Simuls make GMs even more accessible to the masses. I played against Womens' World Champion (2008-2010) Alexandra Kosteniuk, although I had to pay for that privilege. I lost in 52 moves. Nothing special about how I played (I'm about A/B-class), but I will treasure the memory of the expression on her beautiful face when I finally resigned -- a mixture of pity and bemusement. Bemusement because of my superficial "attack".
How democratic chess is
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Kosteniuk may also be a good addendum to the men/women in chess debate. Being a world champion she has a name, but what about her ranking? I thought she may be around 200th. But the situation is worse, I looked up her rank, which is currently 572th in the world. Compare this to Hammer, who is a fairly noname male player, still ranked at No. 61. If you discount Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan, not much is left.
watcha wrote:
Kosteniuk may also be a good addendum to the men/women in chess debate. Being a world champion she has a name, but what about her ranking? I thought she may be around 200th. But the situation is worse, I looked up her rank, which is currently 572th in the world. Compare this to Hammer, who is a fairly noname male player, still ranked at No. 61. If you discount Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan, not much is left.
I had not looked, so I'm surprised that her ranking is that low. I knew she is not a super-GM (which would require rating > 2700?). Just an "ordinary" GM, one of the elite among women, but not elite if you include men. After reading many posts on the various relevant threads, I'm convinced that the chess performance gap between men and women is not due to participation rates nor societal prejudice. Most animal species have genders with specialized abilities, so why not humans too?
It feels strange to expect harsh responses for espousing what I see as a scientfically literate viewpoint, but I guess most social norms (and the underlying ideology) are based mainly on emotion, not reason. I think that many people who reject these sorts of explanations mean well, but make the mistake of thinking that equal rights are threatened by openly admitting the performance differences between men and women.
Of course GM Kosteniuk would totally dominate me in a chess match, and I can still admire a "mere" 2500-rated GM regardless of gender. The gender gap has no effect on my chess since I'm nowhere near the rating where it would matter. I no longer worry about making a little girl cry when playing OTB chess with her -- I worry about her making me cry.
There is a correlation between female participation and the rating difference between males and females.
In countries with higher female participation the rating difference tends to be smaller.
It is up to you to judge, how significant this correlation is. At least it can be said that if participation has any effect, then it tends to decrease rating difference.
Source:
https://github.com/myguibuilder/myguibuilder_beta/blob/master/FIDE/country_stats.txt
I recently discovered that I have played a game against Jon Ludvig Hammer. I did not pay attention then because it happened during a blitz tournament. I only realized it when looking at the profile of Hammer and it said I played a game against him.
I rushed to look up the game. I remembered it immediately, very bad memory, I blundered a piece.
This happened at a free site, so I can say that I played against the world No. 61 for completely free.
I wonder in what other sport you can do this. For example play a tennis match against the world No. 61 tennis player or play poker against the world No. 61 poker player, as a complete lame player, for free.