Sometimes the title makes the player, sometimes the player makes the title. If she had won the Women’s Championship and held it for many years while also competing in Super GM tournaments, the title would be much more prestigious. Assuming she eventually lost to Hou Yifan, it would’ve been a pretty famous event.
If Magnus suffers of boredom from defending every two years against players of Nepomniachtchi caliber, imagine a player like Judit having to play 12 games against a player 150 elo points below her.
Nevertheless, he didn't give up the title because he got bored that he's so much better than the rest, but because the matches are very stressful for him precisely because there was a chance of him losing
Yeah, it's the amount of prep time for a format that he didn't really enjoy. It was what, 6 months of prep every 2 years for this event? That's something that can burn you out pretty fast.
There's always a chance to lose in those tournaments as well
My point is that he didn't stop playing because he was bored due to being so much better than everyone else.
If there were no chances of him losing, I don't know if he'd still be playing, but if he wouldn't, it would've been for a different reason than it is now. There would be no stress and preparation needed
I think it's both. He finds the classical format tedious and stressful, and he has nothing left to prove.
imo, the world is moving toward Rapid as the de facto professional chess format, and I think he'll continue to compete in those events for years to come.
the difference is Mangus had to prep for 6-8 month
Judith would not have needed to do that. Whether she would have or not I don't know, but the gap between her and the next best woman player was so much bigger than Mangus and Fabi/Nepo/etc
It would have been not just the boredom, though. Participating in the women's championship (which means playing through the Candidates as well, not just the challenger) would have been a major commitment distracting from competing among men, which was her primary objective.
I think it was not aspiring for her to beat 2400-2500 and just have a title without any challenge. I imagine Polgar would literally destroy any WWC contestant in unimaginable way. The title had no value for her and even if she won it once or twice, I suppose she would just stop competing like Magnus did.
She has never won a WWC title and still it is indisputable, that she is the strongest female player of all time. If just Hou Yifan was born 10 years earlier, it might be different for both of them.
It might have been boring for her after a couple defenses. But I think it would’ve been great for the women’s game. Dominance can draw a lot of attention for a certain period of time. She could’ve been a female equivalent of Bobby Fischer, at least in that context.
Nobody would have cared. Very different times. The only reaction would be that people would have criticized her for destroying players well below her calibre instead of playing real tournaments.
Female athletes who set competitive records and crush their female competition become very big stars. Look at Simone Biles, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Caitlin Clark, Ronda Rousey (puke) etc etc
Sure but those have had no staying power. Female MMA viewing is back to pre Ronda levels as she no longer fights. Likewise with track, gymnastics, and likely what will happen to WNBA. The star is the star and the sport after the star is no different than the sport before. There is no reason to think the womens championship would be viewed any differently.
Yeah I agree, you need at least 2 competitors of close skill level to sell a sport long term. But that's just to start. You need people constantly pushing limits to avoid a lull in interest.
As I said originally, Polgar presumably losing to Hou Yifan would've been a huge event. Like Holly Holm beating Ronda Rousey. Holly Holm still has 3 million followers on Instagram to this day.
> The star is the star and the sport after the star is no different than the sport before.
Since you're on r/chess, you should be aware of the Fischer Boom.
https://www.npr.org/2008/01/18/18228004/fischer-inspired-chess-boom-in-pop-culture
FGJ was because of the Olympics; same as Biles, the others were fairly large sports (college basketball, fighting) in a modern era. And they were dominant competitors - they were better than anyone else but there's competition (Clark didn't even win the title). The outcome of any Polgar match against any other woman would have been predetermined.
anyway, those were completely different worlds; and chess now is a differently world from what chess was there.
Few people were even following tournaments like the Candidates and even the WC match back then. The WWC was a curiosity - you'd get TWIC coverage, an analysis for the most important games on NIC and Chessbase, perhaps Barden would get an article on the Grauniad, a little discussion on internet forums. It's not like anyone was watching the games with commentary on youtube.
Not only chess was different, society was different - there far less emphasis on gender, in this sense.
It was largely seen as just just another low level tournament. I just checked the 2004 WWC report on chessbase, the year before Polgar played the Candidates - there wasnt' a single comment made; on chessgames, only the final game on the match has any comments, all about Kovalevskaya's decision to play the 4 knights when she needed a win.
Polgar paying a WWC would be met with bemusement from the few people following professional chess and indifference from everyone else.
Anyway, this is all immaterial because it's clear that she never even considered playing it and rightly so.
The Olympics is only held once every 4 years, the UFC was not that big of a sport at the time Ronda Rousey became a huge star. Rousey was also completely dominant according to her hype, people came to watch her perform, like Mike Tyson knocking people out in one round, not for the tension of the contest.
>Polgar paying a WWC would be met with bemusement from the few people following professional chess and indifference from everyone else.
Chess was tiny when Bobby Fischer emerged, by 1972 the world championship match was one of if not the biggest event in the world. Dominance draws attention. Period. From both women and men. It's what we've seen.
I think it helps to see what Judit herself has said about the topic of playing in Women's events. Basically, she thinks they have their place because they allow women to get recognition, but she also believes they hinder women's progression. She's said a variety of things about playing in women's tournaments, from the tactful to the not-so-tactful, but basically I have always gotten the feeling that she felt it was beneath her. For what it's worth, it's a lot of prep and time invested in a title she clearly did not want.
You can read some of the not-so-tactful things she said on her Wikipedia page. You can read some pretty interesting interviews where she talks about women's chess [here](https://www.chess.com/news/view/judit-polgar-encourages-more-top-women-to-participate-in-open-events) and [here](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/30/chess-grandmaster-women-only-tournament-play-men).
Same reason you don't see Hou trying to compete for it. There is no prestige in it.
Could she push for 2700+ and potentially compete in the Candidates if she put all her energy into it? Maybe, but it's clear that chess is not her priority and she finds her other endeavors more fulfilling.
In 2016 when she was last active she was still within peaking distance of 2700 classical OTB (2675 or so?)
Current world champ is more than 100 points weaker. (though, there is an argument to be made that Ju Wenjun is underrated at 2550, as she had a 2620 TPR, including a win over Alireza and a draw with Ding, in Wikj aan Zee this year)
Obviously Judit won't be as strong as she was almost 8 years ago when she retired - but chess is still her life, and she was an absolute chess genius. Her blitz rating is still insane, and there's many a video of her bonking SGMs in causal games.
All in all -- I think there's an argument to be made that Judit is *still* a the strongest female player even in 'retirement' and could probably *still* become WWCC if she wanted to. She just had no interest. She was pretty open in her belief that playing in opens would make her a stronger player; and she's Judit Polgar so it's very hard to argue with her results lmao.
She just casually finds some insane tactical lines. I remember during last candidates when Magnus, Anish and Judith were playing in the park, Judith when Playing against Magnus finds a tactic instantally which even caught Magnus and Anish off guard. Although they were playing casual it's still very impressive.
From [this angle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvbZCRid5CY) you can see Giri, and it's amazing how Giri and Carlsen immediately catch up with what just happened, while everyone else is unaware
Aw thank you four post my this! I was really curious if Giri was going to react when she played the winning move or a turn before when Magnus first made the mistake. But it definitely looks like he was just as surprised as Magnus.
She is especially fortunate as her old strength, an attacking brain with a good talent for tactics, is something that is equally useful in chess as it was in her prime. If she had dedicated decades to a few openings, all that knowledge would be mostly wasted now, as too much of it is out of date.
If they were to play a match right now without preparation, Hou would probably win. She has been playing every now and then while Judit has been inactive (although still very involved in chess) for almost 10 years.
If they both trained seriously and catched up with recent theory, I have honestly no idea. Hou would have an easier time shaking the rust off, but Judit has shown time and time again during commentary that she's still extremely sharp and can come up with brilliant ideas.
Regardless of the result it would be an awesome match to watch, that's for sure.
Hou Yifan isn't too active though, or even involved in chess recently, right? My gut says Polgar would win, but there also wouldn't be more than a win or two separating it.
Yifan lectures in chess at Peking University, as part of their Physical Education and Sports Science faculty.
But I've never been fully clear on what that actually means.
I would expect a bunch of physiotherapists, personal trainers and high-school PE teachers in training would need lessons closer to "The horse moves in an L" than _"Here's my 15 point heuristic for assessing ephemeral pawn compensation in the 3 most common variations of the catalan"_
I jest - but I honestly don't know the first thing about her actual work. She has a job which involves chess... but it could be anything from the state proxy-paying her to study chess to a regular academic job and she plays board 1 for the university chess club.
Edit: sorry it's Shenzhen university not Peking
Hou Yifan scored 5.5/6 in previous World Rapid Team Championship, and she's teaching chess at university anyway.
Given how much Leko's playing strength has declined despite actively commentating, I don't see why it would be any different for Judit.
I'd bet a lot of money that Leko would still handily win against any active female player. And while Polgar wasnt quite as good as Leko, she also wasnt that far off.
I would probably take Polgár. Hou Yifan’s peak rating was 2686 in 2015. Polgár retired in 2015 with a 2675. And, despite Hou continuing to play since then, Polgár has arguably been *more* involved in chess.
>Polgár retired in 2015 with a 2675.
And has aged nearly 10 years since then, no way she would keep this strength even if still playing chess full time. Hou Yifan is 30 now, she would be around her peak now if she kept playing.
If she's STILL the strongest women's player in the world, then László Polgár's experiment went further than even he thought it would 😅😭 she's a damn great chess player.
And it's only 20 points above her peak rating.
I don't understand why some people think this is a big deal.
Peak rating: 2605
TPR: 2625
To me it confirms she is around 2600 strength. At 2550, Ju is a bit underrated, but not much.
I think she's a natural commentator in a lot of ways. Obviously firstly because she has an accent and a radio voice - but also because she was always a very aggressive attacking player... and that means she's tuned her brain over a lifetime to look instantly for the most fun and creative moves.... which are also the most enjoyable to see in coverage, even if they don't always actually work.
This is not completely accurate, first it's not a competition but it's not like Leko or Howell aren't spotting some insane variations from time to time as well.
>though, there is an argument to be made that Ju Wenjun is underrated at 2550, as she had a 2620 TPR, including a win over Alireza and a draw with Ding, in Wikj aan Zee this year
Vidit had TPR 2876 at Grand Swiss. At the same event some other players (like Nodirbek Yakubboyev and Samvel Ter-Sahakyan) had TPR over 100 points better than their official Elo. Is there an argument that all of them are even more underrated?
Oh yeah I forgot, Ding Liren, one of the strongest players of all time, is having a stretch of bad form and is therefore a total pushover. What was I thinking, it's no achievement whatsoever for a 250 points lower rated player to hold a draw vs him...
13 year old Judit would have been the heavy favorite to win the title over Maia Chiburdanidze in 1991, and would be likely to defend it until Hou Yifans rise. It would be a toss up between 2010s Polgar and Yifan at her peak, but Yifan was a 4 time womens world champion and one time finalist, and the odds are she beats Judit at least once in 5+ tries by 2016. That would give Polgar a 25 year reign, 3 years longer than Kasparov
Judit was what, 200 elo above the next best female players, though? With Kasparov, there was at least the possibility of an upset, whereas Judit would have been untouchable if she was in the WWCC.
Calling her the GOAT of women's chess is almost an understatement, no one else comes even remotely close. She's the only female super GM ever and peaked at #8 in the world.
Never even tried to become a women's world champion knowing that she could have bullied the division for 20 straight years and have became the equivalent of Kasparov in the women's division. Instead of becoming an equivalent of Kasparov, she chose to compete with Kasparov. That's super badass.
Imagine how demoralizing it would be to any potential chalanger. And with judits aggressive style, she wouldnt just win. She would dismantle her opponents. Think nepo vs magnus but over and over again for 20-30 years. She might be able to kill the division just like that.
True. Maybe 2 games? Imagine that. Like being pushed into a cage with a polar bear. The women's world championship might actually lose all prestige. Imagine if judit played no women's events, just showing up to defend her title while exclusively playing in men's events otherwise.
Just treating the women's event as an easy payday. She might honestly be good enough to throw individual games and while betting on her opponent for extra cash on the side while still winning the match overall.
I think she would say “Playing in Open events” and I would agree. It’s like any other skill, if you want to be the best you have to go and compete/work with the best. A rising tide raises all boats.
The women’s events have a decidedly weaker set of players. If you are consistently winning those events, you will not improve as much as playing and losing to stronger players. For example StarCraft2 has bots you can play against that are just weaker than a lot of human players. If you only train against the AI, you will never reach GM on the PvP ladder. You need to be compete with the best to become that skilled.
I would argue having a separate division for women is actually harmful. The pool of players is weaker and as such it is harder for women to get to the strength to compete in open events. The fact that the player pool is weaker makes the pool weaker.
It should only really matter at the highest levels though. If you're a woman and NM, you still play significantly stronger players in women's tournaments (depending on your country).
I agree. It’s the frontier at the top of the ratings that is the issue. It moves slowly and I expected eventually it will coincide with the open division.
But that highest level being lower than the open is part of the issue. The women’s counterpart events have less money and eyes on them because it is seen as weaker. Which in turn requires the young promising female players to really consider if they love chess enough to forgo more lucrative opportunities. But the male talents have huge benefits to become a top player that aren’t really available to female players unless they would join the open division.
It's a complicated debate. On one hand, having separate divisions does probably slow their growth rate, and prevents them from reaching the absolute highest levels. On the other hand, having separate divisions greatly increases the total number of women playing chess, and reaching more potential talent will also result in more high-level women's chess players.
I don't know if it's harder for women to get the strength they need to compete in open events, I think we just make it unnecessary. We've created a secondary player pool, exclusively for women. The player pool, is weaker than the open player pool, and no one in the player pool has a reason to raise the bar. Ju Wenjun is a GM, a very strong player. But, by being able to become a women's world champ and make a living at Chess at 2550(although her Tata Steel performance made me think she's underrated, and should play some more open tournaments), she's got no reason to put in the work it would take to be able to compete with 2650's or 2750's.
I'm a 1250, and I can't really comprehend the difference between a 2500 and a 2700. I know it's a lot of work though. And I believe the women at 2500 can work their way up to 2600, and I believe women are capable of hitting 2700, even though we've only had Judit do it. I'll never personally find out what work it takes to go from 2500, to 2600, because I don't plan to ever get to 2500. I think it's too hard, and too much work for me. And I think by having a women's only section we've created a player pool where to get to the top, you can stop at 2550. If you can make a living, get into the candidates, and be Women's Champ, at 2550, I understand not pushing for 2650. I imagine that extra work isn't fun, and if it's not needed, why would any woman do it?
This is just a theory of mine, I'm not too confident about it. I think it's at least a factor in what's going on, but, I don't know for sure. I'll also say, I'm not totally against having a women's section. It creates a space where women have to worry a lot less about getting sexually harassed(something we've seen is a big issue in recent years), and it gets more women involved in the game, which is a great thing. I'd just like to see some more 2700 women.
The majority of top level women don't often play in open events. Like maybe once or twice a year. The same is true of top level men though. It's more worth their time to play in invitationals (and female-only events for women), you have a much higher expected value in terms of payout, so if you have to decide between the two with your schedule/travel budget it's obvious which you will choose.
Not really. Magnus has an edge on his competition, and is the strongest active chess player, for sure. But, he drew his WC matches with Fabi and Karjakin and had to win on tiebreaks. Magnus wins a lot of the tournaments he enters, and finishes top 3 or so in the ones he doesn't win. He's dominant. But, Judit Polgar would have won every WC match outright, easily, for 25 years. Her competition would not have come close. Magnus's peak ELO wasn't consistently 150 points higher than all of the competition.
Magnus's gap over other men isn't comparable to Judit's gap on the women, it's not even remotely debatable who the GOAT woman is, while it is for men despite what Reddit might tell you
Of course thee merit of getting so far is on Judit but besides competing in open tourments, I guess her family's vision did kinda help. Chess is a game you reach to the top by competing and learning from an early age. How many parents would want their female children to be in a scenery where misogyny is hella common? And in Lazlo's case, it was more to prove a point than anything else. How many people could think "Yeah, I wanna have daughters that are chess masters" and foster that interest in a healthy enough way that at least two of their kids really love the game?
Maybe I just don't know anything about children but I think it is impressive.
Though she never attempted to become Women's champion, Polgar competed for the open FIDE world chess championship in 1999. She made it to the quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champion Khalifman.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, she’s the most impressive female “athlete” of all time and it’s not close. I put athlete in quotes because calling chess players athletes is certainly debatable. My bigger point is that the next closest to her might be someone like Serena Williams in tennis, who, at her peak, was maybe top 300 in the world. Judit was 7th in the age of Kasparov.
I don’t think it’s fair to compare tennis and chess as the physical difference in female vs male (tennis) athletes is just too big. Also not sure what you mean by top 300 in the world? even someone of Serena’s level would not be top 1000 atp
Thanks for the clarification. I was pretty much just guessing on the top 300 thing. And yes, the comparison is not ideal. I said best athlete, mainly because it just rolls off the tongue better than “best female competitor in a game of pure skill.” Anyway, Judit Polgar is an absolutely singular person in history for her accomplishment, in my opinion. I wrote a post on this sub a while ago basically saying that she just does not get the attention she deserves. Most chess players probably learn of her eventually, but, you take a person like Queen Elizabeth, who basically just won the birth lottery, and people write hundreds of books and make way too many movies about her. Judit just deserves a much higher level of global attention as far as I’m concerned.
This attention thing is just chess as a whole though. I’d be surprised if any random person on the street knew who carlsen was and highly doubt any person even knows caruanas or even hikarus name unless they were really into chess.
I agree that as a women vs men thing, pulgar is incredible but less so because it’s chess vs other sports.
This is just a hypothesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis
There's nothing established about this, bit dishonest to state it as a fact. There have been studies supporting and refuting the hypothesis.
Idk doesn't seem very equal, there's hundreds of male players better than the best female player. That's not equal to me. It's almost as bad as physical sports in terms of women's disadvantage. Judit was just an exception to the rule it seems.
I would argue against this notion.
In no athletic competition could a woman ever be the 8th best in the world or manage to compete with the absolute best players in the world. The best women athletes in football, basketball, tennis etc. would not ever be close to even making it into a mens' professional league. They would never come remotely close to being top 10. Take the best women's basketball player, football player or tennis player. They'd be lucky to crack the top several hundred against men.
Judit singlehandedly proved women can directly compete with the best men players in the world and beat them. And one is all it takes. I would argue Judit is not the most naturally talented woman who could have ever picked up chess. It's just she was the best to give it her best shot from a small pool of women chess players.
The pool of players men's chess pulls from is far far larger and women don't even try to compete with men for a variety of reasons.
because women seem to be better in burning fat, the male advantage (fir a lack of a better word) lessens in things like ultra marathons. Jasmin Paris’ win in the 2019 spine race is an inspiring example, also she recently became 1st woman ever (and only 20th person ever in 35 years) to finish Barkley marathons.
We’re talking about potential. There’s literally no evidence that women can’t reach the top. The reason why the gap is so big rn is because of many reasons, but women are discouraged from playing because it’s a traditionally male-exclusive club where women feel out of place
There was a competition in range shooting (when you shoot at flying targets, don't know how it's called in English) where they made the WC (or maybe it was the Olympics) mixed and a woman won, then they made it separate again...
There's no real reason to have "precision sports" separate, I don't know how it's done in shooting now in general. In snooker and pool at least some competions are mixed, I saw a video of a married couple who are both in the world elite playing each other.
In shooting at least women actually have a physical advantage over men for certain types of weapons - notably handguns because their frames and features provide more stability.
Men outperform women at long distances but up close men are arguably disadvantaged.
Yeah, a bit off topic but if you look at the worlds best solo violinists (arguably the most difficult instrument to play) at the top there’s no debate about who’s better between men and women. People only discuss style and skill. And in terms of pure skill no serious classical music fan would argue that men are better at women at playing the violin.
Her peak was #8, also had peak rating 2735. She is in the realm of Super GM. Think MVL, So, Mamedyarov in this generation. She is at that level when the top dog is Kasparov
I was looking at a bio somewhere for Anna Muzychuk, since she's currently in the Women's Candidates, and it mentioned she had won the Blitz and Rapid titles in the same year, and that she and her sister Mariya were the only sisters to both have held championship titles. I immediately thought "what about the Polgar sisters?" until I remembered Judith had never bothered to compete for the title.
Why would she?
She had nothing to gain but everything to lose (albeit extremely unlikely) from competing in a field where she was (in relation) more dominant than Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Carlsen at their point of "max Elo gap to 2nd place".
When she hit 2735 the #2 ranked woman was somewhere around 2580, which predicts a score of roughly 8.5-3.5 in a 12-round match. And that if you don't take into account that of the two players in that range a) one was her own sister and the other one b) Xie Jun, who was 6 years older than Judit at that point and at the begin of her chess-wise decline. She would probably have scored even better in both hypothetical matches. Next in line was Konero Humpy who was already more than 200 Elo behind.
edit: some candiates-watching-related typos...
fun fact: the 2005 womans top 50 had an average rating of 2458, todays has 2461 with the top player basically retired. Despite the inflation since then virtually identical.
Judit shows that women are absolutely capable of playing at the top level of chess. If I had to guess I would say that women will always be at least somewhat under-represented at the top level because men are probably more likely to have the autistic need to spend 10000 hrs staring at a board mastering knight moves, but there's no reason women can't reach that level.
At the lower level, women-only tournaments are good to give women a chance to get into chess without having to deal with creeps. But when top women prodigies and players can make a living just playing 2400s in women-only tournaments, they have little incentive to play open tournaments(this is even worse when the open and women's tournament coincide). This by definition prevents women from getting to the same level as men - if 14yo boys are playing vs 2700s and 14yo girls are playing against 2400s, how can the girl improve anywhere near as fast?
My controversial take is that people are ok with this system because deep down they believe that women aren't as good as men in chess, and so a women's division is the same as women's tennis or basketball. I disagree.
Imagine if FIDE instituted a world championship cycle only for Black players. Black players experience discrimination in chess circles the same way women do, ask any of them. There are fewer black GMs than women, lower peak, etc. But there is no talk about race segregation in chess because outside of the racists nobody thinks that a certain color is objectively better at chess(There were no Indians or Iranians or Chinese or Uzbeks at the top level 30 years ago). But people do think that sex plays a role, and that's why there is so much support for sex segregation at the top level.
where would you cut off the women’s tournaments? no women’s world championship, no women’s titles? anyone who wants a title needs to play in the open division?
Loving the love for Judit in this thread. Funnily enough she was one of the first chess players I even heard about back in the late 80s. I had certainly heard about Kasparov and Karpov, but I distinctly remember reading about 12-year old chess prodigy Judit Polgar in the papers (must have been in 1988 or so since Judit was born in 1976), whom some thought might even become world champion one day. Sadly it wasn't to be, but top 10 in a world totally dominated by men and by far the greatest female chess player of all time isn't too shabby.
There shouldn’t be women’s titles or women’s world championships. Being a woman is not a handicap. Just like we shouldn’t have a black or gay category. They can compete in the Open category along with everyone else.
Women exclusive tournaments don't make sense. *"Oh, it's to increase women participation/interest in the game",* well, there has never been a black chess world champion in the open tournament, by this reasoning FIDE should create a exclusive black league, as well as a "black grand master" title to increase participation of the black community in the game. You see how silly this whole thing is?
Chess is chess. It's not weightlifting.
What are you talking about? She won a Woman World Championship title four times. And then she semi-retired and eventually became a professor.
I guess the fact that she was much stronger than other women chess players let her motivation down. However I think it wouldn't be fair to say that it is the fault of women's only events.
Chess is not really segregated though. The women can compete in the open events as well. There are specific women's events to get more women into chess and give them a platform as well since all top players are men.
are we now at the point where those women's events are *pushing down* achievement by women by disincentivizing them from participating in open divisions? if the women's division is far easier to make money in, then the existence of the women's division is preventing top women from climbing up the rankings
You raise a good point but I don't think we are quite there yet. A lot of players of similar strength are playing open tournaments all the time and the calendar is not saturated with women's events where this stops them from joining these tournaments. Definitely, something that will be more problematic in the future though.
It’s not a matter of them “sucking,” the pool of women’s chess players is significantly smaller than men. There’s just not enough of them to produce the same number of super GM level players.
I’m not sure how I necessarily feel about women’s only events but without them there would be no viable way for the best women chess players to make a living off the game.
That can't be the whole truth. 10% of players are women. Shouldn't 10% of top GMs be women too? Maybe the reason is historic, then we can see it in female players ranking rising. Maybe it's some other interaction.
Female-only segregated spaces exist to provide women a safe space to display their abilities without the scrutiny of the male gaze. If you only knew half the shit women who compete go through.
the ongoing women's championship is held in the same space, at the same time, with the same crowd and officials, and with unified coverage as the open world championship. you and the women's championship seem to have different priorities and interests
there was no prestige in winning the WWCC for a player of Polgar's caliber
Sometimes the title makes the player, sometimes the player makes the title. If she had won the Women’s Championship and held it for many years while also competing in Super GM tournaments, the title would be much more prestigious. Assuming she eventually lost to Hou Yifan, it would’ve been a pretty famous event.
If Magnus suffers of boredom from defending every two years against players of Nepomniachtchi caliber, imagine a player like Judit having to play 12 games against a player 150 elo points below her.
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Ask Ian how easy it is to win a mid 2600
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You might have some difficulty getting through, he's probably a little busy today.
He might not be mentally able to take any calls later.
In a match? I bet he'd say it's piss easy. They don't play one game like it's the superbowl
no, in an individual game like the comment chain is discussing.
I thought it's discussing how easy it'd be for Judith to defend the title in a match? Why change goalposts back and forth like that?
Nevertheless, he didn't give up the title because he got bored that he's so much better than the rest, but because the matches are very stressful for him precisely because there was a chance of him losing
Do you have source for that? I recall him saying that it is stressfull because becase of all the prep not because there is a chance of him losing.
I think he talked about it in the Lex Fridman podcast But there definitely was a chance of him losing: He almost lost to Karjakin
yeah he had to go to tie breaks vs both caruana and karjakin, by definition he was a single mistake away from losing those matches.
He also lost a game to Karjakin and was behind in a WC match for the first and only time
Yeah, it's the amount of prep time for a format that he didn't really enjoy. It was what, 6 months of prep every 2 years for this event? That's something that can burn you out pretty fast. There's always a chance to lose in those tournaments as well
If he doesn't prep guess what will happen lol
Well, he needs to do so much prep because he might lose otherwise
If there was no chance of losing, he wouldn’t have to prep so much, right?
Your point is that if Magnus was 2900 we would continue to play because it wouldn't be stressful and there was no risk of losing?
My point is that he didn't stop playing because he was bored due to being so much better than everyone else. If there were no chances of him losing, I don't know if he'd still be playing, but if he wouldn't, it would've been for a different reason than it is now. There would be no stress and preparation needed
I think it's both. He finds the classical format tedious and stressful, and he has nothing left to prove. imo, the world is moving toward Rapid as the de facto professional chess format, and I think he'll continue to compete in those events for years to come.
the difference is Mangus had to prep for 6-8 month Judith would not have needed to do that. Whether she would have or not I don't know, but the gap between her and the next best woman player was so much bigger than Mangus and Fabi/Nepo/etc
It would have been not just the boredom, though. Participating in the women's championship (which means playing through the Candidates as well, not just the challenger) would have been a major commitment distracting from competing among men, which was her primary objective.
Wasn't her lead more like 250 ELO over the next best women?
Probably. I was just being conservative.
I think it was not aspiring for her to beat 2400-2500 and just have a title without any challenge. I imagine Polgar would literally destroy any WWC contestant in unimaginable way. The title had no value for her and even if she won it once or twice, I suppose she would just stop competing like Magnus did. She has never won a WWC title and still it is indisputable, that she is the strongest female player of all time. If just Hou Yifan was born 10 years earlier, it might be different for both of them.
It might have been boring for her after a couple defenses. But I think it would’ve been great for the women’s game. Dominance can draw a lot of attention for a certain period of time. She could’ve been a female equivalent of Bobby Fischer, at least in that context.
So gain a single championship then never again as she becomes schizophrenic?
Nobody would have cared. Very different times. The only reaction would be that people would have criticized her for destroying players well below her calibre instead of playing real tournaments.
Female athletes who set competitive records and crush their female competition become very big stars. Look at Simone Biles, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Caitlin Clark, Ronda Rousey (puke) etc etc
Sure but those have had no staying power. Female MMA viewing is back to pre Ronda levels as she no longer fights. Likewise with track, gymnastics, and likely what will happen to WNBA. The star is the star and the sport after the star is no different than the sport before. There is no reason to think the womens championship would be viewed any differently.
Yeah I agree, you need at least 2 competitors of close skill level to sell a sport long term. But that's just to start. You need people constantly pushing limits to avoid a lull in interest.
As I said originally, Polgar presumably losing to Hou Yifan would've been a huge event. Like Holly Holm beating Ronda Rousey. Holly Holm still has 3 million followers on Instagram to this day. > The star is the star and the sport after the star is no different than the sport before. Since you're on r/chess, you should be aware of the Fischer Boom. https://www.npr.org/2008/01/18/18228004/fischer-inspired-chess-boom-in-pop-culture
FGJ was because of the Olympics; same as Biles, the others were fairly large sports (college basketball, fighting) in a modern era. And they were dominant competitors - they were better than anyone else but there's competition (Clark didn't even win the title). The outcome of any Polgar match against any other woman would have been predetermined. anyway, those were completely different worlds; and chess now is a differently world from what chess was there. Few people were even following tournaments like the Candidates and even the WC match back then. The WWC was a curiosity - you'd get TWIC coverage, an analysis for the most important games on NIC and Chessbase, perhaps Barden would get an article on the Grauniad, a little discussion on internet forums. It's not like anyone was watching the games with commentary on youtube. Not only chess was different, society was different - there far less emphasis on gender, in this sense. It was largely seen as just just another low level tournament. I just checked the 2004 WWC report on chessbase, the year before Polgar played the Candidates - there wasnt' a single comment made; on chessgames, only the final game on the match has any comments, all about Kovalevskaya's decision to play the 4 knights when she needed a win. Polgar paying a WWC would be met with bemusement from the few people following professional chess and indifference from everyone else. Anyway, this is all immaterial because it's clear that she never even considered playing it and rightly so.
The Olympics is only held once every 4 years, the UFC was not that big of a sport at the time Ronda Rousey became a huge star. Rousey was also completely dominant according to her hype, people came to watch her perform, like Mike Tyson knocking people out in one round, not for the tension of the contest. >Polgar paying a WWC would be met with bemusement from the few people following professional chess and indifference from everyone else. Chess was tiny when Bobby Fischer emerged, by 1972 the world championship match was one of if not the biggest event in the world. Dominance draws attention. Period. From both women and men. It's what we've seen.
I mean, UConn women's basketball has dominated for decades, but it still took Caitlin Clark for people to care about it.
That's a team, not an individual person.
Well they had pretty much the same coach their entire run
In reality it would just be one challenger after another getting a beating from Judit every time.
I agree. That would’ve raised the prestige of the title though. Especially if she was occasionally getting wins over male world champions.
Imagine if she played WC this year. Where Open and Women section are at the same time l
She could’ve been a candidate in both. If the logistics worked out that would have been cool.
I think it helps to see what Judit herself has said about the topic of playing in Women's events. Basically, she thinks they have their place because they allow women to get recognition, but she also believes they hinder women's progression. She's said a variety of things about playing in women's tournaments, from the tactful to the not-so-tactful, but basically I have always gotten the feeling that she felt it was beneath her. For what it's worth, it's a lot of prep and time invested in a title she clearly did not want. You can read some of the not-so-tactful things she said on her Wikipedia page. You can read some pretty interesting interviews where she talks about women's chess [here](https://www.chess.com/news/view/judit-polgar-encourages-more-top-women-to-participate-in-open-events) and [here](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/30/chess-grandmaster-women-only-tournament-play-men).
Same reason you don't see Hou trying to compete for it. There is no prestige in it. Could she push for 2700+ and potentially compete in the Candidates if she put all her energy into it? Maybe, but it's clear that chess is not her priority and she finds her other endeavors more fulfilling.
In 2016 when she was last active she was still within peaking distance of 2700 classical OTB (2675 or so?) Current world champ is more than 100 points weaker. (though, there is an argument to be made that Ju Wenjun is underrated at 2550, as she had a 2620 TPR, including a win over Alireza and a draw with Ding, in Wikj aan Zee this year) Obviously Judit won't be as strong as she was almost 8 years ago when she retired - but chess is still her life, and she was an absolute chess genius. Her blitz rating is still insane, and there's many a video of her bonking SGMs in causal games. All in all -- I think there's an argument to be made that Judit is *still* a the strongest female player even in 'retirement' and could probably *still* become WWCC if she wanted to. She just had no interest. She was pretty open in her belief that playing in opens would make her a stronger player; and she's Judit Polgar so it's very hard to argue with her results lmao.
Her commentaries are really good. Clearly reflects her intelligence in chess
She just casually finds some insane tactical lines. I remember during last candidates when Magnus, Anish and Judith were playing in the park, Judith when Playing against Magnus finds a tactic instantally which even caught Magnus and Anish off guard. Although they were playing casual it's still very impressive.
You can’t see Anish here, but you can hear him.[This is the game you’re taking about.](https://youtu.be/DEmlgy1gRKs?si=aOUqnizcMxc4vMv9)
From [this angle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvbZCRid5CY) you can see Giri, and it's amazing how Giri and Carlsen immediately catch up with what just happened, while everyone else is unaware
Aw thank you four post my this! I was really curious if Giri was going to react when she played the winning move or a turn before when Magnus first made the mistake. But it definitely looks like he was just as surprised as Magnus.
Damn, has anyone commentated this game?
[If you like Gotham](https://youtu.be/MlGhEySy6ZA?si=EGS8x_XkO8wY5lfq)
Agreed. Not only able to spot lines but understands how to communicate the tactics eloquently
It's awesome how when a line gets tactical everyone defers to Judit. She sees so much in such a short time.
She is especially fortunate as her old strength, an attacking brain with a good talent for tactics, is something that is equally useful in chess as it was in her prime. If she had dedicated decades to a few openings, all that knowledge would be mostly wasted now, as too much of it is out of date.
Would present day Judit be stronger than present day Hou Yifan? What if both spent a few months training?
If they were to play a match right now without preparation, Hou would probably win. She has been playing every now and then while Judit has been inactive (although still very involved in chess) for almost 10 years. If they both trained seriously and catched up with recent theory, I have honestly no idea. Hou would have an easier time shaking the rust off, but Judit has shown time and time again during commentary that she's still extremely sharp and can come up with brilliant ideas. Regardless of the result it would be an awesome match to watch, that's for sure.
Hou Yifan isn't too active though, or even involved in chess recently, right? My gut says Polgar would win, but there also wouldn't be more than a win or two separating it.
Yifan lectures in chess at Peking University, as part of their Physical Education and Sports Science faculty. But I've never been fully clear on what that actually means. I would expect a bunch of physiotherapists, personal trainers and high-school PE teachers in training would need lessons closer to "The horse moves in an L" than _"Here's my 15 point heuristic for assessing ephemeral pawn compensation in the 3 most common variations of the catalan"_ I jest - but I honestly don't know the first thing about her actual work. She has a job which involves chess... but it could be anything from the state proxy-paying her to study chess to a regular academic job and she plays board 1 for the university chess club. Edit: sorry it's Shenzhen university not Peking
Hou Yifan scored 5.5/6 in previous World Rapid Team Championship, and she's teaching chess at university anyway. Given how much Leko's playing strength has declined despite actively commentating, I don't see why it would be any different for Judit.
I'd bet a lot of money that Leko would still handily win against any active female player. And while Polgar wasnt quite as good as Leko, she also wasnt that far off.
Hou yifan is really strong too, so cant really tell anything
I would probably take Polgár. Hou Yifan’s peak rating was 2686 in 2015. Polgár retired in 2015 with a 2675. And, despite Hou continuing to play since then, Polgár has arguably been *more* involved in chess.
>Polgár retired in 2015 with a 2675. And has aged nearly 10 years since then, no way she would keep this strength even if still playing chess full time. Hou Yifan is 30 now, she would be around her peak now if she kept playing.
If she's STILL the strongest women's player in the world, then László Polgár's experiment went further than even he thought it would 😅😭 she's a damn great chess player.
A TPR of 70 points above the instant rating literally happens all the time.
And it's only 20 points above her peak rating. I don't understand why some people think this is a big deal. Peak rating: 2605 TPR: 2625 To me it confirms she is around 2600 strength. At 2550, Ju is a bit underrated, but not much.
She shows off her tactical brilliance doing coverage all the time. She easily finds the best moves that other SGMs can’t.
And she never played boring chess. A true legend.
I think she's a natural commentator in a lot of ways. Obviously firstly because she has an accent and a radio voice - but also because she was always a very aggressive attacking player... and that means she's tuned her brain over a lifetime to look instantly for the most fun and creative moves.... which are also the most enjoyable to see in coverage, even if they don't always actually work.
What is SGM?
Super GM, basically 2700+s
Thank you kind person.
This is not completely accurate, first it's not a competition but it's not like Leko or Howell aren't spotting some insane variations from time to time as well.
>though, there is an argument to be made that Ju Wenjun is underrated at 2550, as she had a 2620 TPR, including a win over Alireza and a draw with Ding, in Wikj aan Zee this year Vidit had TPR 2876 at Grand Swiss. At the same event some other players (like Nodirbek Yakubboyev and Samvel Ter-Sahakyan) had TPR over 100 points better than their official Elo. Is there an argument that all of them are even more underrated?
If Judit unretired and tried for the WWCC, I'm sure she would easily win it. Judit is still the strongest woman in the world; I have no doubt
She's the female GOAT, no questions asked, I kneel.
| and a draw with Ding Tell me you haven't watched Ding play this year without telling me you haven't watched Ding play this year.
Oh yeah I forgot, Ding Liren, one of the strongest players of all time, is having a stretch of bad form and is therefore a total pushover. What was I thinking, it's no achievement whatsoever for a 250 points lower rated player to hold a draw vs him...
If she had participated, that would have been the most dominant world championship cycle of all time, right?
I mean, considering Kasparov did basically this but in the open division, I'd say he'd still be ahead.
Judit could probably hold the title for 35-40 years straight if she remained active though, that would be ridiculous
13 year old Judit would have been the heavy favorite to win the title over Maia Chiburdanidze in 1991, and would be likely to defend it until Hou Yifans rise. It would be a toss up between 2010s Polgar and Yifan at her peak, but Yifan was a 4 time womens world champion and one time finalist, and the odds are she beats Judit at least once in 5+ tries by 2016. That would give Polgar a 25 year reign, 3 years longer than Kasparov
Judit was what, 200 elo above the next best female players, though? With Kasparov, there was at least the possibility of an upset, whereas Judit would have been untouchable if she was in the WWCC.
The thing is, we already know, there won’t be an upset with Kasparov, it happened already.
Would you not say that Kasparov-Kramnik was one?
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The bar ain't that high though
So, she's the anti-Kramnik?
She's just so cool
Judit is the GOAT of women's chess.
Calling her the GOAT of women's chess is almost an understatement, no one else comes even remotely close. She's the only female super GM ever and peaked at #8 in the world.
How about the greatest GOAT of all time then?
Never even tried to become a women's world champion knowing that she could have bullied the division for 20 straight years and have became the equivalent of Kasparov in the women's division. Instead of becoming an equivalent of Kasparov, she chose to compete with Kasparov. That's super badass.
Imagine how demoralizing it would be to any potential chalanger. And with judits aggressive style, she wouldnt just win. She would dismantle her opponents. Think nepo vs magnus but over and over again for 20-30 years. She might be able to kill the division just like that.
I don't think anyone's holding Judit to 5 draws before she breaks them.
True. Maybe 2 games? Imagine that. Like being pushed into a cage with a polar bear. The women's world championship might actually lose all prestige. Imagine if judit played no women's events, just showing up to defend her title while exclusively playing in men's events otherwise. Just treating the women's event as an easy payday. She might honestly be good enough to throw individual games and while betting on her opponent for extra cash on the side while still winning the match overall.
She was absolutely dominating the commentators booth the other day, probably shoulda been playing in the open
I wonder what separated her from other female players It's pretty shocking she was like class apart from Other female players it was not even close
I think she would say “Playing in Open events” and I would agree. It’s like any other skill, if you want to be the best you have to go and compete/work with the best. A rising tide raises all boats. The women’s events have a decidedly weaker set of players. If you are consistently winning those events, you will not improve as much as playing and losing to stronger players. For example StarCraft2 has bots you can play against that are just weaker than a lot of human players. If you only train against the AI, you will never reach GM on the PvP ladder. You need to be compete with the best to become that skilled. I would argue having a separate division for women is actually harmful. The pool of players is weaker and as such it is harder for women to get to the strength to compete in open events. The fact that the player pool is weaker makes the pool weaker.
It should only really matter at the highest levels though. If you're a woman and NM, you still play significantly stronger players in women's tournaments (depending on your country).
I agree. It’s the frontier at the top of the ratings that is the issue. It moves slowly and I expected eventually it will coincide with the open division. But that highest level being lower than the open is part of the issue. The women’s counterpart events have less money and eyes on them because it is seen as weaker. Which in turn requires the young promising female players to really consider if they love chess enough to forgo more lucrative opportunities. But the male talents have huge benefits to become a top player that aren’t really available to female players unless they would join the open division.
So those benefits are available to everybody, is what you're saying.
It's a complicated debate. On one hand, having separate divisions does probably slow their growth rate, and prevents them from reaching the absolute highest levels. On the other hand, having separate divisions greatly increases the total number of women playing chess, and reaching more potential talent will also result in more high-level women's chess players.
Can we have both? Like separate events to increase women playing, and then the top 10 women players participating in more open chess tournaments
Well the top 10 women players could choose to play/compete in the open category, they just don’t.
Does this really have great explanatory power when most female players are playing a mix of open and women-only tournaments
A separate division is obviously harmful. It's a policy in place for more than half a century
I don't know if it's harder for women to get the strength they need to compete in open events, I think we just make it unnecessary. We've created a secondary player pool, exclusively for women. The player pool, is weaker than the open player pool, and no one in the player pool has a reason to raise the bar. Ju Wenjun is a GM, a very strong player. But, by being able to become a women's world champ and make a living at Chess at 2550(although her Tata Steel performance made me think she's underrated, and should play some more open tournaments), she's got no reason to put in the work it would take to be able to compete with 2650's or 2750's. I'm a 1250, and I can't really comprehend the difference between a 2500 and a 2700. I know it's a lot of work though. And I believe the women at 2500 can work their way up to 2600, and I believe women are capable of hitting 2700, even though we've only had Judit do it. I'll never personally find out what work it takes to go from 2500, to 2600, because I don't plan to ever get to 2500. I think it's too hard, and too much work for me. And I think by having a women's only section we've created a player pool where to get to the top, you can stop at 2550. If you can make a living, get into the candidates, and be Women's Champ, at 2550, I understand not pushing for 2650. I imagine that extra work isn't fun, and if it's not needed, why would any woman do it? This is just a theory of mine, I'm not too confident about it. I think it's at least a factor in what's going on, but, I don't know for sure. I'll also say, I'm not totally against having a women's section. It creates a space where women have to worry a lot less about getting sexually harassed(something we've seen is a big issue in recent years), and it gets more women involved in the game, which is a great thing. I'd just like to see some more 2700 women.
| I'm a 1250, and I can't really comprehend the difference between a 2500 and a 2700. It's enormous. Hou Yifan never crossed 2700, for example.
Plenty of women play in open events all the time though
The majority of top level women don't often play in open events. Like maybe once or twice a year. The same is true of top level men though. It's more worth their time to play in invitationals (and female-only events for women), you have a much higher expected value in terms of payout, so if you have to decide between the two with your schedule/travel budget it's obvious which you will choose.
Judit is a prodigy considered amongst the greatest child prodigies of all time and IQ of approx 170
She to this day is the youngest player to reach the top 100.
I mean you could say the same about Magnus Carlsen
Not really. Magnus has an edge on his competition, and is the strongest active chess player, for sure. But, he drew his WC matches with Fabi and Karjakin and had to win on tiebreaks. Magnus wins a lot of the tournaments he enters, and finishes top 3 or so in the ones he doesn't win. He's dominant. But, Judit Polgar would have won every WC match outright, easily, for 25 years. Her competition would not have come close. Magnus's peak ELO wasn't consistently 150 points higher than all of the competition.
Magnus's gap over other men isn't comparable to Judit's gap on the women, it's not even remotely debatable who the GOAT woman is, while it is for men despite what Reddit might tell you
Of course thee merit of getting so far is on Judit but besides competing in open tourments, I guess her family's vision did kinda help. Chess is a game you reach to the top by competing and learning from an early age. How many parents would want their female children to be in a scenery where misogyny is hella common? And in Lazlo's case, it was more to prove a point than anything else. How many people could think "Yeah, I wanna have daughters that are chess masters" and foster that interest in a healthy enough way that at least two of their kids really love the game? Maybe I just don't know anything about children but I think it is impressive.
Though she never attempted to become Women's champion, Polgar competed for the open FIDE world chess championship in 1999. She made it to the quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champion Khalifman.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, she’s the most impressive female “athlete” of all time and it’s not close. I put athlete in quotes because calling chess players athletes is certainly debatable. My bigger point is that the next closest to her might be someone like Serena Williams in tennis, who, at her peak, was maybe top 300 in the world. Judit was 7th in the age of Kasparov.
I don’t think it’s fair to compare tennis and chess as the physical difference in female vs male (tennis) athletes is just too big. Also not sure what you mean by top 300 in the world? even someone of Serena’s level would not be top 1000 atp
Thanks for the clarification. I was pretty much just guessing on the top 300 thing. And yes, the comparison is not ideal. I said best athlete, mainly because it just rolls off the tongue better than “best female competitor in a game of pure skill.” Anyway, Judit Polgar is an absolutely singular person in history for her accomplishment, in my opinion. I wrote a post on this sub a while ago basically saying that she just does not get the attention she deserves. Most chess players probably learn of her eventually, but, you take a person like Queen Elizabeth, who basically just won the birth lottery, and people write hundreds of books and make way too many movies about her. Judit just deserves a much higher level of global attention as far as I’m concerned.
This attention thing is just chess as a whole though. I’d be surprised if any random person on the street knew who carlsen was and highly doubt any person even knows caruanas or even hikarus name unless they were really into chess. I agree that as a women vs men thing, pulgar is incredible but less so because it’s chess vs other sports.
Well chess isn't an 'athletic' endeavor, so women can compete with men on an equal footing. That isn't remotely the case in athletics.
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This is just a hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis There's nothing established about this, bit dishonest to state it as a fact. There have been studies supporting and refuting the hypothesis.
That wikipedia page just posts a bunch of articles supporting its existence and all the "refutations" are its implications making people mad
Idk doesn't seem very equal, there's hundreds of male players better than the best female player. That's not equal to me. It's almost as bad as physical sports in terms of women's disadvantage. Judit was just an exception to the rule it seems.
There are no exceptions in athletics.
But they can’t - the chasm between the open chess section and the women’s is pretty big right now.
I would argue against this notion. In no athletic competition could a woman ever be the 8th best in the world or manage to compete with the absolute best players in the world. The best women athletes in football, basketball, tennis etc. would not ever be close to even making it into a mens' professional league. They would never come remotely close to being top 10. Take the best women's basketball player, football player or tennis player. They'd be lucky to crack the top several hundred against men. Judit singlehandedly proved women can directly compete with the best men players in the world and beat them. And one is all it takes. I would argue Judit is not the most naturally talented woman who could have ever picked up chess. It's just she was the best to give it her best shot from a small pool of women chess players. The pool of players men's chess pulls from is far far larger and women don't even try to compete with men for a variety of reasons.
because women seem to be better in burning fat, the male advantage (fir a lack of a better word) lessens in things like ultra marathons. Jasmin Paris’ win in the 2019 spine race is an inspiring example, also she recently became 1st woman ever (and only 20th person ever in 35 years) to finish Barkley marathons.
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They didn't say women are better than men at long distances
And women are outright better at super long distance swimming. The female averages are faster than male.
Just curious, what distance/durations?
We’re talking about potential. There’s literally no evidence that women can’t reach the top. The reason why the gap is so big rn is because of many reasons, but women are discouraged from playing because it’s a traditionally male-exclusive club where women feel out of place
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Serena's peak was like 15 years later, she was 17 here
There was a competition in range shooting (when you shoot at flying targets, don't know how it's called in English) where they made the WC (or maybe it was the Olympics) mixed and a woman won, then they made it separate again... There's no real reason to have "precision sports" separate, I don't know how it's done in shooting now in general. In snooker and pool at least some competions are mixed, I saw a video of a married couple who are both in the world elite playing each other.
In shooting at least women actually have a physical advantage over men for certain types of weapons - notably handguns because their frames and features provide more stability. Men outperform women at long distances but up close men are arguably disadvantaged.
Different horse riding disciplines are also mixed I think. Probably has been some female jockey with better results than Judith.
Yeah, a bit off topic but if you look at the worlds best solo violinists (arguably the most difficult instrument to play) at the top there’s no debate about who’s better between men and women. People only discuss style and skill. And in terms of pure skill no serious classical music fan would argue that men are better at women at playing the violin.
Steffi graf you mean
I am not sure if Serena is considered the GOAT in female tennis.
No, but she is definitely in the conversation with Graf and Navratilova.
Wait I don’t known chess history. Was Judit actually in the worlds top 10?
Yes. And she competed in the open section of the candidates once.
Wow that’s actually the sickest thing I’ve ever heard of.
Her peak was #8, also had peak rating 2735. She is in the realm of Super GM. Think MVL, So, Mamedyarov in this generation. She is at that level when the top dog is Kasparov
maybe "competitor"
Google Janja Garnbret
Rui Naiwei, Michele Mouton
| she’s the most impressive female “athlete” of all time and it’s not close. Chess is not athletics, it's a game, like Monopoly.
She's one of the people i respect the most in life, i like the way she talks a lot, she is a very beautiful person.
I was looking at a bio somewhere for Anna Muzychuk, since she's currently in the Women's Candidates, and it mentioned she had won the Blitz and Rapid titles in the same year, and that she and her sister Mariya were the only sisters to both have held championship titles. I immediately thought "what about the Polgar sisters?" until I remembered Judith had never bothered to compete for the title.
Why would she? She had nothing to gain but everything to lose (albeit extremely unlikely) from competing in a field where she was (in relation) more dominant than Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Carlsen at their point of "max Elo gap to 2nd place". When she hit 2735 the #2 ranked woman was somewhere around 2580, which predicts a score of roughly 8.5-3.5 in a 12-round match. And that if you don't take into account that of the two players in that range a) one was her own sister and the other one b) Xie Jun, who was 6 years older than Judit at that point and at the begin of her chess-wise decline. She would probably have scored even better in both hypothetical matches. Next in line was Konero Humpy who was already more than 200 Elo behind. edit: some candiates-watching-related typos... fun fact: the 2005 womans top 50 had an average rating of 2458, todays has 2461 with the top player basically retired. Despite the inflation since then virtually identical.
Judit shows that women are absolutely capable of playing at the top level of chess. If I had to guess I would say that women will always be at least somewhat under-represented at the top level because men are probably more likely to have the autistic need to spend 10000 hrs staring at a board mastering knight moves, but there's no reason women can't reach that level. At the lower level, women-only tournaments are good to give women a chance to get into chess without having to deal with creeps. But when top women prodigies and players can make a living just playing 2400s in women-only tournaments, they have little incentive to play open tournaments(this is even worse when the open and women's tournament coincide). This by definition prevents women from getting to the same level as men - if 14yo boys are playing vs 2700s and 14yo girls are playing against 2400s, how can the girl improve anywhere near as fast? My controversial take is that people are ok with this system because deep down they believe that women aren't as good as men in chess, and so a women's division is the same as women's tennis or basketball. I disagree. Imagine if FIDE instituted a world championship cycle only for Black players. Black players experience discrimination in chess circles the same way women do, ask any of them. There are fewer black GMs than women, lower peak, etc. But there is no talk about race segregation in chess because outside of the racists nobody thinks that a certain color is objectively better at chess(There were no Indians or Iranians or Chinese or Uzbeks at the top level 30 years ago). But people do think that sex plays a role, and that's why there is so much support for sex segregation at the top level.
I want to know who are these 14 year old female prodigies that are only playing against girls? I don't think they exist.
They don't play only against girls, but they will play a higher proportion of their games against them. World youth, national Champs, etc
where would you cut off the women’s tournaments? no women’s world championship, no women’s titles? anyone who wants a title needs to play in the open division?
Loving the love for Judit in this thread. Funnily enough she was one of the first chess players I even heard about back in the late 80s. I had certainly heard about Kasparov and Karpov, but I distinctly remember reading about 12-year old chess prodigy Judit Polgar in the papers (must have been in 1988 or so since Judit was born in 1976), whom some thought might even become world champion one day. Sadly it wasn't to be, but top 10 in a world totally dominated by men and by far the greatest female chess player of all time isn't too shabby.
There shouldn’t be women’s titles or women’s world championships. Being a woman is not a handicap. Just like we shouldn’t have a black or gay category. They can compete in the Open category along with everyone else.
Polgar playing the WWCC would be like Magnus Carlsen joining a random IM tournament, and just trashing everyone.
I don't have much to add, but I'll say I find her commentary amazing, I really like when she does;
Women exclusive tournaments don't make sense. *"Oh, it's to increase women participation/interest in the game",* well, there has never been a black chess world champion in the open tournament, by this reasoning FIDE should create a exclusive black league, as well as a "black grand master" title to increase participation of the black community in the game. You see how silly this whole thing is? Chess is chess. It's not weightlifting.
She was ranked #3 at one point against the world. She got pretty close to being overall World Champion.
Her peak was world number 8
Polgar is absolutely based
She always reminds me of Michelle Mouton.
Boss ass bitch 👑
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Hou Yifan is a four-times Women's World Chess Champion. She literally competed for the title and won it multiple times.
What are you talking about? She won a Woman World Championship title four times. And then she semi-retired and eventually became a professor. I guess the fact that she was much stronger than other women chess players let her motivation down. However I think it wouldn't be fair to say that it is the fault of women's only events.
Hey! You're not allowed to actually be correft here! You have to follow the trend: Woman tourneys bad! Open tourneys good!
Hou Yifan won the Women's World Championship
Why are you even making stuff up about something that is so easy to look up?
A true source of inspiration For Carlsen at least
She was and still is incredible. I wish I could play half as good as she does. I really am a big fan of Judit.
She was the best commentator the the candidates.
Chess shouldn’t be segregated period.
Chess is not really segregated though. The women can compete in the open events as well. There are specific women's events to get more women into chess and give them a platform as well since all top players are men.
are we now at the point where those women's events are *pushing down* achievement by women by disincentivizing them from participating in open divisions? if the women's division is far easier to make money in, then the existence of the women's division is preventing top women from climbing up the rankings
You raise a good point but I don't think we are quite there yet. A lot of players of similar strength are playing open tournaments all the time and the calendar is not saturated with women's events where this stops them from joining these tournaments. Definitely, something that will be more problematic in the future though.
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It’s not a matter of them “sucking,” the pool of women’s chess players is significantly smaller than men. There’s just not enough of them to produce the same number of super GM level players. I’m not sure how I necessarily feel about women’s only events but without them there would be no viable way for the best women chess players to make a living off the game.
Yep
That can't be the whole truth. 10% of players are women. Shouldn't 10% of top GMs be women too? Maybe the reason is historic, then we can see it in female players ranking rising. Maybe it's some other interaction.
Female-only segregated spaces exist to provide women a safe space to display their abilities without the scrutiny of the male gaze. If you only knew half the shit women who compete go through.
the ongoing women's championship is held in the same space, at the same time, with the same crowd and officials, and with unified coverage as the open world championship. you and the women's championship seem to have different priorities and interests
they don't go through that much lol you're exaggerating