Tuesday, May 13, 2008
2008 U.S. Women's Chess Championship
Hola!
Jen Shahade promises to stay on top of things with coverage at Chess Life Online. She's already reported about Alexander Shabalov (B) resigning after move 18 against Yermolinsky (W) in Round 1 in the "other" Championship (LOL!) I checked Monroi, The Week in Chess, Susan Polgar's blog and Chessdom just a few minutes ago and didn't see any other current news. Stay tuned.
Updated 9:11 p.m. Central Standard Time
Hola darlings! With all due respect, I really don't give much of a hoot what the men are doing in their Championship, although there were a few interesting first round results. What I'm concentrating on is the chess femmes. Here are their first round results:
1 Airapetian, Chouchanik/Jamison, Courtney 1 0
2 Zatonskih, Anna/Zenyuk, Iryna 1 0
3 Rohonyan, Katerine/Battsetseg, Tsagaan 1/2 1/2
4 Abrahamyan, Tatev/Krush, Irina 0 1
5 Epstein, Esther/Tuvshintugs, Batchimeg 0 1
Four out of five decisive results in Round 1 of the Women's Championship! In the Men's event, there were six decisive results out of twelve, and six draws. Hmmm....
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2 comments:
Doesn't anyone wonder why the women's championship is exactly the same time as the men's? There is no incentive for strong women like Zatonskih or Krush to try to play in the men's event and gamble for an uncertain prize....vs. taking first or second prize in the women's championship and earning prizes similar to the top prizes in the men's section. The "separate but equal" mentality of this championship will cause women's chess to take a big hit in the long run. If only the tournaments were at different times, strong women could try and play in both tournaments.
Hi anon,
Last year, the Women's Championship was held at a different time than the "Championship" and three women played in it - Krush, Zenyuk and Airapetian, and none of them did diddly squat. Then Krush and Airapetian played in the Women's Championship (some folks thought that was unfair), and Krush won it, while Airapetian had a miserable event. While AF4C was running the championships in the later years men and women competed together, the top finishing woman being named "Women's Champion." I'm working from memory here, not having results and final standings in front of me, but my recollection is that during those years, none of the women players finished anywhere near the top 10. Rather disheartening, as these were the top women in the USA.
I've gone around and around on this and flip-flopped so many times in my feelings on the subject that I should be a professional politician :) Does playing in women only events put a woman player in a "female ghetto?" I wonder what the women who played in the recently-concluded 2008 European Individual Chess Championships would say to that? What would Marie Sebag of France say to that, who earned her third GM norm with 6.5/9, the only woman playing in the men's European Individuals?
There is an advantage to holding both championships at the same time - I expect this draws more people for "in person" attendance; on the other hand, most of the writers only pay attention to the men players and ignore the women's event, as if women players are of no account!
On the other hand, a separate women's event gives the women a chance to shine against other players with whom they're comfortable without all that sexy/sex/sexist stuff getting in the way. The focus is then on the chess, not on whether a woman is "hot" or having a bad hair day - things I constantly poke fun at. the prize fund for the U.S. women's championship the past two years has been great, thanks to the generosity of Frank K. Berry and others, so the women are making prize money comparable to what's available for the men - that has always been a beef of mine, the cheapo purses for women's events. As if women somehow don't play with as much passion and commitment to winning as guys do. Well, you know that's a lot of baloney - and so there's no excuse to my way of thinking for women's events offering less prize money. The effort put forth by the players OTB - men and women - is the same. They should be compensated the same.
So, if you can make sense of that mish-mash, please let me know!
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