It's official, women are worse than men at chess. The UK's The Independent paper reported last Sunday of a study which found that "under-performance [by women] is not down to lack of ability, but an awareness that they are expected to do badly".
From Mate check - women play worse against men.
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25 comments:
Will have to remember to show this article to females that I have to play in the future :)
I've always found that females are either good players, or not that good, just like the male players I face!
Women, especially young good looking women/girls don't feel intimidated at all. If they want to fight like a man on the chess board,( obviously because they like chess in the first place to take up the game,) then they feel great playing men.
There's no threat, they have the upper hand, the poor guy is the one under pressure to win, the male ego kicks in, the woman is expected to lose. That attitude, is really an excuse for her to lose, well she's a woman!
Womens threat or pressure comes when they are beaten by their own sex. If serious women players admit it, they hate it when their female opponent is stronger or wins.
They think like men,at least in the game of chess, and don't like to be out shined, or upstaged by another female...the jealous factor!
Oh women, they are so complicated, hard to fathom out..imagine when one is a decent level chess player! After all it is mostly a male dominated sport/game.
So if men can't work out women in regular life, what more men can't know females in chess.
Women won't admit things anyway..I should know from first hand experience, and I'm a woman!!
This looks like a thread designed to bait people. lol.
Wonder who else will bite?
Libby? Jenni?
Of course it is designed to bait- it comes from AR!
I wasn't going to reply, but seeing 442 gave a personal invitation.....
The ACT probably has the biggest group of chess playing girls in Australia and both myself from 1996 and Libby from about 2001 have instituted many girls development programs.
Do I think females are any less adept, intelligent, whatever? no - absolutely not.
Why aren't there that many strong chess females?
1. numbers of girls playing chess.
Girls go into other things - particularly music. I can go through my school and look at the large number of good chess girls. Ones that won Aus girls titles or trophies at the Aus Schools. Most of them are now far too busy with orchestra and singing and drama and their social life to want to carry on with chess. If you reduce the base then you reduce the number getting to the top.
2. Inclination
For centuries females have had the nururing role. They tend to be uncomfortable with confrontation. Chess is a war game and involves a level of aggression. I see so many girls whose first instinct is to move everything back when attacked!
However this is changing rapidly and I wonder if this question is revisted in another generation, whether we won't see a huge change. The papers are full of school girls beating up other girls and kicking them on the ground etc. Maybe this will carry through to their chess games. Whether this is good for our society is another question.
Personally I have always believed women had a more advanced level of behaviour and we are now being pulled down to the LCD. :)
Jenni
442, your smart. Jenni, you got sucked in and misunderstood the whole point.
Was not referring to Aust girls/womens chess, in particular was referring to higher level, more serious female chess players, on an international circuit, maybe at some stage in their lives, they may have been semi-pro, or chess was their main lifestyle/priority.
Secondly, I was referring to the mental, emotional, state of female thinking, playing against men, in comparison to their female opponents.
Never did mention the intellectual side of it, whether inferior or not?
People can make their own minds up about that. I was absolutely referring to the "PSYCHOLOGICAL" and the general attitude of female players, on the level mentioned above.
Don't think Aust women in general, maybe a couple only, qualify for my comments earlier.
It was not meant to upset,or bait anyone!
I know the sheilas don't need my protection, but let's just calm down a bit OK.
- TCG
Umm - no I didn't misunderstand the whole point.
I ignored the silliness of some of the article and just went to the main points of this interminable "women not better than men at chess and why" argument.
Just because aussie girls don't play overseas much (although I have a daughter who has been playing overseas for 6 months, including a game in the top division of the 4NCL and will be playing the Pula Open in Croatia in a few weeks), doesn't make them a different species. It is quite easy to extrapolate from 11 years fo dealing with chess playing girls to high level players.
I wasn't actually interested in Ms Anonymous' post - 442 was referring to Amiel's tendency to bait people and so was I. If you know the Closet GM at all, you would know that he loves to stir and enjoys people geting upset.
Jenni
Well I dont know if he enjoys people being upset.
More a case of liking to get people to engage in potential debates.
And this debate ,I mean dead horse, has been flogged so much that the RSPCA is on the way.
"In fact, the chess world's testosterone-fuelled side revealed itself recently when a nightclub brawl broke out between two chess Grandmasters, Danny Gormally and Levon Aronian over the so called "Anna Kournikova" of chess, Arianne Caoili."
*where's the rolling-eye smiley when you need it?*
It's not about getting people upset (whatever that means). Just provoking discussion, stirring, pushing and prodding here and there.
Hopefully, our readers are savvy enough to realise this.
- TCG
c'mon amiel - stirring usually involves people getting upset! You can't stir and prod and push and then not take responsibility for the consequences.
You always remind me of the guy in the Bridget Jones scene, when the fisticuffs break out, and he yells to eveyone "Fight! Fight!" and everyone rushes out to watch.
But hey - its a chick flic and most of you probably won't know what I am talking about.....
Jenni
ps I am not upset - just amused. :)
Jenni,
playing overseas for 6 months or even 6 years, and an open in croatia, does not make anyone, female or male, or gay, (though haven't met many on the chess board) a pro or serious player.
People can take an overseas working, chess holiday combined...many do..that's not high level players.
People can be in chess all their life too, I know many, but never reach high levels, or real understanding, knowledge of the elite world of chess.
That's ok..play for pleasure.hobby.
My point was different, another angle, and you still don't get it.
Don't be so serious, defensive...lighten up, smile..this was not meant to bait you...or offend you in anyway okay?
I remain anonymous, because I have to protect someone, you know the privacy act, and all that these days!!! LOL
Dear Mr Anonymous (and I rather suspect it is Mr rather than Ms),
Let me reassure you - I hardly read your first post - both my remarks and 442's about baiting was referring to Amiels's blatant stir.
My post, although it fortuitously followed yours, was not referring to it in any way, but only to the original blog by TCG.
I found your post incoherant and illiterate, so stopped reading after a few lines. I did pick up on the "I am a women" at the end, but with a cynical - oh yeah and pigs might fly feeling. :)
Don't knock our Aussies though - both male and female. Few of them might be professionals (thank the good Lord), but that doesn't stop them from being good chess players....
(I've been taking lessons from AR in the art of stirring - I am sure that last comment will provoke a reaction. :) )
Jenni
rest assured I am a woman, can't you tell by the constant reaction...easily stirred!!! LOL
Can't be bothered anymore...ENOUGH..this is now very boring, no wonder aussies will never become a real chess country.
It's a joke, compared to chess overseas, where they play, and run their chess seriously.
This of course only matters to those who are interested in the game..there's heaps of other things in life.
Look at the dramas-arguments going on with the NSWCA..what a joke..pathetic..big deal..measley $3,600- or so..then add all the other stupid chess federation arguments...no wonder chess is considered a game for nerds, people who need a life.
Can easily understand why all the other major sports dominate in everyway, including sponsorship, and financial rewards for the professionals.
Now Ameil, you should be really happy, not only do you start a stir, get traffic on your blog, we now have another topic for a reaction I'm sure!!
As Hewitt would say "COME'ON"!!!!
Dear Mr/Ms Anonymous
I find myself in almost total agreement with your last post - now that's a worry. :)
Jenni
Fem-anon said
"Look at the dramas-arguments going on with the NSWCA..what a joke..pathetic..big deal..measley $3,600- or so..then add all the other stupid chess federation arguments...no wonder chess is considered a game for nerds, people who need a life."
I have a life! That is why I can kick the dead around and laugh at their deadness.I have a full life and am living extra large *outside chess.* Furthermore, I give buckets of time to another sport where dickheads are weeded out of admin positions. When a critical mass of chess "nerds" is reached, I will be one of them to dance on the graves of the mental deficients who *OCCUPY* admin positions in the NSWCA and ACF.
BTW, femanon, the NSWCA is losing $1000 a month of the $80k they have (had!) You may think that that is "... a joke..pathetic..big deal..measley ..." I do not.
DeNovoMeme
You have a life? Really? You spend all your time on blogs and complaining about chess related issues. Dont you also have your own forum? What do you do again for a living?
Yes I have a life. I spend about avaerage 30 minutes (sum) a day reading and writing rubbish on blogs and boards. It's good fun with a good intentions.
I set up unother forum because I cannot post on Chess Chat (banned for not sucking up to Gletsos and Bonham)and Chat Chat cannot be allowed to have a monopoly on online discussion.
For a living I preserve and stuff monera for wealthy young geezers with tatoos of proofs above their elbows. They pay me in poems which I lease to myself for a lepton conveyor to the year 2021. Any more information will cost you your sense of vitrious humor and a million rods which you don't even have.
... and you are [drum roll] a base short of a TATA box and qualia short of a homunculus. FO
So are you trying to say you are unemployed... Doesnt suprise me!
Nup. I am over employed at the moment. Do you wish to canvase another assumption born of prejudice, or perhaps wish to send a quanta level flame from a speed limited neural network?
BTW, I have noted your contempt for unempoyed people. It marks you as a person of miniscule experience and even less compassion. I recommend you never get ill, grow old, suffer a misfortune or fall through the gapping cracks in modern western society. Should any of these happen to you, you will have to spit in the mirror daily until you take the easy way out.
Maybe for your next birthday I will buy you a dictionary.
Perhaps chess for dummies is more appropriate.
Jeez, how unexpected, a dictionary. You shouln't have. I don't *need* one but since you are giving it, thank you. I note, however that are are in serious need of a real personality. So, first I will give you a name. I name you Ferric Eric. (You remind me of a rusty old dense dimwit from Chess Chat, Eric) Now I will give you a report on your personality.
PERSONALITY DETERMINATION FOR FERRIC ERIC:
[vacuum]
Well, that says it all :-) Off you go now, Mr Nothing. Nobody will miss you or come to your funeral.
Why dont you do something constructive with your time like trying to help chess other than trying to bring it down?
All talk no action huh? Yep gutless dog
There is no prize for being second to use the "gutless dog" expression. In fact niether will there be a prize for being the actual original gutless dog.
No more from me. The quarry is no sport.
Sorry but this article is rubbish, not because it states that men are worse but that it fails to admit the fact that it IS due to lack of ability.
Men have a visuo-spatial advantage and an edge when it comes to in depth linear calculations, men are more focused.
Women are good at holistic approaches and thus can do quite well in blitz games where quick pattern recognition is emphasised more than calculation.
But more significantly the IQ distributions between the sexes is different.
Women are more grouped around the average whereas men are more spread across the spectrum, thus you get more stupid men than women but also many more highly intelligent men than women. This makes evolutionary sense as the bigger the differences between males, the easier it is for women to select the top mates, also the best selected from a spread-out group will be much more intelligent than the best selected form an average group, hence humanity's intellectual evolution advances more quickly in theory all things being equal (which they are not).
This is why the top scientists, mathematicians, visual effects artists etc tend to be men.
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