Meet Grandmaster Manakova

Maria Manakova, a Grandmaster, is taking a bold step to show that chess can be marketed with sex as all other sports are. "Women use their sexuality to promote all kinds of sports," she said. "Why not chess?"

She is being called the "Anna Kournikova of chess" because she poses nude for magazines and shows up to chess tournaments in provacative mini skirts.

Manakova began playing chess at the age of three with her father, a composer. As a teenager she went to study in Moscow where she became city champion in the girls' category.

Hypatia Spitogniew
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