A few years back I posted about a less than productive post-game exchange following a defeat by famed chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi at the hands of one of the Polgar sisters. Well, Korchnoi never liked losing. He certainly didn’t like losing two opportunities for the world championship against his arch-enemy Anatoly Karpov a few decades back. He especially doesn’t like losing to women. Well, a few months before my prior post, he had lost to another woman – Irina Krush. And as she blogged, the post-game exchange wasn’t any prettier.
The photo was posted on Ms. Krush’s blog, and I assume was taken by her.
….
Odd thing. Of the players who are regularly in competition in the U.S. only about 3 percent are women – less than half the world average and much lower than countries such as Russia, Georgia, and lately China. Women in the U.S. do tend to excel here in other games and sports traditionally male dominated, but for some reason we are way behind in chess. Most of the very best female players here are immigrants. Women in the poker at higher rates. Even boxing. But not chess. Any theories?
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December 30, 2010 at 9:49 am
Bobby Fisher's Ghost
It’s feminism. Those countries don’t have feminism. Feminism licenses whining and kills a woman’s ability to better herself intellectually.
December 30, 2010 at 10:24 am
Ernie's Place
I think that it is because women like to be productive. Chess has got to be the biggest waste of time ever invented by man. It is competition in it’s purest form. It’s all about winning and one-upmanship. That kind of competition doesn’t interest productive people.
December 30, 2010 at 10:37 am
Eric Kirk
As opposed to poker and boxing? Or even more traditionally “feminine” sports such as volleyball or ice skating? One person’s waste of time is another’s passion.
From my view it’s about more that winning and one-upmanship. It’s about mental discipline, mathematical precision, judgment, spatial perception, and planning. I can think of few better mental exercises. The best players also have to keep in shape. If you’ve played a tough game for two hours, you come out of it feeling physically exhausted.
December 30, 2010 at 11:17 am
Ernie's Place
To be honest, I lack the mindset that would allow me to concentrate on any one thing long enough to ever be good at chess. I’m easily distracted, especially by beauty. Hey look a butterfly…
Well, I guess you see my problem.
December 30, 2010 at 11:30 am
Eric Kirk
Ah Ernie, but then you might benefit from the exercise!
Unfortunately, I get distracted as well. And I get too lazy to work out the various details of the position and tend to act more on hunches and try to make moves which are less predictable and psychologically unnerving. Sometimes it works and sometimes I get creamed. But it always worked for Captain Kirk against Spock.
December 30, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Anonymous
I love that video! One of these days one of the women will taunt him after beating him and we’ll really get a show.
December 30, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Joe Blow
Allen Nairn talking about austerity: So, at a time when the U.S. Department of Agriculture is documenting increasing numbers of American families that report experiencing some days of hunger in their household, at a time when U.S. schools are turning out fewer students who are good at reading and math and logical thinking as compared to—especially as compared to students from other countries, at this precise time, what does the entire U.S. intelligentsia say with one word? Cut Social Security. Cut unemployment insurance. Cut food stamps. Cut the public schools. Cut the opportunity to get higher education. As opposed to saying—real austerity—cut the luxuries of the rich.
December 30, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Joe Blow
Learn to focus by taking two minutes in a quiet place where you can close your eyes and breath, three counts in and six counts out. Do it when you need a clear head and need to think. Takes practice.
What was the actual difference between Kirk and Spock as portrayed in the story? One was a logical thinker the other was a believer. The trick is to put the two together and become one kind of being – neither male nor female.
December 30, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Anonymous
Kirk wasn’t a believer. They were a trinity. Spock represented logic. McCoy emotion. Kirk intuition.
December 30, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Eric Kirk
Joe – no time for that in a tournament game. It’s been years since I’ve played in one, but I think they typically allowed 2 hours for the first 45 moves and then 30 moves per hour thereafter. Believe me, that time could go by in a hurry. I did take breaks here and there, but usually to use the restroom or get coffee.
I saw one player lose to time because he had forgotten to hit his clock and the other player pretended to be concentrating on a move. It took the first player about half an hour to realize it and he ended up losing on time. It happened to me once, but I noticed it after a few minutes. It happened to a few of my opponents, but I always reminded them. I was there to play chess, not sit there watching clocks.
The masters and grandmasters are temperamental and often bad sports. There was a famous incident where one guy reached a losing position and then put his head down to take a nap while letting the clock run out – deliberately wasting his opponent’s time. Of course, the professionals get much more time than amateurs, so it could have been hours the winner was forced to sit there.
December 30, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Eric Kirk
Kirk wasn’t a believer. They were a trinity. Spock represented logic. McCoy emotion. Kirk intuition.
What did Lt. Uhura represent?
December 30, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Ernie's Place
Uhura was the distraction that I was talking about earlier.
December 30, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Joe Blow
Who said anything about “during” a game. For that matter life’s a game. Do it BEFORE or after.
I suppose us humans are a trinity too? I overlooked emotion. So you’re right. Logical thinkers usually do that. My misguided point was, there’s a third option, a consolidation, a sum of the whole, man’s ultimate quest, and …
That would be Kirk, the difference or the sum of the two, thinking and believing.
Eric, I used to play chess in my younger days, played a lot like you and usually only got beat when I played like you, act more on hunches, just for fun. That is until one time after I’d been married a few years. One winter when off from logging I thought to teach my wife how to play. She’d played in college, but never told me. I one the first couple of games, but the third game she won. The next game she won too. So I thought to play a bit more serious. I lost that game too. After, the next game we never played chess again. That was 41 years ago.
December 30, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Anonymous
Philip Roth is rolling in his grave.
December 30, 2010 at 4:45 pm
huufc
What other games and sports that are traditionaly male dominated, do women tend to excel in in the United States?
December 30, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Eric Kirk
Philip Roth is rolling in his grave.
Well probably because he isn’t dead yet. Has anyone called 911?
What other games and sports that are traditionaly male dominated, do women tend to excel in in the United States?
Basketball, soccer, baseball, track & field, tennis, hockey.
Soccer is an interesting one. The US men’s team rarely even qualifies for the World Cup tournament, but the Women’s team has won two of the 5 women’s world cup championships and always ended up in the top 4. Why?
I love that video! One of these days one of the women will taunt him after beating him and we’ll really get a show.
It’s hard to understand the dialogue between his Russian accent and her Hungarian. I posted something of a transcript in the old post.
December 30, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Ernie's Place
Pssst….. Eric…. Over here in the corner. Women are different okay? Once you figure out why they don’t play chess, and why they are good at everything else that they do… they will change… If you used that mathematical formula that you talked about… they would be the “X” for the variable number. So if they don’t play chess it’s okay…Okay? At least that’s what my wife says…
December 30, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Eric Kirk
Yeah, but why are American women so different from Georgian women? In Georgia, women represent about 1/5 of the tournament players, as opposed to three percent here.
December 30, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Ernie's Place
I think that having hairy legs is key to being a good chess player. Think about it.
December 30, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Eric Kirk
Hmmm. Well the one in red might have hairy legs. Maybe that’s why they’re covered.
December 30, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Bruce Ross
Well, at the junior-high age, at last, chess is a game played almost exclusively by nerds who no self-respecting tween girl would want be caught in the company of.
Maybe in the old Eastern Bloc, the game gets enough respect that the young women aren’t repulsed by the players. I mean, Kasparov’s cool — he’s rich and a flippin’ dissident, for goodness’ sake.
Mind you, to the extent there’s any truth to that nerd stereotype, I was definitely the exception.
December 30, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Joe Blow
…………………………and all you people vote and sit on juries. Then wonder why everything is so screwed up. When a man’s ability to think is totally dependent upon a woman’s esteem I’ve got to wonder if you’re not talking about (or is it like?) a barnyard full of animals.
December 30, 2010 at 9:21 pm
kindredspiritks
Most American girls talk too much and chess is a guiet, thoughtful game. I might venture an idea that those two elements of life do not match well.
December 30, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Anonymous
International soccer provides one of the few economic opportunities for female athletes so it will attract the best of them. Our best male athletes are drawn to basketball, football, and other domestic money sports.
December 30, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Eric Kirk
Bruce is right. The best players are all nerds. Some of them, like Kasparov, manage to hide it once they’re adults and learn a few social skills. But it comes out under stress, as it did for these two gentlemen who seem kind of cool before the match, but let their geekiness show over an argument over the rules.
December 31, 2010 at 12:17 am
Bruce Ross
The lawyer in the house suddenly thinks there’s a problem with arguing over the rules?
As it happens, I’ve got to side with the IM who says your move doesn’t count until you’ve hit your clock. Yeesh, I had that argument more than once back in my college days playing 5-minute.
December 31, 2010 at 9:48 am
Eric Kirk
Oh, I don’t have a problem with it during the match. But the way they carried on afterwards is about the way Dungeons and Dragons teens argue over whether a “plus three sword’s” magic is effective against a 6th level wizard.