GG Ahmadi

Fatemeh Ahmadi grew up in Shiraz watching her father and uncles play tavla in the courtyard, and was allowed her first game at seven on the condition that she never cried when she lost. She never has. She is a first-year medical student now and plays in the gaps between anatomy lectures. She attacks, and she is a great deal more accurate with the cube than anyone at her level has any business being, because she treats it the way she treats a hard exam: reviewed the same evening, never repeated. She is bright and good-natured about all of it, right up until the dice are in her hand. She plays out of the university club, and she is the only member of it who cares about the result. The others treat an evening's fixtures as an evening out. She has a note of every one of hers.