union. Her father, Feodor Skripchenko, dedicated all his life to
chess in the Moldovan Chess Federation.
The tradition continues in Almira’s own family today. She is married to
French GM Laurent Fressinet. They are both professional chess players
and live in Paris with their two and half year old daughter Ludivine.
‘She already knows the pieces. But she is more aware of my playing
poker. She often tells friends and neighbours: Mammy is out playing
cards.’
Loves music: Almira’s two-and-a-half year old daughter Ludivine
‘It is hard to imagine life with somebody who is not a chess player –
or in fact not a player in general. Anyone who does not play chess
cannot understand the dedication and the pressure the game requires.’
Laurent is also a keen poker player, but while for him chess remains
a main profession, at least for the time being, we might say Almira’s
professional direction is taking a different course. Poker is clearly
winning over chess as her main activity. Poker requires skills,
dedication and time. Almira has embraced it full heartedly to the
point of relinquishing her work on chess.
‘I have stopped training for chess for almost three years. I do
still play at chess tournaments, and I prepare for my games (like a
maniac!), but I do not train beforehand. I train by playing during the
tournament itself. Even so, I managed to qualify for the 2010 World
Championship. But for that one, of course, I intend to dedicate some
training time.’
Does that mean you are more concentrating on poker?
‘I am definitely more concentrating on poker. My poker playing schedule
is programmed until July 2010.’
Almira will be playing at prestigious world poker events including
the European Poker Tournament (EPT) in Warsaw, Amsterdam and Prague,
and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) again in Las Vegas.
Almira in Dortmund at the EPT German Open
She maintains, with a great sense of reality, that one unfortunately
cannot stay with chess indefinitely. Eventually most chess players
are bound to look away towards some steadier or simply different
profession.
‘After so many years in chess, it is natural to want to do something
else. It is a natural evolution of a human being. One needs change. I
could never do only chess. I am never satisfied. Now, with poker,
I feel I have come into my element.’
Why poker?
‘I would have loved to be able to study architecture if I could. I am
passionate about architecture. But it is not realistic at this point
in time. It requires much too long a study. I can learn poker in about
a year. For a chess player the transition to poker is more natural.
For me it is a personal challenge to understand and master a different
game than chess. One of the most important things I had to learn was
how to bluff – an ability that is rarely useful in chess. I have to
admit that I enjoy bluffing very much.’
Why not go further into perfecting chess?
‘We are not getting any younger. As long as you train regularly, you
can maintain your intellectual performance. But unless you train six
to eight hours a day for 40 years you cannot expect to sustain your
playing strength. It is also connected to the physical shape. After
27 years of playing chess, even though I had some notable successes,
like being a European Ladies Champion, I felt I was not heading much
further and needed some change.’
Are you a bit disillusioned with chess?
‘I never had illusions in the first place. But when you are young you
are always a romantic and have high ideals. Then you become a mother
and become more pragmatic. Being a parent changes everything. When
family and kids arrive, you start to see things from a different
perspective. Even my best friend Alexandra, who is also a young
mother, is now transmitting her knowledge and experience to kids
around the USA.’
Best friends: Almira and Alexandra during a tandem simul in Port-Marly
earlier this year
Almira is referring to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, the current women’s
world champion who has moved for good to the United States, in Florida.
After achieving the titles Woman Grandmaster and International Master,
the Grandmaster title is no longer on the cards?
‘I have one GM norm. But obtaining the title probably will never
happen. Without work you can get nowhere.’
I brought up the subject of ‘kids’ dominating the chess scene. In my
own very modest involvement as a chess player, I lamented, I am most
intimidated when playing against children and that they are giving
me the hardest time. Almira gallantly consoled me:
‘You are not the only one. My worst enemies are kids. At this (Paris)
tournament, the only game I lost was to the young Moussard. When I
go to big international tournaments, like the European Championship
in Plovdiv, I see all these young players and realize that I don’t
know half of the field. That is when we are reminded that we are
getting old.’
While Almira was playing in Paris, Laurent was playing at the Masters
tournament in Biel and their young daughter was staying with her
grandparents in Moldova, for the first time on her own. Almira was
on her way to join her in a couple of day’s time.
Almira at thirteen, 1989 in Moldova
The raspberry cake we had for desert brought up fond memories of
her childhood.
‘It is my favourite fruit. There were plenty wild raspberries in the
fields close to my house, and I enjoyed picking them when I was a
child. I suspect my daughter will be doing the same right now.’
Do you miss home?
‘My home is now Paris. You are linked to people, not to places. I have
been in contact with so many different cultures I can live anywhere.’
She is not alone in Paris, where a large chess community has
concentrated over the last years. Among her close friends are GMs
Pavel Tregubov and Vladimir Kramnik and their families with the latest
addition being Marie-Laure and Vlad Kramnik’s baby daughter Daria.
‘We get together for parties, diners, birthdays. My duty is to make a
big table at my place. I cover it with food and plenty of desserts –
but I don’t cook!’
The ‘boys’ would also get often together for some serious work:
Laurent was a second to Kramnik; he was a member of Kramnik’s support
team for his match against Anand in 2008.
GM Laurent Fressinet at the World Championship 2008 in Bonn
Almira has clearly immersed herself in the mysteries of poker.
However, to the delight of chess fans, she is not completely abandoning
chess. She retains her role as a captain and a player for the Monaco
women’s team ‘Cercle d’Echecs de Monte Carlo’. Along with GMs Pia
Cramling, Koneru Humpy, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Monika Socko they
were European Club Champions in 2007 and 2008, and just a few days
ago they finished second in the 2009 ECC in Ohrid, Macedonia.
Almira won a silver medal for her performance on board four.
At the beginning of the next year, January/February, both Almira and
her husband will participate at the Gibraltar Chess Festival.
If the ‘chess approach’ of playing poker would help in the
practicalities of everyday life, so much the better. But I for one
would like to see this beautiful, friendly, down-to-earth young woman
remaining faithful to chess for many more years to come.