Only very rarely in a journalist’s lifetime does a story come along that has us screaming out “this is gold!”. Well, this is one such story. Hot off the front page of today’s local newspaper (the Gold Coast Bulletin) comes this gem. 19 year old Filipino/Dutch/Australian girl Arianne Caoili – dubbed the “Anna Kournikova of chess” – in the middle of a violent love triangle between two chess grandmasters! If you think the pun in my title is bad, you should read the newspaper article – for example, the title of their story is “It’s nerd-er on the dance floor”! Click “More…” for the full scoop.Apparently, after a recent competition day at the World Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy, Arianne had a romantic salsa dance with world no. 3 chess player Levon Aronian, from Armenia. This enraged British chess grandmaster Danny Gromally, who thumped Aronian! (It seems that Gromally had met Arianne previously, and was emailing her.) Gromally’s actions may result in him being kicked out of the British chess team.

Arianne is ranked the no. 3 chess player in Australia, and is a chess tutor at our local Somerset College. Amazingly, she lives in exactly the same suburb as I did until a month ago (Robina)! Not only that, but I was also the champion chess player at my high school, earning me the nickname “the master” (other nicknames I had in high school were “professor”, “encyclopedia” and “dictionary”, so that probably tells you everything you need to know about me!). I’m sure she’d kick my arse though, as I haven’t played in years and I never competed at a professional level anyway. I also know from experience that Filipinos are incredible chess players: they play it on the street corners over there, and I find even non-professional Filipinos very hard to beat.

She also has very similar taste in music to me (and has a similar attitude toward it), and she even has an album in the works! There are also samples of her songs there, and a great selection of songs it is too. Unfortunately however, whenever I tried to listen to them they crashed every browser I tried, so I have no idea what she actually sounds like. If you want a real web site Arianne (instead of that free Angelfire crap), I’m just up the road!

She also has good taste in movies, and there’s also a lot of overlap betwen our interests, like and dislikes. But as she lists one of her dislikes as “grammar Nazis”, that probably counts me out. 😉 She also lists religion as one of her dislikes (which I definitely agree with), but then makes the absolutely outrageous assertion on her thoughts page that Christianity isn’t religion! I think I’d enjoy debating such an accomplished mind on that one.

Anyway, enough of the personal stuff – here’s where you guys can find what you really want (her photos). You can also vote for her in the World Chess Beauty Contest!