Yara Montanari

Yara Montanari checks the opening file before she checks the pairing, a habit readers recognize from anyone who arrives with six prepared branches and no plan for move seven. She is reputed to know every fashionable novelty in the room, and the reputation is earned, though her reports usually find that the novelty ended several moves earlier than advertised; before joining the paper, she scheduled irrigation repairs and tree-risk closures for municipal parks.