| World Chess Championship Women 2010 (Antakya) TUR Thur 2nd Dec 2010 - Sun 24th Dec 2010 Round 4 Results: | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | FED | T | Rtg | G1 | G2 | Rp1 | Rp2 | Bz1 | Bz2 | SD | Total |
| Round 4 Match 01 | |||||||||||
| Ruan, Lufei | CHN | WGM | 2480 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 2½ | |||
| Harika, Dronavalli | IND | IM | 2525 | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1½ | |||
Summary from official website.
There is no day off until this coming Sunday, before the final four games start between the last two women standing.
Mig Greengard at the Daily Dirt Chessblog has a valid take on what happens to promising female players who end up in the female ratings ghetto by playing in women-only events. ELO suffers, and development suffers too. I don't necessarily agree, though, that talented players like Lahno and others who are in their late teens/early 20's are over the hill and can no longer develop. But they have to stay away from women's only events and that is difficult when competing in those events promises a paycheck whereas playing in Opens against 2600-plus ELO GMs promises probably a lot of empty pocketbooks for their efforts. Women are very rational creatures when it comes down to it. They will play in events that promise a pay-off. And I can't say they are wrong for doing so. And, keep in mind that even Judit Polgar competed on female teams for Hungary in the Chess Olympiad.
I like reading the comments. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of them. Dudes just are not interested in some women playing what they consider second-rate chess (unless it's to bitch about women earning money for playing that chess). They pretend, instead, to understand the chess of Carlsen, et al. Yeah, right, LOL! The macho man mystique lives on :)
More coverage and more comments at Chessvibes.
Chessbase as per usual has a report on the first part of R4 with lots of photos of the pretty ladies.
I have enjoyed the coverage of the WWCC. Your comments on women's chess are very interesting. As a man and a patzer, I'm much more likely to play in a tournament where I have a chance of winning, too. So women have their tournaments. But are there similar tournaments for male players who are equal in strength to the women?
ReplyDeleteHi Mark,
ReplyDeleteI think you can probably find nearly any kind of tournament you want in the US. I'm a woman and I wouldn't even call myself a patzer, LOL! I played in my first (and maybe my last) tournament a few months ago and it presented a very mixed field of players. Old, young, mostly male and about eight females out of over 70 players. I was unrated and finished the day with a provisional rating of 745 - or something like that. I don't remember exactly, I think the highest rated player wasn't above 2500. I didn't win a game (we played 4 and it was exhausting) and it amazes me I ended up with any kind of rating at all!
I'm sure you can find events where there are probably all guys playing, but most mixed events in the US don't have that many chess femmes playing anyway, there just aren't many of us relative to the overall chess-playing population.
There are probably many local clubs that don't have any female players.
Not that I play in them, but my adopted chess club, Southwest Chess Club, has small tournaments every week that usually play-out one night a week over a couple of weeks, and twice a year they host a large event, the Hales Corners Challenge. I expect there are similar chess clubs all over the U.S. I can't say about other countries, though. But I do remember playing a pick-up game in a very smoky bar in Amsterdam in 2001 when I was visiting the city to attend a conference of chess historians, LOL! That was fun! Other than the bar maids, I was probably one of three other women in the place. It was loud, noisy, there were chessboards and bar dice everywhere. Of course I lost and had to buy a couple of drinks :) That all happened while my then-fiance was fighting his way to the bar to get a couple of drinks for us. I think I was still coughing up smoke six weeks later. A fun, but stinky, memory.
As for tournaments where there are more or less equal-strength male and female players, those are a little hard to come by. But in January every year is Gibraltar where several strong female players are invited to butt heads with as strong (and much stronger) male players. There is a lot of good chess played. The Czech Coal Chess event where younger female players are pitted against a team of all-star male veteran chessplayers is another event that comes to mind.