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> It is noteworthy that China, one of the two most important countries in the world, has decided to invest heavily in chess. This year Chinese teams won both th
by StevePerkins 8y ago
> It is noteworthy that China, one of the two most important countries in the world, has decided to invest heavily in chess. This year Chinese teams won both the men’s and women’s divisions at the Chess Olympiad, a first.
I'm somewhat surprised that chess still has a "men's" and "women's" division. Isn't that anachronistic for a "sport" that has virtually no physical component at all? I don't really understand the ELO system by which players are compared, but I believe that one's score is in relation to the competition they have previously faced. Are top females' lower scores not simply self-perpetuated due to not playing the top males?
- ASipos 8y agoThe "men's" championship is actually open to everyone.
- kgwgk 8y agoI think something similar happens in golf. “Men’s” tournaments (at least some of them) are also open to women.
- flanban 8y agoIt's a well covered topic, if you don't know anything about it then this is the wrong place to learn.
- StevePerkins 8y agoWhat a flippant reply. The same could said for questions on in roughly one-quarter of HN threads on any given day. (current front-page selections include T.S. Eliot, exoplanet astronomy, insect biomass, Tokyo street life, Louis Wain's paintings of cats...)
- flanban 8y agoChess touches on the near infinite and reducing it something trite irritated me, so my bad for getting irritated.
- dmurray 8y agoMost tournaments, including the "men's" Olympiad, correctly called the "Open", are open to both genders. The top women are far worse than the top men (the top two are currently ranked #99 and #350). Discussing why is a sensitive matter: depending on which studies you believe it's either because women are naturally different from men or because the patriarchy keeps them down.
- StevePerkins 8y agoI would assume that to be due to a smaller selection pool. That is, fewer females play chess, and so fewer climb into the elite ranks. The same reason why American football players disproportionately come from the south, where the sport is more culturally prevalent, and hockey players disproportionately come from the north.
- adrianN 8y agoAnd why Uruguay is punching way above its population weight in the soccer World Cup.
- lsd5you 8y agoYou should consider revising your opinions and not making unwarranted assumptions. Or at the very least being open to the idea that it is because they are in fact not (statistically) equal in innate ability at the sport. It is certainly, prima facie, the obvious conclusion to reach. Yes there are other factors such as the massively overburdened 'lack of role model' explanation, but these are better explained as positive feedback from an already unequal situation (and in any case does it matter so much if you can have separate men and women sides to the sport?). The world is a very confusing and complicated place if you don't accept clear evidence however inconvenient!
- specialist 8y ago"better explained as positive feedback from an already unequal situation" I thought that was implied.
- 8y ago
- dsoul 8y agoI think its similar to esports. Its more about being historically very male-dominated, so having leagues focused on women helps encourage more women to take it up instead of feeling alien due to being surrounded by males. At least that seems to be the hope.