Do woman Enjoy Chess

OTB I am more alert when I play a female.  I make less blunders, but also find it harder to refuse a draw offer from a female.

I have played a few women chessplayers in over the board matches.  Two were pensioners, one of whom was nice and grandmotherly, the other was aggressive and a very sore loser.  One was a woman in her 30s with an annoying habit of jittering and shaking the table.  One was a young girl I barely managed to beat who has been selected as a reserve for Scotland in Olympiad.  None of whom were attractive to me but compared to the hundreds of men I have played I did not find them more demure or more aggressive on average.  They are just chessplayers, same as us; if you can't get over that then why play chess, a mental sport.

Anybody with a brain would realize it depends on the woman.

Of course he might have had a point when he said most of his opponents were male.

Well yes they obviously will because only people who like chess will get a chess.com account

Certainly all of the women on this site enjoy chess-otherwise they wouldn't be here. In addition to all the women who play chess regularly but are not on this site (again, they wouldn't do so if they didn't like it).  The other question I have (and I certainly have no data on this) would be how many women have ever, at some point in their life played at least a single game of chess, and what percentage of those women (who have tried chess at least once) would say that they enjoyed it. I would bet that you could find a lot of people (men and women) who have never played a single game, never watched a game being played, who would say that they dislike chess (and a multitude of other activies they've never tried either). It could be that a high percentage of women might say "I don't like chess", even though most of them have never tried it.

But I agree, there seems to be a lot more male players out there than female. I certainly assume (rightly or wrongly-I try not to do this) that pretty much every opponent I face is male, unless their name on the site has a woman's name in it. 

My experience is that fewer women than men know how to play chess. That's too bad: you can't enjoy a game if you don't know how to play it.

As a chess fan, when I meet people I often ask them if they play. In my limited, completely unscientific sample of women I've met, I've often heard a response that goes something like this:

"Do you play chess?"

"No, I can't play chess...My Dad plays."

"Did he teach you?"

"No, never."

"Do you have any brothers?"

"Yes..."

"Did your Dad teach your brother(s)?"

"Yes, he did."

Again, just my experience. But I feel like a lot of people learn from their Dads, like I did. Dads: teach your daughters to play chess.

I think she is in a class of her own, like Fischer or Kasparov. Perhaps, she was able to devote herself to chess, and was a natural.  Women weren't given GM titles even if they deserved them.  Does an IM usually play a GM in a tournament?  Don't think so, not from what I have seen from watching  online tournaments. 

Anyway, here is a nice link that describes why women may not have received GM titles : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r

, and scroll down to Careers.  

If I had a daughter, I wouldn't force her to learn chess.  I'd introduce my children to chess, and if they wanted to learn more I'd teach them.  Same with music.  I would teacher my daughter to cook and clean, but that's because I'd expect all of my children to do so.  Basic skills of living!

I've got three daughters. They have no interest in chess. Nor my grandaughterss. Nor my grandson. My wife...she's an 800 bagger. So is my brother. I taught them both and introduced them to other chess learning tools...but that's as far as they want to take it.

BTW...no, my dad didn't teach me chess. He played some checkers with one of my uncles and usually lost.

Stop making this chess into a gender issue. Most people are not interested in the game.

If any of my kids or grandkids, regardless of gender, showed any interest whatsoever...I would have helped them in any way I could.

Calling someone a nerd is an attempt to argue that it is a disadvantage to have a more sophisticated, less simple, more mature mind. Personally, I've never been convinced.

Lots?  All.  And the "/or" is redundant.

define Chess.

An IM on here emailed me, and told me that he didn't consider anything under FIDE 2100 chess.

shrug...he's a snobbish elitist.

I am guessing it was p***n, highest rated troll on chess.com.

Probably the top GMs wouldn't consider his standard of play "chess".

I thought about saying that to him, but didn't.

Why top?  Garden-variety is good enough for condensation.