Katya is an unusual girl, though she does not think so. For her, chess is life, and life is chess. The well-known Ukrainian chess player, the winner of many tournaments and championships, is a wizard among women, the grandmaster is unusual with an amazing ability to see beauty and logic in everything: in life, in the game, at work. About beauty and logic, victories and defeats we spoke with Kateryna Dolzhykova, a participant of the Women’s Chess Championship finals, which is currently taking place in Zhytomyr

“I have a family of chess players. A sister, older than me for ten years, first got on this path. When I was three years old, I got acquainted with the game, I started to play a little and solved the mat in one move. This is a fascination that has become a profession. Since the age of six – the competition, in eight years began to play in the championships, then the championships of the country, international championships. My mother has repeatedly championed me in Luhansk region, my father was an engineer-physicist, also played chess well, my grandfather’s played. Sister fulfilled her grandmother’s standard and now heads the national team of Norway ”
“In addition to being an athlete, I am also a coach – I train children in schools. As a specialty, I am a teacher of English, and so it happened that I do not just teach chess, and chess is in English. This is the specifics “(Laughs)
“The Grandmaster is the chess title of a man, such an intelligent master. For people who understand chess, there is nothing magical in this game. Perhaps when you see this picture from the outside, it seems like a person is remembering options on the twentieth turn, has a colossal memory – then the grandmaster appears to be an extraordinary person. In fact, it is the talents and skills developed in their business. The artist has his talent, and the chess player has his own »
“I graduated from the music school, I play the game with two instruments, sang in the choir” Golden Gates “. Actually, I’m an ordinary girl, but I have a lot of hobbies, and I’m trying to develop all the time. I love the creative process, creativity, art, so that life becomes multifaceted. But for all there is not enough time. Stench is a chess and coaching practice, and everything else just makes my life more colorful and interesting. ”
“Chess is a calculation, intuition, memory, prediction, high concentration, a tense batch of five to six hours in silence. And one must love this business, one must have a desire to do it. Probably, we need a special mindset for this. Very often the skills created in chess, help in life: you become more organized, you concentrate more. Classic – yes, it’s a serious chess. But there is also “chess entertainment”: there is one minute on the watch, and you have to play the whole party in this time; there are five-minute parties; rapside chess (for example, parties limited by time frames); there are blitz chess or chess blind ”
“There is a lot of creativity in chess. Surprisingly, for many, chess is logic. Yes, logic is unquestioning, but creativity appears when you see on the chessboard the beauty of chess moves, the beauty of combining, various traps, when there are unpredictable moves, attacks. This is a peculiar beauty, which professionals are more familiar with. And logic is needed, because if you lose it you will not be able to play. If you can not predict the elementary variant, there can be no game. And beauty will appear, when in addition to logic and variants there is a clear strategy, and in the landscape of this beauty – ideas, plans, moves. This is aerobatics, intellectual and spiritual satisfaction, a special level of perception of chess, their inner beauty ”
“Excitement? Yes, it appears during the game when there is a mutual attack. Then you can not feel it. You understand: two or three moves – either the match rival, or you. And from that charge adrenaline ”
“My best,” immortal “, as in Gufeld, the parties were in teen championships, when there was excitement of combinations. I matured and my parties became more calm. And then it was a victim of two rounds, a queen. Even in 2011 there was a memorable party, when I won the championship of Ukraine almost without defeats ”
“The feeling of a winner comes when you win a one hundred percent win. This is the emotion of euphoria when everything opens up to you. You list your rivals, you feel strength in calculations, training, all factors converge at one point. There are such tournaments when you are told to open a game. And at such moments you really feel happy. But such a feeling is not granted. No wonder talent is 99% work. The victory comes after the work, effort, analysis, internal rethinking. Then the accumulation of your internal work goes from quantity to quality. You can even fail two or three tournaments when it seems that nothing can be done, but as a result of the accumulation of ideas and experience of defeat, they become the euphoria of success. It is always a result of work. Have a job – have a result »
“Defeats are a matter of psychology. Depends on how you deal with them. Defeat is not so offensive from a strong opponent. You understand your mistakes, you realize that your opponent has more experience, and move on. But it happens that you are superior, stronger than your opponent, and then some kind of banal mistake. This can greatly out of balance, and in the end, if you survive a lot, you can even fail the tournament. Here is such a psychological moment: one must be ready for any result, be able to master yourself, have inner peace, inner stability, treat wisely to such moments. Unwrapping does not lead to anything »
“Chess is a logical game, and you can think a lot about the game. I do not always think of chess only (Laughs). But I try to adjust myself, to share constructive thoughts from destructive ones. It is necessary to learn concentration. Comes to the game – all! Leave everything else out of the game. There is only a game of the party. And you here and now ”
“In order to concentrate better, I started to do yoga. She teaches to better understand life. You better understand life – you better understand chess. Many say that chess is a yoga for the mind ”
“I like to teach children very much. They learn more quickly, they are more likely to perceive. When an adult learns, statics prevail, knowledge is superimposed on his own experience of the person. And the child perceives absolutely all the received knowledge, covers more and faster moves. I have been training children for five years, and I know from my own experience that the younger the child, the better she perceives everything and learns faster. Therefore, it is better to start chess playing for five and a half years. Perhaps the child is not yet able to understand the strategy, but the basics will be laid, and this will affect its future results. ”
“Chess also needs a sporty character. This is a special mode, the ability to concentrate, do not give up under psychological pressure. The chess tournament lasts for nine days, and all this time you must withstand emotions, experiences, analyze, prepare for the party, after the party, work for five to six hours behind the board. Sports character in chess – this is the ability to concentrate and self-control ”
“Women’s chess is different from male emotion. For men, it’s easier: calculation, strategy, theory, novelty. Played, shook hands, dispersed. Women have more emotions: attacks, calculations, more uncompromising. Sometimes, I saw a variant, could not resist – I wanted to play. And in response you can get the same emotional response. I play with men too, and I do not have any disrespect or superficial attitude. Earlier the appearance of a woman-chessboard could cause a smile, but now the woman is an ordinary opponent and an ordinary rival. Chess – a gender balanced sport »
“There are now many worthy rivals, women – personalities: Chinese woman Hou Yifan, sisters Judit Palghar, Zhuzha Palghar. They have made a lot of chess theory, they lack the emotional style of the game. For me, the authorities in chess are those who can purely and without emotionally, without hesitation, to play the game. It feels the equality and beauty of the game, as a result of which the player or player class is determined ”
“People are now lacking in creativity, but not from the outside, but from the inside. It does not seek for itself. Probably disappointment, but after it the attitude to life changes: it does not want to achieve anything and strive for something. But this is not quite the right approach. Through the prism of disappointments, personal defeats, one must be able to see the impetus, discover something else, understand something. This is a lack of psychological work on oneself, lack of awareness. I would like people to learn to lose, to leave the past in the past and to discover in themselves a creative, to learn to rejoice, to find a flash of joy. We must work on ourselves ”
“An extremely warm welcome in Zhytomyr, a nice hall for the game. I and my girlfriend were in the Museum of Cosmonautics, in the art gallery Gnatyuk. Extremely liked! Zhytomyr is developing ”
“I am engaged with three-five-year-olds. False understanding that children can not concentrate at this age. I show them a chess game in the form of a game. My sister wrote a great kids’ guide “Chess. Simple and fun, “I helped her. We have developed close to 30 video lessons. While playing, the child can even navigate in the fantastic chess forest even in three years. They like it. I’ve been working with such young children for five years now. There are a lot of talented children in Ukraine. Talents are, they just need to be developed. I believe that Ukraine will come to a new level very soon. I believe that we have a future, a good future! ”
Translated by Aliona Matushevich