Vera Ivanovna Zasulich (1851 – 8 May 1919) was a Russian revolutionary. She was friends with the nihilist Sergei Nechaev, tried to kill the governor of St. Petersburg, and co-founded the first Russian Marxist group.

Obviously chess and tetris are both very leaky metaphors for life, but I liked the comparison and the emphasis on inner life of tetris over external struggle of chess.