News for women's chess: Chess dudes reach an agreement on hosting women's chess events. From left to right: Vice General Secretary of the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality (GMM) Mr. İbrahim Evrim, Prof. Dr. Kıvanç Güngör, Ali Nihat YAZICI, the Major of Gaziantep Dr. Asım Güzelbey, Boris Kutin, General Secretary of GMM İbrahim Fuat Özçörekçi, Mr. Fatih Ekinci
Ach, I know using the term "women's chess" raises the hairs on the back of some necks, but let's face it - there is a chess ghetto where female chess players reside because they mostly play each other, only in women's events, and therefore practically guarantee lower ratings for themselves. Well, says I, why shouldn't the women receive the same level of prize funding as the chess dudes? Is it their fault that they may be rated 300 ELO points lower than the 'best' chess players in the world, or is it the system that reinforces and perpetuates the differences between top women's and top men's ELOs? It's not as if the chess femmes play any less fiercely against each other than their male counterparts do, and - there is some justification for the view that female players actually play more fiercely and with killer instinct that the top male players, who tend toward those "grandmaster draws" following well known boring "lines" when playing each other. Exhibit Number One is the remarkably few draws played by the chess femmes in the 2009 U.S. Women's Chess Championship.
Whatever. There is some excellent news for female chess players that came out of Turkey last month. Since my desktop is still down and today I couldn't figure out how to get it directly linked to DSL (I thought I was doing it right), I don't have access to the program that I use to publish Chess Femme News at Goddesschess, which I had hoped to get back up and running and update, so now I'm like two months behind - but that's off topic. Here is the news, which I read at Susan Polgar's blog and also at Alexandria Kosteniuk's blog.
In a nutshell, the FIDE chess dudes, the chess dudes of the Turkish Chess Federation and chess and non-chess dudes of the City of Gaziantep, Turkey have reached an agreement regarding hosting and providing prizes for the 2011 European Women Individual Chess Championship, European Women Rapid Championship, and European Women Blitz Championships with a prize fund of 150.000€ with projected prizes the same for 2012 and 2013 if Gaziantep wins the bids for those events.
The prize fund will be a record and ECU and TSF will try to make the events a record in Guinness Book. 2011 is clear since there is no other bid for the event. Considering high prize funds, Gaziantep will be a strong candidate for 2012 and 2013 events to get it if there is no stronger bid to the ECU.
Gaziantep Municipality Sport Club will also sponsor a female team in the Türkiye İş Bankası Chess League. The aim will be to win European Club Cup for women. In addition, over the next four years Gaziantep will invest in programs to promote chess for women and children and will open a chess museum. The goal is to start hosting many women's international chess events and make Gaziantep the premiere center for women's chess events.
I laud these goals. Will Gaziantep and Turkey come through? Stay tuned...
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Gaziantep, Turkey Steps Forward for Women's Chess
News for women's chess: Chess dudes reach an agreement on hosting women's chess events. From left to right: Vice General Secretary of the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality (GMM) Mr. İbrahim Evrim, Prof. Dr. Kıvanç Güngör, Ali Nihat YAZICI, the Major of Gaziantep Dr. Asım Güzelbey, Boris Kutin, General Secretary of GMM İbrahim Fuat Özçörekçi, Mr. Fatih Ekinci
Ach, I know using the term "women's chess" raises the hairs on the back of some necks, but let's face it - there is a chess ghetto where female chess players reside because they mostly play each other, only in women's events, and therefore practically guarantee lower ratings for themselves. Well, says I, why shouldn't the women receive the same level of prize funding as the chess dudes? Is it their fault that they may be rated 300 ELO points lower than the 'best' chess players in the world, or is it the system that reinforces and perpetuates the differences between top women's and top men's ELOs? It's not as if the chess femmes play any less fiercely against each other than their male counterparts do, and - there is some justification for the view that female players actually play more fiercely and with killer instinct that the top male players, who tend toward those "grandmaster draws" following well known boring "lines" when playing each other. Exhibit Number One is the remarkably few draws played by the chess femmes in the 2009 U.S. Women's Chess Championship.
Whatever. There is some excellent news for female chess players that came out of Turkey last month. Since my desktop is still down and today I couldn't figure out how to get it directly linked to DSL (I thought I was doing it right), I don't have access to the program that I use to publish Chess Femme News at Goddesschess, which I had hoped to get back up and running and update, so now I'm like two months behind - but that's off topic. Here is the news, which I read at Susan Polgar's blog and also at Alexandria Kosteniuk's blog.
In a nutshell, the FIDE chess dudes, the chess dudes of the Turkish Chess Federation and chess and non-chess dudes of the City of Gaziantep, Turkey have reached an agreement regarding hosting and providing prizes for the 2011 European Women Individual Chess Championship, European Women Rapid Championship, and European Women Blitz Championships with a prize fund of 150.000€ with projected prizes the same for 2012 and 2013 if Gaziantep wins the bids for those events.
The prize fund will be a record and ECU and TSF will try to make the events a record in Guinness Book. 2011 is clear since there is no other bid for the event. Considering high prize funds, Gaziantep will be a strong candidate for 2012 and 2013 events to get it if there is no stronger bid to the ECU.
Gaziantep Municipality Sport Club will also sponsor a female team in the Türkiye İş Bankası Chess League. The aim will be to win European Club Cup for women. In addition, over the next four years Gaziantep will invest in programs to promote chess for women and children and will open a chess museum. The goal is to start hosting many women's international chess events and make Gaziantep the premiere center for women's chess events.
I laud these goals. Will Gaziantep and Turkey come through? Stay tuned...
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