Rook Reflections - Episode 3 with WIM Jesse February

Hi everyone, 

Here is the third episode of the Rook Reflections podcast! The main interviews will happen on my Twitch channel, every few weeks, but the video of it will be uploaded to my YouTube channel, but I will highlight a few questions and answers as well in my blog

In case you missed the first two episodes, then you can check those out here:
Episode 1 with WFM Alessia Santeramo
Episode 2 with GM Hovhannes Gabuzyan

This third episode was with Woman International Master Jesse February (who was born in January unforgivably) from South Africa.

Please check out her Twitch channel here: https://www.twitch.tv/jesse_feb 🙂

F: How did you start playing chess?
J: When I was 7, my mother taught me how to play chess, which was most likely employed to keep me out of trouble, because I was a very busy kid as most kids are. Although I really didn’t take interest in it until I turned 8. Then I started playing it at school and I realized that I had a little bit of a competitive streak to me and started playing tournaments as well. Of course it being a male-dominated sport, it is never really easy for females to be motivated and continue playing. Luckily I was very much a tomboy and I don’t think I’ve admitted this enough. I liked everything that a little boy would usually like, so I really fit in in the chess world. There are a lot of things that I picked up and put down, like playing the piano, waterpolo, hockey and other things, but chess is the one that stuck.

F: Are you happy with this decision?
J: You know, I have my regrets, sometimes it’s a lot of heartache, actually, I lied, most of the time it’s just heartache, tilting and being sad about losing…but then you win that hard game and then you really feel great about yourself. Plus, I have a bunch of goals and I guess chess has been part of my life for like 17-18 years now, so I can’t imagine not playing or not being part of the chess community.

F: You mentioned that you have a bunch of goals, do those include chess goals, or do you focus on content creation mostly?
J: My chess goals include reaching 2100 FIDE rating, and I know it might be very solid and not a very ambitious goal, in terms of the top lady players being 2500-2600, but it’s a very specific goal for me, because once I reach it, I’ll get my Woman GrandMaster title. In 2021 I won the Continental, African Championship, which would have given me the title directly, but they changed the rules, and now you need to reach a certain rating in order to make it official. Now that I live in a bigger city, I’m hoping to travel more and play in more tournaments to fight for this goal. Other than that I also have some streaming goals; probably just to grow the community, and of course my YouTube is also something I would like to grow (Please, help Jesse in this mission and subscribe to her YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Jesse_Feb). I have pretty good ideas that need to be implemented, but you know, there is a big difference between having ideas and doing them, so we need to cross that bridge at some point. [...] 

F: What is the funniest and weirdest chess related thing that happened to you? (on tournaments/chess camps?)
J: On the national championship, when I was 12-13, I was the only girl in the A squad and we were playing against this team (10v10) where I believe my game was the deciding one and if I had won our team would win, so it was very intense. I had won the game, and I assumed that my opponent would be angry and frustrated that they lost, but they were just smiling the whole time, which was weird. You know, when the game is over you need to sign the scoresheet, and you need to give it to the other player so they can sign it as well. The little tomboy me in baggy clothes gave the notation sheet over and he signed it, but he was taking a really long time to sign it. He gives the notation sheet back, and it says; ‘Well played, here is my cell phone number’ and I’m like: ‘I don’t even have a cell phone!’ Young me didn’t even understand why he was giving me his number! I think I even ended up laughing after that. [...]

F: What do you think is an underrated chess skill?
J: One of the underrated skills that come to my mind is playing quickly and accurately. It is obviously great when you know your theory, but you would even have those cases where you know what to do and you are still sort of doubting or debating what to play. And then there are those players that are playing quite quickly and it’s frustrating to be on the receiving part of it. They know what they are doing, they are not even paying attention to the board and in a way they are sort of saying; ‘I don’t even care about this game, let’s get over with it’. It feels disrespectful, and it usually gets under my skin, because they are also gaining time on the clock and I end up doubting myself even more. I play chess, because of the respect you receive, the better you play. For tournaments where I know I will encounter someone who I know is going to disrespect me like that, I’m probably going to wear a cap.

A more respectful thing that goes unnoticed is when you are low on time, but your opponent doesn’t react to it as you would like. I realize it’s a psychological trick when your opponent is low on time, you try to stay as still as possible, because then that gives the impression that time is sort of standing still, and when you move,or the moment you shift your body language they are going to wake up and realize ‘my time is ticking down!’. This has worked a couple of times, because it can work on their subconscious a little bit. [...]

F: What is something that people who only play online wouldn’t understand about over the board matches?
J: [...] There is a lot more pressure, there is nothing you could do online that would prepare you for an over the board tournament, there is nothing you could read, you just have to do it, and that’s how you get your experience. Your nerves would be shut when sitting across from a real person, I think it’s easier to mask your feelings or feel more confident behind the computer’s screen. You don’t know what your opponent is doing, you don’t know if they are showing any facial expressions. Reading your opponent’s body language is something that you learn subconsciously as a chess player. I would say that is one of the biggest differences in being around real people as opposed to sitting alone in a room. But other things that come with the tournaments are having those breaks between two games, talking to people, seeing friends again. When you play more tournaments you even get to know more people, which is more like a social fest! 

F: One last question; did you have any physical or mental rituals before OTB/important online matches?
J: You see, if I reveal them, they won’t be secret rituals anymore, like the way I pray to the gods, set fire to like ten candles, or something like this…Haha, okay I don’t do any of those things. In some ways I get superstitious, for example using a pen for notation and the pen isn’t working out very well for my games, I’ll switch pens. It was funny when we were at the world team tournament, and we were hanging out as a team, and one of my teammates was telling me how they would literally go back to the accommodation to change the shirt if they had a bad game and they’d return, hoping for a better game. If it works out they would still keep the shirt on for the next day if it was still fresh. I guess that’s also one way to go if you are superstitious. I also used to put my favorite song on when I was driving to my local tournaments in my car, and actually it was a few years when I always had the same song, which was my favorite song at the time; Magic by Coldplay.It used to calm me down and put me in the mood for some chess.

These were only parts of the whole interview. In the YouTube video you will also learn:

• more distracting over the board behavior
• reading body language
• over the board time management issues and how to react to them
• more of my personal thoughts and experience
• more jokes 🙂
  
  

If that sound exciting, then please, check out the full video on YouTube :
https://youtu.be/-5N_gynZ8Ms

I’m curious about your thoughts and chess experience, please feel free to share them with us in the comments here, or on YouTube! Follows and likes are appreciated!