AAndrea Eisenberg
Unknown - Unknown
Andrea Eisenberg 08 May 1976, Sat The Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) Newspapers.com
Andrea Eisenberg, holder of three national chess titles, looks back for a sign of approval from the man who taught her the game when she was five years old her father. Dr. Michael Eisenberg. Andrea recently captured her fifth Minn, state woman's title, and here, keeps in practice by playing a game with a friend. (UPI)
Chess Champ Says She Learned In Half Hour 08 May 1976, Sat The Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) Newspapers.com
Chess Champ Says She Learned In Half Hour
By RICHARD McFARLAND
MINNEAPOLIS (UPI) — When Andrea Eisenberg was a curly-haired 5-year-old she learned to play chess in half an hour.
Now 16 and an attractive 5-foot-5 blonde, she is a teen-age prodigy.
She has won three national chess titles and just captured the Minnesota women's chess championship for the fifth' straight year.
“There's no reason, in my opinion, why she shouldn't be the national women's champion,” says her father, Dr. Michael M. Eisenberg (January 27, 1931 - February 24, 2011), surgery professor at the University of Minnesota.
Andrea would like to enter adult national tournaments if any are held nearby. She also would enjoy playing world champion Bobby Fischer, although she said, “I don't have any visions of beating him.”
A few years ago she declined an invitation to train in New York for world competition. “I love chess,” she said, “but for me it's a game, not a career.”
Andrea is modest about her chess success and seems more interested in entering Harvard next fall to study languages and English literature and then law.
Dr. Eisenberg said he was at home sick one day 11 years ago playing chess with Andrea's two older sisters, Elyse, now 21, and Ellen, now 19. Andrea wanted to play, too.
“I asked my wife, 'How am I going to teach a 5-year-old to play chess?' and she said, 'Well, go through the motions.' To my amazement she learned the moves and was playing within half an hour.
“By the time she was 8 she was beating me regularly,” he said. “When she was 10 she was winning local tournaments. She won the U.S. junior women's championship at age 12 and again at 13 and was the U.S. pre-teen champion for boys and girls at age 12.”
She has held the Minnesota women's title since 1972.
“She's an instinctive player,” her father said. “She outstripped me so early, I sought out a young man named Nels Truelson, one of the best in Minnesota, to coach her for a year.”
But chess is just one of many interests for Andrea. She's an excellent swimmer, president of her graduating class at Blake School, and a Sunday School teacher.
Robert T. Smith 29 Feb 1972, Tue Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) Newspapers.com
The Minnesota State Open Chess Championship Tournament was under way at Macalester College recently. The 22-year-old man studied the board for a long time, then moved his knight. She moved her queen and announced: “Checkmate.”
The man knocked over the chess board, broke his pencil in two and stomped out. The chauvinistic male not only was beaten by a female, but by a 12-year-old one. And Andrea Eisenberg went on to take the trophy as the best female chess player in the state of any age.
I've played a bit of chess through the years and decided I'd show this 12-year-old a move or two. I called her father, Dr. Michael Eisenberg, head of surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital. “I'd like to challenge your daughter,” I said.
“What's the matter,” he said, “have you got an extra 10 minutes to kill loser?” I told him I'd never been beaten by a 12-year-old.
I arrived at their home, 4649 E. Lake Harriet Blvd., expecting to find a precocious little brat with her tongue sticking out. Instead a pretty girl with long brown hair, shy but poised, met me at the door. She said “Hi,” took my coat and smiled. I was immediately charmed, but figured that she was trying to get the psychological advantage even before we sat down to the game.
She said I could have the white chess pieces and therefore I could move first. Her kibitzing father said I'd better take her up on that because it might be my only move.
I opened by moving a pawn one space and she said: “Oh, yes, the Petrosian opening.” I didn't let on that I didn't know Petrosian from a Russian stripper or a new kind health drink. During the game, her father said she started playing at 5, that he taught her and that she played more by intelligence and instinct than by studying books about the game. There went a knight and a bishop. Andrea was modest about her championship, saying there are not too many women who play chess well in this state. There went a rook and another bishop.
Well, I lasted about 50 minutes before she checkmated me—and I had a feeling she was being polite to a guest in stretching it that long. She said she hoped other girls and women would get interested because it is such a fascinating game.
Andrea, a student at Northrop Collegiate School, smiled and shook hands. She's a champ at more than chess. And I didn't dump over the chess board and break my pencil.
- New York Times: Chess Madness
- Harvard Crimson: Sophomore Places First In Women's Chess Open
