Denker & Polgar Nominees

Running Chess Tournaments
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Think the reason why so many organizers or coaches do not support the girls, that can be the candidates to the Polgar Girls Invitational. Very few girls are at the age or the rating as a serious candidate for the tournament. Girls are in large numbers for the K-3 sections, than they start to drop out. The reason I can see for the large drop-out, as coaches and organizers, then the parents and the girl come to terms she is never going to be a master or expert. More so for girls than the boys, we set unrealistic levels of greatness.

When you have a scholastic player, with the parents and coaches in dreamland after seeing ‘In search of Bobby Fischer’. Then the fantasy life of their child one day being a FIDE titled player or at worst, a expert or master. It becomes a major let down when the fantasy is over, when it only becomes realistic the child will only become a class B player during adulthood. This could be the reason why girls drop out more. As the girls are in small numbers in the first place, chess players, coaches, organizers are in the fantasy, because of the rare find of a girl scholastic player.

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That’s precisely Susan’s point, that we need programs designed to combat the high dropout rate among girls.

23

Mike,

Surveying the players (girls) could provide some answers. In addition, it will be interesting to do an analysis of the data currently available. In 1997, I did an analysis of the peak ages for scholastic and youth memberships. The result was that the peak age for boys was 11 and for girls was 10. Geographical location and demographics can also play a role here…

Beatriz Marinello

24

This is a good point. At the national level, the tournaments should respect the intent of those who funded them.

But Tom makes a good point at the state level. The state has the right to nominate its participants to the Denker and Polgar. This is also in accordance with the wishes of Denker as far as I know.

Tom’s concern seems to be consistent with good judgment and worldly wisdom. I see no problem with Pennsylvania restricting a female State K-12 overall champion to only one of the tournaments. But it should probably be the Denker, unless they’re looking to get sued or charged on the basis that a female is treated worse than a male would be. I think his solution is exactly right.

David Quinn

25

Now that the July “Women in Chess” issue has come out including its debate “Should Women’s Events be Separate from Men’s?”, I thought about some related issues.

I’m interested to learn that the atmosphere in the Polgar is more social than in tournaments with mostly or all boys. My children are boys so the females I observe these days are mostly adults. It seems that these women don’t easily chat with other women they don’t know – in fact they never do; the typical attitude is neutral to hostile. Maybe the Polgar participants are happy to find others like them and find it to be a uniquely comfortable setting. Chess can be a haven for kids who don’t quite fit in elsewhere. I know that it was for me. As Beatriz emphasizes, this differentness can be especially great for girls. I saw it very strongly at my engineering school where the few female students were very unique strong-willed individuals. If Susan Polgar can provide a haven for some kids who need it, that’s all good.

As for USCF sponsored tournaments, sections and prizes, I want to treat boys and girls equally. (An exception is the Polgar tournament, where an organizer has created and given something especially for one gender: the USCF has neither the obligation nor the money to make it up to the other gender.) The USCF can’t compensate for possible innate gender differences. My boys liked trucks and had no interest in dolls even before one year of age; it was incredibly obvious. The USCF also can’t and shouldn’t try to change possible social or pervasive family conditions that Susan mentions in her “Yes” article. It’s just a chess organization, and it should provide chess opportunities equally to both sexes without any wider social agenda.

I don’t see the urgency of increasing female membership or participation. To me a male member and a female member are equally valuable. Both are evidence that the USCF is filling a need in their life, and both pay the same dues.

There’s nothing wrong with an all-boys section or tournament. We know from Elizabeth Vicary’s article “Chess Girls” that boys feel terrible about losing to a girl and sometimes act it out. I know that I would have felt terrible (if I ever had lost; fortunately I didn’t) and treated my few games against female opponents as must-win situations. And many girls feel uncomfortable about it too. That’s just the way we are and vive la difference. The best solution imho is not to teach girls to overcome their most civilized emotions as Elizabeth is working to do, but to give boys an escape: an occasional all-boys section. Run some tournaments as all-boys and all-girls sections. If not enough girls show up, then they play a double round robin or whatever. The USCF should not discriminate against the males in its membership and make them feel so terrible as well for no good reason.

Titles are a separate matter because they’re awarded by FIDE not the USCF. I think personally that the women-specific titles (WGM, etc) are ridiculous, and I rarely see anyone defending them. Nobody defended them in the articles in the “Women in Chess” issue. They have been abused by at least one women’s title holder (Kosteniuk before she became a real GM) who usually forgot the “W” in stating her own title. What about the World Championship: really it’s not fair that a woman can compete for more different world championship titles than a man can, but here’s a funny idea. We have at this time, remarkably, two overall WC titles: the “Kasparov / Kramnik” title and the “FIDE” title – so why not convert one of them (say, the one Kramnik holds, since he doesn’t take on all comers anyway) to the Men’s title and leave the overall FIDE title open to both genders! FIDE would continue to sponsor its Women’s championship too, and thank Kasparov / Kramnik / whoever for taking on the burden of funding the Men’s championship. :smiley:

David Quinn

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You’re not a marketing person, are you David? You don’t see the “urgency” in increasing women’s participation? Ignoring for the moment the social impact of having half our society feeling somewhat unwelcome, have you ever heard of an untapped market? If females participated at the same rate as males we would nearly double our membership. Sounds urgent to me!

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I am a marketing minded person and do see the need for increasing participation of both sexes in our game.

There is a valid point to the reverse discrimination concern though. Women and girls can presently participate in any of the chess competitions that men and boys play. Why is it that the men and boys cannot participate in any of the chess competitions the women and girls play?

I am all for encouraging and fostering chess for both sexes. While the women have a definite minority in the sport they certainly have opportunities to increase their participation.

The Polgar philosophy is to improve and increase female chess, fine. Why though do they insist on discriminating on the poor males?

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Ron, I’m confused. Right now we have open tournaments and a very small number of women’s tournaments. Males have no shortage of events to play in. To say we should also let males into the hitherto female only events is tantamount to saying we shouldn’t have female only events. Certainly plenty of reasonable people hold that view. Let’s be direct about our positions.

I’m not a big fan of the watered down international titles. At the amateur level, however, occasional events aimed at encouraging female participation are beneficial. To call it reverse discrimination strikes me as silly. Males are hardly deprived of the opportunity to compete. If they are deprived of the opportunity to compete with females, it’s only because the environment in the male dominated events turns a fair number of women off. And if that many men are concerned about the stigma of losing to a woman, I highly doubt many of them feel deprived of anything.

29

As long as we are talking about gender discrimination against us poor males, we can also talk about ageist discrimination against us poor 40-somethings that aren’t allowed to play in some of the local and national tournaments like the spring national scholastics and the senior open. Also, many of us are discriminated against by not being allowed to play in the national blind championship. Looking at the players who actually participated, I would have had a decent chance to win a trophy if I could have played in the national primary championship.

Now that I’m finished with taking the argument to absurd extremes, I can say that there can be legitimate reasons for having some tournaments targetted at specific subgroups of the national membership.

That said, I think the USCF board should be able to review tournaments like this and decide whether or not some tournaments have truly unpalateable restrictions. A tournament limited to lefties would be a bit unusual while other restrictions could be truly offensive (and I admit that a gender restriction is truly offensive to some people).
As long as the board has considered the issues and signed off on a type of limitation (such as scholastic, senior, girls, blind, armed forces, etc.) then I don’t see a problem with having these tournaments in addition to the other tournaments that are available to all. If organizers want to take a financial risk by limited the potential attendees then more power to them.

30

Sexual discrimination is sexual discrimination no matter how you try to redefine it.

In the scholastic and academic world, grades and degrees are not seperated by sex. A PhD is a PhD no matter what the person’s sex is.

In athletics there are different categories of sex because there is a physical disparity between the sexes.

You will notice that race car drivers have no sexual discrimination in races. If a person can drive a car fast then they can race in any event no matter if they are a man or a woman.

Chess is more like academics and race car driving in its differences between the sexes. There is no physical or other apparent disparity between a male and a female to play chess.

Now, if you want to claim that women have historically and socially been suppressed from playing chess then I understand, but that is no excuse for discrimination.

I am also a left hander and I could show you that we lefties have also been historically and socially suppressed on our quest to live in this world including chess. Can we please have the lefties only tournaments? :blush:

31

There’s a big difference between having a tournament that EXCLUDES a minority from one that is dedicated TO a minority. Like it or not, in chess women are in the minority.

You might not like affirmative action either, but it’s legal.

BTW Ron, in racing, a women’s only event is sometimes called a “Powder Puff Race”. They’re still being held. Sometimes in really tiny events, but sometimes at the big tracks. And no, men aren’t allowed to participate.

32

Is there any reason girls and women don’t play chess in the numbers that boys and men play chess?

There is no question there is a reason, or else women would play in the same numbers. What could possibly be wrong if part of the solution to getting more women to play is to offer them what they want? Those who don’t have a problem with playing in a womens only event will play in them. Those who don’t think it appropriate won’t play in them.

I’m not sure it matters if we know why girls and women don’t participate in mixed events as much as men and boys. Who cares? Isn’t the point to encourage their play. We are going to begin offering girls only tournaments in our area to try and encourage more girls to play and to keep playing. BTW, one of our most promising young players is a 7 year old 1300 rated girl.

33

I know that my position may be politically incorrect but,…

Don’t we also have a problem getting males to play chess?

The USCF numbers are presently down. Why is it that men are playing less OTB chess?

WHat do we need to do to get either of the sexes to play more??

The facts are that a male can only play in events that girls can also play in. What about the male that doesn’t feel comfortable playing with girls?

The poor girls that don’t feel comfortable playing with boys have their own events, what about the boys? Reverse discrimination… This is not opinion, it is fact by definition.

Now, don’t think that I think it is illegal. I know it is. The question is, “Is it right?”

Beatriz, a female and strong master, is of the opinion that the girls should not be segregated. Sure, the concensus now is that we need to do whatever we can to help attract the poor, frightened girls to chess. But the consensus might be wrong. Maybe the answer is to work to get the girls to integrate and play along with the boys in all things chess.

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Thanks for all the replies. First off, I’m talking about the way I think things should be. Lots of outcomes, good and bad, are within the bounds of legality (in my non-professional opinion; I’m not a lawyer). So let’s not get distracted by legality which I believe we don’t have to worry much about in any case. The cops won’t come to haul us away, now what should we do?

I’m not a marketing person, but here are my obviously-true marketing assumptions: Neither whole female US population nor the whole male US population is a target market for USCF. Most people will never even care about chess. Chess is reliably more popular with males than females. It’s just innate. Just like: if I tell you that a baby likes trucks more than dolls, it’s probably a boy. If the baby likes dolls more than trucks, it’s probably a girl.

Those are my assumptions. So don’t fight nature and society. Just make USCF available to everyone and do a good job of promotion. It makes marketing sense, since we have approximately a 0% share of males and a 0% share of females anyway. To me, the “urgency” of each new membership has nothing to do with gender.

I’d really be in favor of having all three types of tournaments: female-only, male-only and open to both genders. I’m a realist and understand how unpopular or shocking that is to some people, but I said it anyway to overcome what I see as political correctness and stimulate an explicit discussion. Maybe someone with really a lot of guts will sponsor such a tournament.

I suspect that all-female and all-male events would be most beneficial for adolescents in those emotionally vulnerable years. And by the way if they don’t end up hating chess, they’re more likely to become adult USCF members paying full dues for many years, bringing a wholesome attitude to the board.

Here are short replies to some of the comments.

tanstaafl: What is the difference between having a tournament that EXCLUDES a minority from one that is dedicated TO a minority, when there is no need to balance numbers and no disadvantage to being in the minority? Why give the minority a free lunch? :wink: Do we have to care about the silly idea (both impossible and unimportant) of having equal male and female USCF participation? Is there something immoral about having a boys-only tournament? What if there’s a girls-only tournament too, is it then OK? I think it’s OK in any case. I don’t think legality (affirmative action) is relevant. The Powder Puff race is probably popular with spectators: the more races the track provides, the more beer it will sell. In chess we have almost no spectators and the only concession is the bookseller.

mnibb: It’s innate that most chess players will be males. What do women want? Not chess, for most of them. Who cares if boys can’t avoid playing girls? Some boys, according to the evidence. The point is to encourage everyone’s play, boys and girls. Suppose this promising young girl in your area keeps away two boys who can’t stand the thought of losing to this girl or who just prefer playing among boys. Do those boys matter? Could a boys’ tournament be provided?

Ron Suarez: We agree about what’s fair, but my preferred solution is to have gender restricted tournaments available for everyone rather than no-one, if sponsors can be found. The single-gender argument makes sense to me, and it makes equal sense for both genders.

jwiewel: I think that there are legitimate reasons for have some tournaments targetted for females only and some for males only. I’ve described the reasons, and I hope “boys” would be included as well as “girls” as acceptable tournament categories. There are boys-only schools and girls-only schools. This is not controversial as far as I know.

Mulfish: As I said above my position is that we should have female only events and also male only events. I’m being very direct. I’m trying hard to say what I think without mincing word and without regard for ghosts of PC that may be floating around. As I also said above, we have evidence that some men, or adolescent boys, go berzerk at the pain of losing to a woman or girl. They feel more than deprived, they feel terrible. Please take them into account.

Males have less opportunities than females of equal chess strength. They have a few less tournaments, and they don’t get international competition opportunities and/or support until they are much better than a female would have to be. In rough numbers our female Olympiad team had 2400 ratings and our male team had 2600 ratings. What does a male at 2500 think? He thinks that certain things in life would be a whole lot easier if he were a girl.

Thanks,
David

36

Mark,

Chess is a mind game and is totally independent of sex. Neither the male nor the female have an advantage in the game.

Let’s take Bridge as a similar activity. Either the men or women have equal opportunities at the game. You don’t see women only Bridge events. Why? Because the game is asexual.

Chess is also asexual in that it is purely a mind game. There are those that would argue that men have an advantage but there is no real evidence of that.

I am not upset about the women only events. I am simply pointing out that they are discriminating against the male population in these activities. The fact is that this is discrimination whether it is bad or good. Understand it might be good. It might also be bad, in the long run.

37

I think there are several big assumptions here and that some of them just don’t hold up. A lot of girls are less comfortable playing in a tournament made up of 90% boys. I’d say there IS a disadvantage to being in the minority. Like it or not, girls AREN’T treated the same as boys by the other players.

That’s practically what we have after a certain age (somewhere around puberty).

My only point with the Powder Puff Races is that they ARE held, though the claim had been made that they weren’t. Even if women don’t have any disadvantages in racing (hardly a proven claim) they still have these races.

38

This is your claim, but what EVIDENCE do you have to back this up? I’ve heard VERY prominent professional chess players claim that physical conditioning IS important to their performance. I’ve noticed that as I’ve grown older, a long day of chess is more physically tiring than it used to be. There clearly ARE physical differences between men and women, so I’d just ask why you feel so SURE that there’s no difference affecting chess.

The bigger point is that women chess players AREN’T treated the same as men. Go to a chess tournament and LOOK at the men and women players and how they interact. Maybe if the number of women chess players increases enough, the disparity in how they’re treated will disappear. We’re a long way from that.

39

OK let’s see.

Some boys are beyond uncomfortable, they are scared out of their wits that they would lose to a girl opponent. We know that. There must be a lot of others who handle it better but would rather not have to deal with it. Call them uncomfortable also.

There are advantages and disadvantages to being in the minority. I bet a girl in a tournament of mostly boys would get lots of help analyzing her completed games. It’s not better or worse, just different.

Girls aren’t treated the same as boys, by some of the boys.

But also, boys aren’t treated the same as girls, by some of the girls. I remember seeing an attractive young woman playing in a big national tournament some years ago. She was very well endowed and she practically had her anatomy spilling onto the table, in front of her poor distracted opponent, in every game I saw her play. The director did nothing. I’m sure her male opponents played weaker because of her behavior.

Your clever response is irrelevant. I am advocating boys only tournaments at the same ages as we have girls only tournaments. Is there something immoral about that, in your opinion?

I thought you were trying to equate them to female-only chess tournaments, rather than make an unrelated side comment. If I misunderstood, no worries.

40

Well I don’t think anyone said men and women are identical – thank goodness! Maybe it’s to the point that we know there are differences but it’s not obvious who ends up being favored – given all the plusses and minuses that we observe and fail to observe. So we say that as far as we know, they’re about equal.

But if you suspect there’s a fundamental difference in the playing ability of men and women, do you have a view on which gender is naturally better adapted for the game?

I don’t know what you have observed. I have observed that the vast majority of behavior has been quite OK and the small number of exceptions haven’t been enough to draw conclusions from. What have you observed relative to your bigger point? Please tell!