by, James Bryant
 
Here is an article, I thought you might wish to read.
 
 
Chess Myths and Misconceptions by Azlan
 
People, particularly chess players themselves, say the darnedest things about chess and about chess players. Here are some of our favorite myths about the royal game. A few of these sayings are unquestionably off-target, some of them are uneducated impressions, and some of them are arguments that may or may not be valid.
 
 
1} Chess is difficult to grasp.
 
Chess may not be the easiest game to pick up, but it is far from the most prohibitive. You have to know the movements of the six pieces, where the piece with the least value, the Pawn, has the most complex moves. Then you have to learn the rules about attacking and defending the King, including castling. Then there are a few about games where neither player wins. One aspect of this myth is true – it is hard, very hard, to learn to play chess well. One player in a hundred achieves mastery.
 
2} You have to be brainy to play chess.
 
There is some connection between chess talent and general intelligence. Minimum smarts are required. Cats and dogs will never comprehend the rudiments; no one has tried teaching blackfishes and chimps. Chess does involve, after all, using numerous sophisticated sections of the mind as efficiently as possible. People from all walks of life enjoy playing chess, several achieving mastery. Some very clever people delight in playing but never progress beyond novice rank.
 
 
3} Chess is for nerds.
 
As a matter of fact, this isn’t a myth, since chess is for everyone. It is for dweebs, oddballs, eggheads, and boffins, as usually as it is for anyone else. People who need to call other people offensive names should better say, ’chess is only for nerds’, but this is plainly untrue. Even if it were true, so what? Intelligent, clumsy, offbeat people have established more contributions to the advancement of humanity than have the rest. If they want to play chess, that’s their business.
 
4} Computers play chess better than people.
 
In 2006, the best computers play chess better than 99.99% of people, but are evenly pitted in contests against the top humans. If, as some experts think, computers are gaining 20 - 30 rating points per year, the moment will shortly arrive when humans have no prospects of winning against the best machines. It should not be omitted that computers are always checked by squads of human specialists who encode programs in them in psychological areas like opening repertoire. Removing this help would eliminate their excellence.
 
 
5} Chess is a sport.
 
Here we run the risk of upsetting the many outstanding chess organizers who have exhausted years trying to prevail upon the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that chess should be admitted as an Olympic sport. Hoisting light pieces of lumber or clicking quickly on a computer screen is not physically challenging work. As any quantity of photos from foregone high level chess events will demonstrate, chess players don’t always portray a lean, shipshape, muscular profile.
 
 
6} Chess isn’t a sport.
 
Here we attempt to make reparation with those very same organizers who almost convinced the IOC that chess is a sport. Chess has been admitted as a medal sport for the 2006 Asian Games. A match between two top chess masters is full of tension, where superior nerves can establish the difference between a victor and a loser. Grandmasters have been known to lose a lot of weight during the action of a month-long contest.
 
 
7} Women can’t play chess as well as men.
 
To date it is unquestionable that women have not played and achieved as much as men in chess events. There are many possible reasons for this. One may be that male players are often expert at making female players feel uncomfortable at chess events. The Polgar sisters have gone a long way to convince the chess world that women can play very well. Perhaps one day we will discover that women can even play better than men. No one really knows. {fini}
 

 
WRONG. the myth is NOT a myth, it is the truth.
you do NOT get credit for doing something when you have not done it.
As in "walk-the-walk",, as in.... SHOW ME THE MONEY,,, HONEY.
until women step up to the plate and prove otherwise, like many many other facets of the being 'human', males will be better than females.
 
to blow the silly notion by this politically correct writer out of the water - that "male players are often expert at making female players feel uncomfortable " - one only has to look at the achievments of women who only play women only events.
 
The same applies to the arguement that women are not as proficient at math as men. One need only look at the achievments of women that went to all female schools.
 
game-set-match
 
silly politically correct people, when will they ever learn!
 

 
SnoopDog176, you are wrong again!!
 
In fact, as one could guess, Pia Cramling became a better chessplayer than her brother Dan... And both were talented and devoted players.
 
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=15510
 
 
 

 
I am well aware of pia cramling but what does an isolated case have to do with the big picture? I don't understand where you come from here.
does it mean anything if bobby fischer played better than his sister?? what does this mean? to me it means nothing.
 
AS WRITTEN, I would suggest the author is strongly implying that women IN GENERAL can play as good, maybe better than men, if only they did not have to get intimidated by the men they play!
 
BTW, it is also the responsability of a good politically correct person to offer THE reason as to why the disparity. it does not have to be true,, it just has to be a reason.
 
imagine that, women can play the game just as good, but men just intimidate them right out of their game! every time!
 
and you wonder why I drink!

It is very interesting of how "politically correct" concept are installed in our brains by repetition: when i saw the first article I agreed candidly until Snoop raised the flag on the sex thing.
 
Again he is right to question concepts you take for granted sometimes ( that´s fine!... and maybe you will agreed even more strongly after analyzing it a bit).
 
I have a doubt and no info regarding .Are there some kind of mix championships!?
 
Aren´t some tourneys Open (like golf or tennis) where handicaps, children, women or whoever want to join can?...and there I see no reason not to be since we are talking here Brain vrs Brain...what is sex got to do with anything on chess???....
 
...and the issue about women being intimidated by men...intimidation is part of every sport confrontation so...tough luck!

 
I do think that the Cramling case has something to say about the big picture, because there was a ground for the necessary equal conditions at the Cramling house and also a similar amount of interest in the game of chess between Pia and Dan.
 
Another illustrative example could be the Linares SuperTournament 1994.
 
 

Snoop
Do you think women are not as smart as men?
 
 
D

 
My personal opinion is, EVERYTHING. Many moon ago, I quitefrequently referenced a book on this subject called "Brain Sex" - at teh gender of the BRAIN (not the sexual apparatus itself) determines a lot in how one thinks and acts.
 
Of course research like this is very limited since politically correct people will not allow funding for it.
 
 

 
exact-a-mundo!
 
and that IS where women are at a disadvantage in any competition.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Still not seeing it, windmill
 
many brother sister pairs have similar upbringings and similar interests. Most often the male is better, but not always.
 
the big picture is,,, men are generally better
and it does not really matter what the reaosn is.

 
Hard for me to say.
 
a controversial theory is the one of specific intelligences where some people can be genius in one area and nearly dim-witted in another.
 
personally I buy into that and it is well known by now that women do not posess as good a spacial (spatial) ability as men, as an example.
 
that might not effect general intelligence, but it sure will effect specific areas of intelligence like mathematical ability.
 
I think, withtout researching it, we can agree that women are more successful as writers and authors than they are as mathamaticians, no?
 
 
EDIT: and on a lasting note,,,, I don't CARE if women are as intelligent, more intelligent, better chessplaying potential,, it means NOTHING. getting out and DOING It means everything.
 
there may very well be other reasons (biological?) to explain the lack of achievement by females, inre, chess, but who cares? the fact is, they don't play (in general) at nearly the level as men.
 

Well i think women are dumber. They want the kitchen remodeled before the roof is done . I think that is dumber.
 
D

Here's the top 100 players in the world for October, this year.
 
US Chess Trust Home Page
 
There is only the one - 20. judit polgar, that is recognizably female.
there are some chinese dudes in there that I have no way of knowing but
I think it is all too obvious, women DO NOT play chess at the men's level.
 
you can "politically correct" it all you want, "facts is facts, and bullscript is bullscript"
 
I can see it now at the olymipcs, the women's high jump event.
"And now jumping the high jump for America, Suzie Jones"
Jones' agent/lawyer goes to the judge's box and says -
"I know my client, Suzie Jones can jump 197 centimeters today"
scoring judge: "Fine, we are sure she can do it, as well"
"Suzie Jones gets credited with 197 cms jump today."
 
Please.... just SHOW ME..... THE MONEY,,, HONEY!
 
you do not get credited with being a grandmaster just because people SAY you can be one.
 
DO IT, or shad'ap