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51 votes
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How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

Addendum to address the misunderstandings that have become apparent in the comments: What is being discussed here, is not to encourage women to play chess against their will or to fulfill some other ...
user929304's user avatar
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34 votes

Has a woman ever defeated a reigning undisputed World Chess Champion in classical chess?

Sorry, but the answer is "no". I used ChessBase and the Mega 2020 database to search various combinations of players, focusing primarily on Women's World Champions, Judit Polgar, Hou Yifan, Vera ...
PhishMaster's user avatar
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30 votes

Why is Jovanka Houska introduced as a WGM when she holds the more prestigious IM title?

I think an important aspect to consider is the audience of the show. For the Champions Chess Tour, chess24 has two English language shows; one with Houska and David Howell targeted to a more casual ...
firtydank's user avatar
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15 votes

How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

Before I start, I will quote "Batgirl" who responded to a similar question on chess.com: "Why do you think it's necessary to have more ladies playing chess?" I think if someone is interested, great, ...
PhishMaster's user avatar
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14 votes

How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

Here's an idea: why don't you ask them? Just find some women and ask them: "Are you interested in chess at all? No? Why not? You are? Then why aren't you involved in tournaments? Why do you think ...
Pharap's user avatar
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13 votes

Has a woman ever defeated a reigning undisputed World Chess Champion in classical chess?

This answer is mainly intended as an exposition of PhishMaster's answer, which I'm confident is correct, if we treat the OP as only including serious games (this excludes random games on the internet ...
Allure's user avatar
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13 votes

How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

Maybe, for the most part, people are people and some like chess and some do not. Worrying about gender is irrelevant. People doing what they like, does not need to be "fixed." My wife and daughter are ...
R Hansen's user avatar
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12 votes
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If chess is a sport, why do we expect women to perform as well as men?

I don't totally follow the reasoning here. Chess isn't a sport of physical exertion in the same sense as other Olympic sports. The physical advantages males typically have give little or no benefit ...
Edward's user avatar
  • 435
12 votes

If chess is a sport, why do we expect women to perform as well as men?

Since it's well-known that men are better than women at physical sports A more precise statement is "In most sports, men on average do better than women". If you make the argument "In ...
Acccumulation's user avatar
10 votes

How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

According to the statistics, which can be extracted from the latest FIDE players list, female participation rate in FIDE rated chess (100 x No. of active female players / No. of active players) = 15....
Brian Towers's user avatar
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8 votes

Has a woman ever defeated a reigning undisputed World Chess Champion in classical chess?

Another woman to add to the list of close, but not quite, is Pia Cramling. She drew with Kasparov in the Under 16 World Championship in 1976. She defeated Korchnoi in 1984 and again in 1995, in a ...
Herb's user avatar
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8 votes
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Why do women have a lower Elo requirement to obtaining (women) FIDE titles?

I think WFM Rodrigo is correct when she says that the reasons are statistical and that having fewer female players means having far fewer players at the top. If you assume that males and females have ...
Brian Towers's user avatar
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8 votes

How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

Get female teachers to teach chess. Find somebody that can inspire other women. Give them a safe space. The worst thing you can do is invite women to play chess, and then they show up to a class ...
rare's user avatar
  • 89
8 votes

Why does FIDE rate women in different category?

First, let's clear up a misunderstanding. Women and men are rated on the same scale, with the same formula. A woman with a FIDE rating of 2400 can be assumed to be equally matched with a man with ...
pokep's user avatar
  • 554
8 votes

Why is Jovanka Houska introduced as a WGM when she holds the more prestigious IM title?

according to Wikipedia she also holds the more prestigious international master title It's perhaps worth starting by identifying the difference between an IM and WGM title. According to the latest ...
Brian Towers's user avatar
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7 votes

Candidates tournament

(this is my opinion, this is a purely opinion-based that some would say should be closed but I prefer to just give my answer) It seems unfair and discriminatory to allow someone into the Candidates ...
RemcoGerlich's user avatar
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7 votes
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Chess challenge #7: Women's European Team Championship

I think the winning tactical combination is the following:
johnny09's user avatar
  • 313
7 votes

Why do women have a lower Elo requirement to obtaining (women) FIDE titles?

Note: This addresses the previous revision of the question w/c said 'Women need less ELO to obtain the same title than men.' It's not the same title. Women Grandmaster (WGM) for example is clearly ...
Allure's user avatar
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7 votes
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How old was Judit Polgár when she learned to play chess?

In her TED talk Giving checkmate is always fun, Judit Polgar says (t=0:59): My mother taught me the first moves when I was about five years old...
lodebari's user avatar
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6 votes

Unknown Women International Masters

According to Olimpbase, Marina Lazic first appeared in the FIDE rating lists as a Yugoslav player in July 1982 with a rating of 1840. She improved to a rating of 2230 in the January and July 1996 ...
Brian Towers's user avatar
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6 votes
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Unknown Women International Masters

Tatyana Sergeeva (Татьяна Сергеева) and Lyazzat Tazhieva (Ляззат Тажиева) are representatives of Soviet/Kazakhstan school of chess. According to this article from sports.kz, GM Bolat Asanov says: ...
Anton Menshov's user avatar
5 votes

How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

Look at it from a broader perspective. Address the bad behavior wherever it appears, regardless of who it is being aimed at.
SAS's user avatar
  • 151
5 votes

How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?

I landed on this topic from the sidebar on the right, so I'm not a member of the competitive chess community, but I am familiar with this question from other games and hobbies. My suggestion is to ...
mattastrophic's user avatar
4 votes
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Do the top women players play professionally?

I think there is no doubt that the answer is "yes". The question is whether they are particularly successful at it, or not; and whether they have to supplement tournament winnings with other ...
PhishMaster's user avatar
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4 votes
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Did Maria Teresa Mora Iturralde beat Capablanca 2.5-0.5?

I have looked at sources in Spanish (mainly Cuban) and most of them purport the same story (similar to that presented in the question) copied and pasted. However, a couple of sources present a ...
lodebari's user avatar
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4 votes
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List of records for youngest WCMs (woman candidate masters) since 1950?

Perhaps worth noting why the question has attracted down votes. If you hover your mouse over the down arrow it starts off by saying :This question does not show any research effort". It is worth ...
Brian Towers's user avatar
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4 votes

How does the average standard FIDE rating vary by age and sex?

Here are the statistics from the latest (February 2023) FIDE rating data: Female all ages Mean = 1478, standard deviation = 336 Male all ages Mean = 1644, standard deviation = 346 Female U20 Mean = ...
Brian Towers's user avatar
  • 94.5k
4 votes

According to Wikipedia, only three women have EVER been top 100 in chess. How many men have ever been top 100?

It's not at all clear what you mean by "top 100". In any sensible definition Vera Menchik, the first women's world champion, who beat Max Euwe 3 years before he became world champion by ...
Brian Towers's user avatar
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