Vive la Différence – the full story

by New In Chess
4/22/2015 – Yesterday we reported on the extraordinary news storm that had broken out over an article, by Nigel Short, that appeared in the magazine New in Chess. Going through the follow-up stories and readers' reactions it became clear that many had not read the original article. So we asked the NIC publishers for permission to reproduce it in full. Now you can judge for yourself.

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The story that unleashed the media storm in the international press appeared in the latest edition of the chess magazine New in Chess.

NIC, as it is often called, appears eight times a year in English and is read by club players in 116 countries. Its chief editors are GM Jan Timman and Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam. NIC contains notes by top players and chess prodigies on their own games. Typical contributions are from players such as Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Vishy Anand, Sergey Karjakin, Hikaru Nakamura, Veselin Topalov, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk, Hou Yifan, Judith Polgar.

New In Chess also publishes Yearbooks four times per year that offer opening surveys and theoretical articles. NIC also publishes other chess books.

In the following, we bring you, with permission of NIC publisher Allard Hoogland, the entire article as it appeared in volume 2/2015 of New in Chess, with a few pictures embedded by us.


VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE!

By Nigel Short

‘The difference between the sexes is remarkable in chess, but not any more so, to my mind, than any other field of cultural activity. Women cannot play chess, but they cannot paint either, or write, or philosophise. In fact, women have never thought or made anything worth considering.’ – Jan Hein Donner

Russian communism may have brought untold misery to many millions, but at least, by very small consolation, this warped ideological system provided its citizens with good (and cheap) chess books. Recently, I was kindly presented with a 1957 copy of Sovetskie Shahmatiski by Elisaveta Ivanovna Bykova. How many of today’s younger generation have even heard of the author – the 3rd ­Women’s World Champion – I wonder? Alas, my deficient knowledge of the language is inadequate to provide a proper appreciation of the book’s contents, but even a linguistic patzer can enjoy the veritable cornucopia of information – annotated games, crosstables, pen-portraits etc. – on largely forgotten figures in Soviet women’s chess.

Elizaveta Bykova, World Champion 1953-56 and 1958-62

What struck me, alas, when leafing through the faded pages, was just how mediocre many of these players were. The era between the tragic death of Vera Menchik and the rise of Nona Gaprindashvili was particularly fallow. Indeed, could it be that the provocative, outrageously-sexist, bitingly-savage wit, Jan Hein Donner (see introductory quotation), had a point?

Dutch GM Johannes Hendrikus (Hein) Donner, 1927–1988 – photo Wiki

The towering Dutch Grandmaster, not for the only time in his literary life, might have overstated his case. Indeed, I suspect his unbending life-long convictions and prejudices – such as undue reverence for the two bishops – retarded his development somewhat. At university level, women are clearly now outperforming men in many disciplines. In my own family, my daughter was uniformly academically excellent, whereas my son (like his father before him) is both lazy and erratic. But within the narrow confines of chess, the jury is still out. It is not enough to point to the recently-retired Judit Polgar as evidence that women are as good as men, as the brilliant Hungarian is clearly an outlier. It would be equally erroneous to claim that (the pre-debilitating stroke) Viktor Kortchnoi proved that older players are no weaker than young.

According to Chris Fegan, of the UK charity Chess in Schools and Communities, girls at primary school level who take compulsory chess lessons are as good as, or sometimes even better than, boys of the same age. Unfortunately, this promising start is rapidly eroded and they soon lag far behind. Nevertheless, my gut feeling was that female chess players are both stronger and more numerous than they were when I first began competing. The latter is certainly true, but an excellent article by the Australian Robert Howard on the chessbase.com website last year [Explaining male predominance in chess] demonstrated that, despite the enormous societal changes over 40 years, the gap between the leading males and females has remained fairly constant at nearly 250 Elo points – a yawning chasm in ability. That women seem stronger has more to do with universally higher standards, due to the ubiquity of computers, than any closing of the gender gap.

This painting by Dutch artist Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533) very aptly illustrates our subject

Howard also subtly critiques the most absurd theory to gain prominence in recent years, by Bilalic, Smallbone, McLeod and Gobet (which was submitted to the prestigious Royal Society, no less), that the rating sex difference is almost entirely attributable to participatory numbers (they comprise just 1% of the readership of this magazine). With the aid of a couple of bell curves this foursome neatly solve the eternal chess conundrum of why women lag behind their male counterparts, while simultaneously satisfying that irritating modern psychological urge to prove all of us, everywhere, are equal. Only a bunch of academics could come up with such a preposterous conclusion which flies in the face of observation, common sense and an enormous amount of empirical evidence too. Howard debunks this by showing that in countries like Georgia, where female participation is substantially higher than average, the gender gap actually increases – which is, of course, the exact opposite of what one would expect were the participatory hypothesis true. Interestingly, in the intellectually rigorous, but far more sociable game of bridge, where women make up the majority of club members, men still dominate the upper echelons. This would suggest that discrimination or overt sexism may be less of a factor in explaining the gender gap in chess than is commonly supposed.

The Tradewise Gibraltar Masters famously offers a large prize fund, with hefty additional prizes available to the fairer sex. Brian Callaghan, the genial driving-force behind the event, is unapologetic about his favouritism, although I have often wondered whether the practice is legal (not that anyone is complaining). After all, if, say, a company were to offer extra performance related bonuses only to those employees in possession of a penis, then they would (rightly) invite a raft of litigation. ‘Positive’ discrimination – an oxymoron, of course – is still discrimination. However, if one could prove that women were, in fact, at a biological disadvantage at chess, then potential criticism would be blunted. This might be an unpalatable conclusion to the militant feminists, but I suspect that Gibraltar, in which females have produced numerous superb performances over the years, does more for the women’s game than any amount of ideological grandstanding.

In round seven of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival in January 2012 Judit Polgar, 35, rated 2710 at the time, had black against the reigning Women's World Champion Hou Yifan of China, 17 years old and rated 2605. Yifan won in 45 moves. She also finished the event in shared first place, with 8.0/10 points and a rating performance of 2872.

High female drop-out rates are something of a mystery to this writer, and I am not referring to the traditional reasons of marriage and motherhood. People tend to stick at what they are good at, which makes it surprising how many girls drift away from chess, for no obvious reason, despite having represented their country. If one can retain a place on the national team with minimal effort, then why quit? Should it not be a matter of pride and honour? And if patriotism is not important, then why not, at least, selfishly enjoy a few foreign trips?

A noteworthy but atypical example of premature retirement is Susan Polgar, who, a handful of games notwithstanding, effectively quit chess the moment she became Women’s World Champion in 1996, at the age of 27. Like an earlier World Champion of Hungarian Jewish origin – Bobby Fischer – her demands for defending her title, against Xie Jun in 1999, smacked of insincerity given that her actions, or rather lack of them, demonstrated she had no inclination to play at all. Substantial sponsorship perhaps played its part in luring her back to competitive chess for the 2004 Calvia Olympiad where, despite an inevitable degree of rustiness, she did surprisingly well. However, just two years later this brief flicker of playing activity abruptly ceased. Her husband and business manager, the twice bankrupt Paul Truong – who claims to have won the Vietnamese Junior (under 21) Championship at the age of 5, and to have been kidnapped by pirates on several occasions while narrowly escaping death by circling sharks – continues to run her successful, relentless, self-publicity machine. He has not, as yet, been abducted by aliens, but it is surely only a matter of time.

Given Susan Polgar’s undoubted genuine achievements – such as being the first woman to earn the Grandmaster title conventionally by making three norms – it is tragic that her brand is tarnished by extravagant and literally incredible claims like her supposed world record in 2005 of playing 1,131 games consecutively (winning 1,112!) in just 990 minutes. This works out at just 52.5 seconds per game – although it would be somewhat less when one takes into account bathroom breaks. Given that she was walking around the whole time, which causes a second or seconds to be lost on very move, for this record not to be fictitious would require an extraordinary high number of Scholar’s Mates. It is hard to understand why an emotionally stable individual would even imagine anyone else might believe this record to be genuine.

In stark contrast, her younger sister, Judit Polgar, has never been in need of bombast and hyperbole to support a fragile ego, preferring always to let her magnificent results speak for themselves. After a glorious trail-blazing career, smashing every record in sight, she has now moved on to different projects. Having demonstrated what women are capable of, her mantle has been passed to Hou Yifan. Whether the young Chinese World Champion will equal or surpass Judit’s achievements is a matter of conjecture, but she is, beyond doubt, the best hope to do so.

Men and women’s brains are hard-wired very differently, so why should they function in the same way? I don’t have the slightest problem in acknowledging that my wife possesses a much higher degree of emotional intelligence than I do. Likewise, she doesn’t feel embarrassed in asking me to manoeuvre the car out of our narrow garage. One is not better than the other, we just have different skills. It would be wonderful to see more girls playing chess, and at a higher level, but rather than fretting about inequality, perhaps we should just gracefully accept it as a fact.


Facebook reactions

On Monday, after the press storm broke, Nigel Short posted the following on his Facebook page:

Actually the story broke on Monday on page three of The Telegraph and written by Leon Watson. Everyone else copied it, as you would expect – first the Daily Mail, then the Independent, then everyone else in the UK and the rest of the world. Nigel's pointer to the story led to a vigorous discussion in Facebook with many interesting views and additional information. Here are a few excerpts:

  • Gerhard Schebler: Several studies have shown the hippocampi of men and women to differ anatomically, neurochemically, and also in degree of long-term potentiation. Such evidence indicates that sex should influence the role of the hippocampus in learning. One experiment examined the effects of stress on Pavlovian conditioning performance in both sexes and found that males’ performance under stress was enhanced while female performance was impaired. Activation of the hippocampus is more dominant on the left side of hippocampus in females, while it is more dominant on the right side in males. This in turn influences cognitive reasoning; women use more verbal strategies than men when performing a task that requires cognitive thinking. The hippocampus’s relationship with other structures in the brain influences learning and has been found to be sexually dimorphic as well.

  • Kevin Goh Wei Ming: Yet another classic example of a knee-jerk reaction from the media. No one could have expected such a huge response but Nigel Short, admit it, I bet you are loving all of it.

  • Sarah De Lisle: The common presumption in the Western world is that women are no good at maths as their brains are wired differently - surprisingly then that in Asia women outperform men at maths and Asian maths standards are higher...nature or nurture? When a man decided his daughters were going to be top chess players, and nurtured them thus, they became top chess players! Nature or nurture? As for brain wiring, look into neuroplasticity...brain wiring can be culturally dependent....

  • Exicu Pro: Not quite true Sarah. When a man decided that his daughters would be top chess players one of them became a top player and the other two became very strong and among the top women players only. It was also a very deliberate and extreme example. The point Nigel was making was just a general point that there are tangible differences and effects because our brains are wired differently. There is also the very understandable notion that the real reason why there are so few female chess player and even fewer good ones is because overall women are far too sane and sensible to be wasting so much time on just one thing that requires and obsessive level of attention and time and instead live life more fully and are generally all the better for this. Important to understand that it is not a question of better rather than different and tendency rather than absolute.

  • Louise Scarlett Sinclair Exicu: I think a lot of this emphasis - that women are not obsessive and are living life more fully could translate to "women are like butterflies. They flit hither with no real interest in one topic due to their scatter brained minds."

  • Mig Greengard: FWIW I disagree with your conclusion but not the basic theory of difference. Men and women are different, sure, but the manifestation in elite chess is based on hyper-competitiveness from upbringing and testosterone and the proto-autistic obsessiveness that males demonstrate 30 to 1 over women. (Again, partly genetic but competitive & anti-social behavior is also routinely rewarded in boys and punished in girls, like so many other things.) Eventually more women lack the incentives and the desire/ability to care about and study and play chess enough to get to GM-level, not the *cognitive* capacity to play chess very well. Men are also far more into collecting things obsessively and competitively as well and nobody argues women just aren't good at buying comic books. Men and women do show slightly different cognitive capabilities at different ages, too, but to a fine enough degree to impact their skill level at chess is very unlikely. We'd have to have similar rates of participation at the amateur/club level to really test that. If we saw equal performance at 1400 or 2000 but it dropped off notably at 2500 with equal participation throughout there's be a cognitive case to look into. This is all why Garry's (equally ill-advised) "not great fighters" comment sort of makes sense to me while the cognitive argument doesn't. Far fewer women than men giving a shit about chess has the same statistical impact on their being bad at it, but it's not the same thing. (Not to mention the hugely sexist atmosphere putting so many girls and women off the sport, but can shelve that for now!)

  • Hannah Lowry O'Reilly: I think it is because chess is a game that requires A LOT of TIME and training and generally girls in a lot of countries where chess is big and where the major players come from, girls stop in their teens! It is nothing to do with girls not being as good, it is just the role that society imposes on females which reduces the number of females in the game and then inevitably there are more men in the top 50 list than females!

  • Helen Milligan: Hannah, note that huge numbers of boys also give up in their teens. Just shows up more for girls because by that stage there are already fewer. Mig, yes! Different stuff going on in the brain but no proof that this is correlated with chess success. Still looks like a result of participation rates to me (though I would like to see the Georgia data that Nigel mentions). I have a slight suspicion that despite the low participation rates, women are over-represented in higher rating bands (though not present at the top, just yet. GIve it time. When I started playing, women were enormously fewer and weaker than now... Since all female chess players seem to be determined to moan about sexism in chess today....can I point out that things are far worse in other areas. My experience of (trying to be) an astrophysicist is a case in point. The casual sexism in the technical academic world is dire, and there is no way to refute it by beating the guys, as you can do in chess! You have to play the political system as well as be better than the men. No wonder participation rates of females are low. And there are no girly prizes in academia either - no wPhD (or should that be wDSc for Dr Short?!). No getting trips to foreign conferences ahead of equally 'strong' but male colleagues. Also, no suggestion that the low number of women suggests that they can't do it just as well - in fact it is pretty widely accepted that they are driven out by the unbearable atmosphere...

We take this opportunity to remind you that Nigel has recorded two excellent DVDs on his chess career.

Nigel Short:
Greatest Hits Vol. 1 + 2

Languages: English
Delivery: Download, Post
Level: Any
Price per volumn: €32.90 or €27.65 without VAT (for customers outside the EU) $29.57 (without VAT)

Born in1965, is an English grandmaster who, at the early age of ten, defeated Viktor Korchnoi in a simultaneous. Celebrated by the British media as a "chess prodigy", Short participated in the British Championship for the first time at the age of twelve.

In the Youth WCh in Dortmund in 1980 Nigel came in second behind Garry Kasparov. Thirteen years later the pair would sit on opposite sides of the board for a real WCh match. Previously, Short had eliminated from the FIDE candidates cycle of 1991/92 Jonathan Speelman, Boris Gelfand and surprisingly Anatoly Karpov. In the candidates final Short also overcame Jan Timman and thus qualified for a WCh final against World Champion Kasparov. However, both of them refused to play under the aegis of the world chess federation FIDE and founded a so-called professional association, the Professional Chess Association (PCA). Finally Short was defeated by Kasparov in the PCA World Championship in London 1993 by 7½:12½. The result was surprisingly one-sided. Because Short had already indicated in his younger years what an excellent match player he was with a demoralising 7:1 victory over the naturalised American Lev Alburt. He also came in first in the very strong four-man tournament in Amsterdam in 1988, 1992 and 1993. A selection of his other tournament victories reads as follows: Wijk aan Zee 1986 and 1987 (equal on points with Viktor Korchnoi), Reykjavik 1987, Groningen 1996, Budapest 2003. Short has represented England in 14 chess Olympiads. He has two children and lives with his family in Greece.

Order Nigel Short's Greatest Hits DVDs in the ChessBase Shop


New In Chess (NIC) was founded in 1984 and appears eight times a year. It is read by club players in 116 countries. A yearly subscription for eight issues costs €79.99.

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Jacob woge Jacob woge 4/24/2015 08:51
I should like to see statistics compiled like this:

From the full player pool, draw a large number of random samples, with sample size equal to the fraction of female players. For each sample, find the highest rated player. Determine the probability distribution of this set of highest rated players. This will tell us which maximum rating to expect from a random group of players, the size of the female group. Is she above or below the 50% percentile, and by how much? Does this vary, for instance from country to country.
HarryHaller HarryHaller 4/24/2015 05:34
Of course, Nigel Short's comments provoke outrage because someone gets their feelings hurt, but the MASSIVE economic advantages (as well as advantages in training and tournament invitations) given to female players, at every level, are not sexist? And meanwhile, how can you, in good conscience, accept special treatment while claiming that you are "equal"?

It is time that all women's tournaments, titles, and prizes are abolished, and all players are treated equally. At the same time, there is no reason to claim that one gender is "inherently" better than another, which is something that is essentially unknowable. Under equal conditions, the results will speak as to individual players' talent and dedication. There is no reason why a weaker player should have a better life than one who is stronger simply because of her gender.
Screwjack Screwjack 4/24/2015 04:29
Knee-jerk is right. Women are quick to acknowledge that they are better at language skills, nurturing tasks, multi-tasking, etc. But let someone even SUGGEST that men are better at ANY cognitive skill and the feminist claws come out. Judit engages in a classic dialectical fallacy: the exception disproves the rule. "Men are naturally more adept at chess." "How can that possibly be? I am a woman and i am adept at chess."
Rational Rational 4/24/2015 10:17
On reading Short's actual article I see it is quite mild compared to how it is portrayed a paper from the strong words about Susan Polgar. He just mentions hardwiring at the end . What he does point out is what I also find puzzling, which is why do many female players give up chess when they have got some good opportunities for their level even if they experience sexism so want to limit themselves to just playing other women such as Olympiad team places and in some leagues playing on the special places reserved for women.
The differences in ability are not as pronounced as the differences in participation rates.
APonti APonti 4/23/2015 11:22
Maybe GM Nigel Short, who I praise as an outstanding chess player, should think about "prematurely" stop writing articles...
DPLeo DPLeo 4/23/2015 06:52
If what psychologists say about women's brains being wired to think in parallel and men's brains wired to think serial then another possible explanation for more male GM's and higher ratings may be a matter of concentration and nothing to do with intelligence.

The male predisposition to only be able to think and focus on one thing at a time leads to better chess results.

The natural ability of women to be able to think about many things simultaneously leads to slightly less concentration on any one thing and would explain the observable differences in chess results.

Chess results should not be confused with intelligence.
abdekker abdekker 4/23/2015 03:35
I am quite sure that regardless of the anyone's opinion, no-one intends to insult the fairer sex. We all of us want the best for our children (and I have a six-yr old girl, so I'm no exception). Denying there is a difference or blaming it all on sexism does not puff the issue away. We do the best for our children to encourage them in what they enjoy best and will moreover give them the best chance of happiness and success later in life. A single-minded devotion to Chess is unlikely to be the right choice. Truth is that chess offers a livelihood for very few (and a good living to even fewer). For most of us, it is a pleasant hobby. Fretting over these issues should not allow us to diminish the achievements of Magnus Carlsen, Hou Yifan or Judit Polgar. These players are so unusually brilliant they cannot and should not be used to try to prove general points about the (much larger) general population. In my opinion, Nigel does an excellent job of presenting a balanced view of a tricky issue.
pocketknife pocketknife 4/23/2015 10:49
I don't understand why it is that big issue. I thought what Short said is trivial. Why the women prices? Why the different world championship and olympia? Why the woman grandmaster title if the women and men are the same strength? And please anybody give an other explanation for the rating difference which do exist! Next to it what Short said is the best for the women. If a girl beats a boy (like Polgar) she can be double proud of it!
Offramp Offramp 4/23/2015 10:37
I think Nigel was the victim of a slow newsday. There wasn't much news to fill the papers so the editors picked up on this. Nigel was being totally fair in the original article.
kezman9 kezman9 4/23/2015 08:37
@Bob Fritz

It's acutally very sad that you cannot express your views in a country like yours (U.S.). In every democratic country there should be freedom of speech. Nigel's words are not personal, so no one is offended. I feel sorry for you that you are actually happy that someone could be fired simply because of expressing one's views. It is not democratic, it is totalitarianism.
Bob Fritz Bob Fritz 4/23/2015 06:41
Wow I cant believe what Nigel Short is saying feel like I am reading an episode of outlander. I don't think in this day and age that anyone would take this seriously. If this was said in the U.S. he would be looking for a new job. I think his wife should have him committed after she tells him what the heck were you
thinking.
Maturner Maturner 4/23/2015 02:30
I agree that the Polgar experiment completely refutes any sort of assertion of a natural male dominance in chess.
Rinzou Wilkerson Rinzou Wilkerson 4/23/2015 02:26
Women's IQ's have recently surpassed men's. There has been research done showing a correlation between IQ and chess ability. Women will surpass men in chess.
genem genem 4/23/2015 12:06
Just as women are too smart to care as much about chess as men care, so too are women smart enough to neither read nor comment on yet another article like this, written by a man.
idratherplay960 idratherplay960 4/22/2015 10:18
Why shouldn't a natural hypothesis be that the difference in playing strength is attributable to some difference in our thought process, and furthermore a biological difference? Who cares? If me and my wife had similar logic and reasoning I doubt I would ever have to sleep on the couch.
firestorm firestorm 4/22/2015 10:16
On a more serious note, there was an MRI study of go players showing how they had different brain activity to a control group. I don't recall gender being a specific feature of the study, or whether it was controlled for in the study, but my point is- you need to know your stuff about neurophysiology if you're going to start talking about the neural bases of cognitive differences, let alone whether you can make the same distinction between genders whilst ruling out the inevitable effects of experience etc. Takes all the fun out of being a troll really, doesn't it?
amosburn amosburn 4/22/2015 09:56
Nigel has put the cat among the the pigeons. Let me throw in other cat.

Going back two or three generations (as I do) most women chess players, as well as women mathematicians and scientists generally, were rather "mannish" is their appearance and behavior, a bit dowdy and brusque. Today, very many of the women taking part in those activities are totally gorgeous and feminine (something that Chessbase seems very happy to celebrate, as I am lad to see!). Apart from this being very pleasant in itself, it is highly significant as a societal development. Women are feeling able to compete in traditionally male activities without having to take on a masculine disguise, and this is extremely healthy. It is in fact a transformation that must happen before more change is possible.

It also shows that we are still in the early stages, and nowhere near to knowing what will eventually happen. Some readers apparently feel that nothing short of total uniformity in achievement will be acceptable. Nigel's point is that equality can take many forms and need not imply uniformity. Acting as though it did may not be in anyone's best interest.

Others see insult in the suggestion that there may be genetic differences in "abilty", but it would astonishing if the genders were not differently gifted. By and large, it is only chess players who view extreme chess ability as having any more general significance, and of course they would. The more modest virtues of discipline and logic that can be encouraged by chess education do not require extraordinary talent of any kind.
sokrates85 sokrates85 4/22/2015 09:36
The idiocy of Nigel's point is NOT whether he makes a casual observation. All of us make the observation, yes, there are far fewer women GM's that can compete at the highest level.

When he tries to TIE this simple observation to differences in the human BRAIN, he is out on a limb, since he is absolutely not at a position to make such a spectacular link, nor that anyone has ever done so convincingly.

This is not trying a new variation in the Budapest, and he looks like an idiot, and deserves all the feces storm he is attracting.
idratherplay960 idratherplay960 4/22/2015 07:25
Is it sexist to state that men carry more muscle mass and thus are superior to women at most sports? Sure there are plenty of women who can run faster than me, but does that mean men and women are equals at track and field?
aristos94 aristos94 4/22/2015 07:06
Why is there a WGM title? Why is there a Women's World Chess Championship? Those things should be abolished and mix men and women in all tournaments and have them compete for one world championship. If there is no difference between male and female players it makes no sense to have the WGM title and a separate championship tournament.

Has there ever been a woman world champion that could beat their contemporary male world champion in a match?

DPLeo DPLeo 4/22/2015 06:54
I'm not sure Nigel has considered the obvious.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&year=&playercomp=either&pid=12181&player=&pid2=12190&player2=&movescomp=exactly&moves=&opening=&eco=&result=
ChessInquisitor ChessInquisitor 4/22/2015 06:53
Well done, Nigel! He managed to work in sex and penis in the increasingly politically correct New in Chess. I hear there is a vacancy at TopGear...
Great_Scot Great_Scot 4/22/2015 06:48
I think a large part of the problem is actually attempts to help keep women in chess, such as the countless female-only tournaments organized by FIDE and many other chess organizations. It is really quite simple - by playing almost all of their games against a weaker pool of opponents, they handicap their own development as players. You simply do not learn as much playing against weaker opponents, and these events are depriving them of opportunities to face stronger opponents.

Common sense, and any coach, will tell you that if a young, promising player reaches 2500, they should look to play as many games as possible against 2600s, to keep challenging themselves and growing stronger from the process. But all these women-only events (and their tempting prize funds greater than what a player of that strength could expect to earn in open tournaments, as well as the more within reach glory of winning these events) incentivize young female players to keep facing 2400s. There's a lot more rewards in the short-term, so I cannot blame the female players for participating, but in the long run, it substantially handicaps them.

I think this one of the keys to Judit Polgar's success - she famously refused to participate in any female-only events, preferring to test herself against the best opponents she could find, of either gender, and this was instrumental in the growth of her skills.
ChessTalk ChessTalk 4/22/2015 06:30
I find it a strange debate. There are also fewer black gm's but I pretty much think chess is more attractive to white people for what ever reasons and without humiliating myself with questions about genetics, Id like to say, I've met plenty of Black chessplayers that can beat me over the board in chess but I've also met many white chessplayers that will never ever beat me over the board. These genetic arguments are deep waters for those that can't swim.

So these days, I look at women's chess and find them to be very strong relative to my own chess. They seem devoted to the game. Their tactics seem deep. But there are not many women in chess...or physics for that matter. People Like Nigel are quick to point out that GM's can't seem to drive as a rule--a funny generalization. It's possible that most male GM's are a tad 'autistic' or maybe socially inept and why not say they approach things in a single-minded way whereas women seem a bit more circumspect (maybe/maybe not.)

But what about Gays? There are not that many gay grandmasters. So are they genetically less disposed to play GM chess? Or maybe they just focus on more important things in their lives? Or maybe there are fewer gay GMs and they don't want to advertise their sexuality in a hostile world. Who knows and who really cares?

Arguing that that because a 'group' is less often seen in at the top of an 'intellectual field', it must be genetic while ignoring social reasons is perilously 'short' sighted. And someone that can't drive a car shouldn't get in that car and drive. Arguing about genetics without a genetics background and scientific vetting is really clueless. It's not circumspect. And it seems a bit...well, a tad bit 'autistic' ;)
firestorm firestorm 4/22/2015 06:00
"A noteworthy but atypical example of premature retirement is Susan Polgar, who, a handful of games notwithstanding, effectively quit chess the moment she became Women’s World Champion in 1996, at the age of 27. Like an earlier World Champion of Hungarian Jewish origin – Bobby Fischer – her demands for defending her title, against Xie Jun in 1999, smacked of insincerity given that her actions, or rather lack of them, demonstrated she had no inclination to play at all. Substantial sponsorship perhaps played its part in luring her back to competitive chess for the 2004 Calvia Olympiad where, despite an inevitable degree of rustiness, she did surprisingly well. However, just two years later this brief flicker of playing activity abruptly ceased. Her husband and business manager, the twice bankrupt Paul Truong – who claims to have won the Vietnamese Junior (under 21) Championship at the age of 5, and to have been kidnapped by pirates on several occasions while narrowly escaping death by circling sharks – continues to run her successful, relentless, self-publicity machine. He has not, as yet, been abducted by aliens, but it is surely only a matter of time."


"... He (Paul Truong) has not, as yet, been abducted by aliens, but it is surely only a matter of time."

... no, they won't.
Semyorka Semyorka 4/22/2015 06:00
Basketball players are tall, sumo wrestlers are huge, the best marathon runners are from East Africa, chess players are men. So what? The wargame of chess is designed by men, for men.
calimero_1984 calimero_1984 4/22/2015 05:18
I think Nigel Short is the greatest man on earth !

I bet they'll even go as far as labelling Bobby Fischer as sexist now ! Back in the days !

Feminism will kill us !!!
jefferson jefferson 4/22/2015 05:15
Science aside, consider this. Even if Nigel is right and for some biological reason women can be no more than about 1% of chess grandmasters, and we can't change that, then is there really much harm in trying to get more women to play chess anyway? Is there much harm in mistakenly trying to teach/encourage more of them to become Grandmasters despite it? We won't succeed, but chess will not be worse off.

But if Nigel is wrong, and if a much greater percentage of women are capable of becoming great top level players, then we are missing a huge opportunity to grow and expand the game. Not teaching, inspiring, and actively bringing more talented girls into the game would do much more harm to chess than "being PC" in the other scenario ever would.
Badir Badir 4/22/2015 04:19
Once again if we have a hundred times more male than female players how can we then make any assertions as to who makes for better chess players ?

The chess federations are also doing a disservice to the few female chess players we have by arranging female only tournaments.
MarriedRhombus MarriedRhombus 4/22/2015 04:11
It is just that women generally do not like chess. But once obsessed, in chess or others, they tend to be at least as good as men (they are actually more disciplined and focus in training). Look at Judit, Susan, Hou Yifan, Humpy, etc. Sure, there are fewer titled women than men, but there are far more men playing chess than women.
alekhina alekhina 4/22/2015 03:31
chess become a beautiful game because of women. Actually Nigel Short has a negative score to Judith Polgar.
C Dunworth C Dunworth 4/22/2015 03:15

Genius!

New In Chess finally decide to openly publish article - long, long after the media interest has been and gone?

#timing

If I didn't know better then I'd have thought that NIC had decided to publicly burn Short,

aided and abetted by car crash interviews,

to make Nigel Short a laughing stock not only in the UK, but globally.

Moreover, isn't Nigel's basic argument/premise remarkably similar to those that are into eugenics?

NJD NJD 4/22/2015 02:40
Chess is just simply for sexually frustrated people. Men tend to be more in that category...
Peter B Peter B 4/22/2015 02:13
I basically agree with Mig (and disagree strongly with Nigel). It's not that women have less ability, it's that they far are less likely to be so obsessive about chess that they put in the work to be world class. As evidence: the Polgar sisters. Raised in an environment where a single minded devotion to chess was encouraged, Judit reached the top 10 in the world. If women were objectively weaker, Judit's achievements would be impossible. Due to physical differences, no woman can come close to being in the top 1000 sprinters in the world, let alone the top 10. But Judit has shown that this does not apply to chess.
Captain Picard Captain Picard 4/22/2015 01:12
Oh Nigel....
scoobeedo scoobeedo 4/22/2015 12:30
I just smile about all the comments from the females. They do again the wrong thing and defend their gender, instead of giving answers to the arguments. They disqualify themself with this comments ...
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