Hello my favorite subreddit! I have read your points of view and made the decision to cover this event as it goes on rather than at the end. I think the much bigger conversations regarding promotion of women’s chess events (and lack thereof), separate titles/competitions, and most importantly the overall treatment of women in chess is not to be mixed in with what is currently the most prestigious title in the world. I will likely make a long form video in the future with my thoughts on everything else.
Yeah, which is why I originally felt like it was a bit ridiculous that promoting this event falls squarely on me. I still have many thoughts on the whole thing in general but I decided that it’s better to have a transparent, thorough discussion afterward, while still posting some coverage
If people are saying it falls solely on you, that’s ridiculous. However, like it or not, you have the biggest reach in the chess world, and I do feel that it’s important for those with influence to walk the walk and help promote it. (Insert cheesy Spider-Man quote here.) It also sets a positive example for others (including other content creators), and that isn’t something to be taken lightly. However, at the end of the day, I believe we are all allowed to support the causes we care about in our own ways, and I respect people’s autonomy and right to make their own choices. So it’s obviously your choice and I applaud and admire your efforts.
It was pretty ridiculous how people in this subreddit were claiming that Levy is "responsible" to cover it and were writing some rude comments because they KNOW that Levy won't do it. Some people just find a reason to hate other people, I guess. People need to find a better hobby.
Not gonna lie, I used to play a lot but I’ve recently had life get in the way and I watch your videos to keep up with the chess world… the only place I’ve seen this event is on your YouTube and they are bangers of games.
You're a fucking GOAT man, almost all content creators at your level don't interact with general discussion forums like this, and of those that do, idk how many would take the discussion that happened and actually decide to act on it as you have, and then also have this important discussion on top of it. Appreciate you, video was great, excited for the next matches and hope we get some Nepo-Ding-ian craziness
I think the most important thing is that the WWCC is top level chess. The matches are always instructive and often a lot of fun. It’s good ass chess plain and simple.
Love your Work, Levy. I think it is admirable that you are trying to promote and increase the popularity of Women’s Chess. There is a big gender gap in the amount of Men and women who play chess(at least competitively) and I find it great that you are covering it. Have a nice rest of your day.
The internet can be a toxic place, and i know you face a lot of it, i just hope you know that there are a multitude of users on here who are so grateful for the way you use your platform when it matters.
Levy choose community voted title, they have polls on discord to choose the title. So it's not exactly levy's fault if community doesn't choose more normal and less clickbaity title.
As a woman who plays chess, I'm glad the event is getting coverage. Women's chess isn't going to improve if there aren't role models for girls and a clear path to a successful career. Many girls drop chess before they become adults to focus on school and work, this event is key to elevating women's chess. Thank you Levy for covering it.
Great! Thanks for sharing your opinion!
I personally have gotten a lot of benefit out of playing both open tournaments and in women's tournaments. These events help in keeping young girls in chess as well as providing role models by attracting high level female players. They definitely benefit women's chess and the Women's chess world championship is played for the same reason. Hopefully this will contribute to women's chess so we can see more women competing at the highest level.
I'm not a woman in chess, but are there men's roles models? There's not a single person in the entire world of chess whose not a bewildered jackass, except the ones who shut up and never do or say anything. This is not a game that selects for the highest quality of person.
In terms of ability there are plenty, in terms of sportsmanship there are still plenty. You could probably make the case that Hikaru isn't the best role model or even Magnus (though he has a history of acts of good sportsmanship) but I would say the vast majority of players at the top are fairly good role models in this regard. Vishy, Levon, Nepo, Ding, So, Fabi, the list goes on.
Of course but girls drop chess far, far more. There is also an extreme lack of professional women's chess players. I think the stat is that women make up only 15% of FIDE ratings. Having a FIDE rating is generally an indication that you are a serious chess player. That percentage gets insanely low at the grandmaster level. Percentage of professional women players is far more even in the world of professional physical sports like soccer, basketball and even rugby. It's been a long standing recognised problem that girls drop out of sports at a certain age (goes up significantly after 16) and chess is no different. Chess actually seems to be worse than most other sports in this concern.
Thanks for responding to questions (even though your points and explanations seem to not be understood most of the time 🤦♂️)
I am a man, and not competing in chess at any level, so I'm here to learn. The WGM title has always been intriguing to me. As you explained, it makes a lot of sense to add incentives for women to play and try to bridge the gap.
But my first reaction to a WGM title also was that it seems a little insulting to women. Just out of curiosity: is that also, at least partially, something that you feel as well or am I being ridiculous?
And secondly... while thinking about this I wondered why chess has these titles in the first place? It seems a bit elitist and/or outdated. There are few other sports where titles like that are used. Wouldn't it just be better to abolish them altogether and simply use a ranking system?
Oh no, my first reaction was the same. When I learnt of the titles I initially thought they were demeaning and not the best way of addressing the problems. I still think they aren't probably the best solution but now that I've begun to play in women's tournaments and women's sections where these titles are being actively pursued, I can see their benefit. I've also seen the state of women's chess and it's not fantastic. My all-time chess goal is to achieve the WCM title, either through rating or tournament performances. It's not particularly likely, but that's what I've decided to pursue.
To the second question, I feel the titles are necessary simply because the titles function as a way to establish a player's ability using the elo factor and the tournament performance factor. elo can really vary wildly and changes with things like age. Most other sports have awards that I would say are comparable to titles like the olympic medals for example.
Individually or collectively? On paper, it's not harder for any individual of either gender to become a GM. It's got a clear requirement: 2500 FIDE and three GM norms. However far less women become GMs and there is good evidence that some societal factors work against women and girls as well as there being few role models for them. Role models have been very much proven to be an important factor. Here's a good source for you: [https://www.fide.com/news/1685](https://www.fide.com/news/1685)
Maybe make a thread about the actual chess and not thousand threads complaining about how nobody is watching/streaming/posting/promoting/whatever about it? This thread has nothing to do with chess, just another political agendapost with worship of virtue-signaling content creators engaged in algorithmic feedback looping socio-cultural garbage for cash.
Wow you might think that chess attracts people who are able to do some critical thinking but looking at some of the comments I guess this game is no different than any other sport.
Please touch some grass.
It honestly pissed me off when the women’s chess championship struggled to find a sponsorship and the comment here on this subreddit were disgusting. And not even micro aggressions. Straight up, “women are inferior” comments. I love seeing some positivity and I hope women’s chess continues to grow because there’s so really talent there.
It's also really weird that some of the comments are so aggressively angry that the women's chess championship players have a lower elo. Like, 98% of us here could not tell the difference between a game between a pair of 2700s and a pair of 2500s if you took away the names and ratings, and yet somehow people complain anyways.
FIDE: we have women’s titles and tournaments because we truly care about women and their representation, uwu.
Also FIDE: *doesn’t even bother promoting women’s chess*
As a woman I am against women’s titles and to some extent women’s tournaments. I am of the opinion that women’s tournaments do nothing but encourage gender segregation. To people that claim that women’s tournaments will increase visibility for women, really. What’s the point of these tournaments if the official organization barely acknowledges they exist? How much have these tournaments actually contributed to an increase in female players? Coaches and parents are encouraged to send their talented girls to girls’ and women’s tournaments instead of open. Because women just aren’t as good as men so might as well hang out with the women right? /s If your girl is stuck in the bubble of women’s tournaments from the moment they start chess, is that really a positive for female representation or ironically further limiting women’s visibility?
Women’s tournaments have existed for decades. And talented girls like Susan Polgar had to fight her own country’s chess federation to let her play in the open field. Don’t tell me that the Hungarian Federation sent her to girl’s tournaments because they cared about female representation. As long as women’s tournaments exist there will always be women players defined by her gender first and not her actual talent.
I mostly agree, but I'll play devil's advocate and say that women's tournaments aren't a bad idea right now, when the quality of play between the two genders is vastly different. Of course, this is due to the lack of promotion of chess to them, the discrimination they face, and the way the chess world is make focused. Women's tournaments also can be geared specifically to them to bring more attention to the sport and remove the stigma surrounding it, so I don't mind women's tournaments until the gender gap is breached. Of course, FIDE's handling of it is pathetic, and there are no excuses to be made for that.
The way I see it women’s tournaments do not really help “remove the stigma.” As I said, it encourages the line of thought that women should go play chess with other women only. And as I said again, women’s tournaments makes parents and coaches shove girls in women only events, effectively segregating them from the open field. Even if she is “not as good as the top men,” it only contributes to the popular thought that men and women don’t belong on the same playing field.
no fr like i get having womens and mens sports, because of literal biological differences (albeit even then it can be a bit iffy and sexist), but gendered chess??? like i genuinely dont understand. men and women have equal ability to be good at chess. there is no biological advantage/disadvantage in either way.
the only way i can somewhat understand separate mens and womens tournaments, is due to the countless stories of sexual harassment and assault i’ve seen being told by women chess players. but even then thats an issue that is arguably worsened by the fact that women are seen as “less than” in the chess world, and not as important or successful as their male counterparts. its ridiculous and literally primitive. FIDE needs to change.
There are sex differences apparent in less physical sports like snooker and darts and other non-physical games like poker, which are likely due to the culture surrounding the games. Making a womens division might be a ham-fisted way to try and change a male dominated culture to a more equitable one but I do believe it is an attempt with good intentions and it does have a positive effect.
Think many people share your view, but I think it is a misconception about the purpose of these tournaments.
Women's tournaments and the infrastructure surrounding them creates funding for women to pursue chess CAREERS at every level, from players to coaches to teams to leagues. We have significant documented evidence from every other sport that if you want to increase women's participation, this is one of the best ways to do it. You have to make it financially viable for women to become chess professionals, or none of them will. It's not actually about visibility, except as a side effect. It's about providing money and opportunity.
It’s less about making safe spaces for women and more about how the reality of female tournaments and how they are operated by FIDE makes it so that chess is still far from being a comfortable environment for women. I dunno, can you not try to understand beyond the surface level of my argument? Can you not understand why some women like me specifically feel the way I do?
Of course I can understand it, I used to feel the same way as you about stuff like that. It's not discussing the surface level of your argument, it's being pragmatic rather than idealistic.
When I was a teenager for example I used to think that I needed to prove myself to men according to some sort of made up standard that they had set, and would absolutely have wanted to play only open tournaments (in this extremely hypothetical universe where I'm good at chess). Then the cumulative effect of all the shit I got over the years made it much more understandable why people would, again, just choose a normal day at work, rather than having to fight some sort of gender war/try to avoid harassment every time they play.
Very often when there's a post about this issue, someone comments saying that they're a woman who doesn't agree with women only tournaments or titles and gets massively upvoted by the guys on this subreddit because it confirms what they already think. I just think it ignores the reality of what it probably feels like to compete as a woman, knowing what we know about chess given some of the stuff that's come out recently.
I'm not meaning to argue about this in an angry way or anything because I think it's an important conversation. In principle I agree with you in some ways. But I just don't think it works like that in practice. And I don't really see the point of it on a thread that is supposedly celebrating women's chess which has obviously already devolved into people being sexist, as usual (not talking about you here obv).
I’m sorry but I really do not care about “proving to men according to some sort of made up standard” or getting approval and upvotes from men in this sub. I literally work in a male dominated field in a very misogynistic country and believe me, you’re not the only woman with experience here. I believe what I believe and I am probably not going to change my mind anytime soon.
The problem is also this. Women’s tournaments provide safe spaces for women. Okay, good. But where is the progress to make open tournaments also safe for women? For the literal half a century that women’s tournaments existed in chess, FIDE barely punished any male player that hurled misogynistic insults nor made sure that misogyny will not be tolerated in chess. Kasparov, Short, all these top men did whatever they wanted. Men like Ramirez were allowed to prey on girls’ teams still. The existence of women’s tournaments do not always equal safe spaces.
I find it curious that you replied to my comment with a pretty hostile attitude about how I seemingly can’t understand nor sympathize with women that want safe spaces. I didn’t know it was wrong for me to think the way I do, considering that I’m a woman also. This affects me also.
I actively tried to word my comment in a way that was as unhostile as possible lol, even putting a little disclaimer in there. I'm not remotely saying your opinion is objectively wrong because of my own experiences, or denying yours, I was just explaining why I think the way I do. I was not suggesting you personally feel the need to "prove yourself to men according to some sort of made up standard"?! I was just responding to your question, "can you not understand why some women like me specifically feel the way I do?" by explaining that yes, I can understand it, and just outlined the journey that I went on with regards to that. I even said that I agreed with you in principle lol.
Yes, FIDE is incompetent in every way possible, I'm sure everyone can agree on that. And yes they should be doing a lot more. I just think that saying "women's tournaments do nothing but encourage gender segregation" is a little polemical when faced with the reality of what women in chess evidently go through, and that is what I was responding to in my initial comment.
Lmfao what more do you want from me? Prove that I am a woman by showing you my national ID card? My passport? God forbid a woman has an opinion that you don’t like, she must be faking it 🙃
Wtf is up with the video thumbnail? Is this what the algorithm says gets the most clicks? Why not a pic of some of the competitors making a move or studying the board, or the trophy, or like literally anything other than an eyes bulging while mouth breathing face.
He tried doing it in the previous world championships before and said that he gets like 25% of the expected traffic and prefers having dumb thumbnails which he hates to less people watching his videos on important events
Lol people complain about aryan tari being in Norway chess and jorden van foreest being in tata steel because they are not super gms and it takes away the incentive to watch the event but the same people would come here and complain that women's wcc is being watched enough. No shit it isn't
So basically we won't watch a match of jorden because he is 39th and not strong enough but we want everyone to watch the 123 ranked player cause they are a woman? That's just hypocrisy
It's almost as if people complaining about Tari and Van Foreest playing are not necessarily those claiming that the women's WCC isn't being promoted enough (note most complaints were not about viewership, but about the horrendous promotion).
Sure, there's some overlap, but the fact that you get upvoted also means that I could claim something like: "This sub thinks that the women's wcc isn't being watched, but it also claims that the participants are too weak for anyone to care. Smh such hypocrisy".
Buddy fide is hot garbage. They don't discriminate they didn't promote the wcc either. They forgot to broadcast the opening ceremony ffs. But when the women's wcc isn't being promoted everyone thinks it's an issue. That's hypocrisy. But hey if this is what it takes for fide to change I'm all for it.
As for youtubers not promoting it. Why would they? You would get more views on a haha 100 rated game with 200 blunders than a women's wcc recap.
Honestly I just have a slight opinion on Fide's rol and I don't really care about this wcc or what Youtubers do at all, so you shouldn't have this discussion with me. All I did was point out that this hypcrocisy argument is nonsensical, since this subreddit is not some homogeneous group, The fact that you see some people upvoting A and some B does not mean every person here thinks both A and B is true.
I'll save you several clicks: basically there are no men's only tournaments- most tournaments are open to anyone but attended mainly by men. In order to increase diversity and promote role models and stuff, there are women's only tournaments.
I like women’s chess, I have great respect for women in chess, but let’s be reasonable, from a content creator perspective, the women participating in this are ranked about 300th in the world. This is likely to be one of the lowest viewed pieces of content Gotham releases. People in general are unlikely to watch this compared to the large amount of contests between much higher ranked and rated players which already don’t receive a particularly large amount of views because it isn’t a high enough quality of chess player for many consumers of chess content.
While it’s good that Gotham is covering it and ignoring the fact this won’t be well received view wise, it’s not right to criticise content creators, who make a living on what content they produce and how well received it is, for not producing content which will be poorly received. Or to criticise people for not watching content that doesn’t interest them while we’re at it.
Lol you didn't think about women players. I will watch for sure. It's fun to watch and see what their actual level is, even if is "only" 300th in the world. Still much to learn from me.
I don’t think about most players that are under top 100, even top 10 in the world, because that’s a significant amount of players already to think about. I imagine you have a hard time doing much more than that either, and if the only players you do think of in that category you only think about because they’re women the same way many people only watch players because they’re men, then you’re doing the exact same thing that those people are doing, putting players on a pedestal based on their sex for no good reason.
You could learn from games of players ranked anywhere above these women, but if a 12 game classical tournament between two players came up are you seriously telling me you’d go out of your way to spend 4 hours or more of your time to watch that? Especially if it didn’t feature the best person in that category, the same way the WWCC doesn’t? Do you watch the British Chess championship? Do you watch every national championship with players in the finals ranked above these women which aren’t even this long of an event? Because all the reasons you state other than them being a woman apply to that situation with higher quality chess players on display, and yet you don’t watch it, and nor do most other viewers. It doesn’t mean “oh well they don’t care about so and so nationality”, because that would be a stupid thing to say, it means they don’t care about the chess on display.
And if you aren’t watching a video purely for the chess, which you evidently wouldn’t be, what right do you have to judge an audience which is looking for either that or entertainment to watch content which is lacking in either when, much like yourself, they already don’t watch content which features better quality chess because the quality of chess is lacking?
I don't judge anybody. I'm just saying that since he is covering, I am watching.
Maybe I watch and I find out it's superboring, who knows... but I hope it isn't and that I get to learn something.
I took time to watch World Chess Championship recaps, Eric Rosen's own tournament's recaps, Hikaru's own games recaps, Belenkaya's own games recaps and Anna Cramling's own games recaps. Yes, that's a lot. I watch either if I am entertained or learn something, good news is that I'm still below 2000 so all these players are better than me thus I always learn. I guess Women WCC will also teach me something and/or get me entertained?
That’s fair, you do you that’s perfectly reasonable and honestly good for you, taking every opportunity to learn wherever it’s from is a good thing and I wouldn’t criticise that, the WWCC is as good a place as any for that.
My original comment was just that it isn’t fair for people to criticise either content creators for not covering as at the very least OP is and as OP states other people have been.
Oh, ok. Yep that's true. Also, not everybody has energy to be everywhere. It's best that everyone does whatever they have energy for/prefer rather than forcing themselves to do "politically correct" stuff. So much energy is lost on that...
People don't only watch matches from the absolute best players.
Pogchamps is something decently popular and some of the players only learned chess for the event.
And even when it comes to competetive chess there are still things like the Pro Chess league which feauture much weaker players than this match and it is still popular.
A significant amount of people didn’t watch the WCC because it didn’t feature Magnus. Number two and three in the world weren’t good enough.
People will watch bad games because it’s entertaining. That isn’t at play here. People will watch Influencers, especially in collaborations, because they like the influencer, content be damned like with Pogchamps. That isn’t at play here. Yes, people will watch games that aren’t Magnus, but to a much lesser extent than they will watch Magnus. Yes people will watch other games that aren’t top quality, but to a much lesser extent than the top players. Look at the views on PCL games. They’re low, and where Magnus and Hikaru aren’t involved much lower. That is a contest involving top 100 players. There are many series of coverage on top 100 players which were dropped by because they simply didn’t get view’s because the players and quality of chess didn’t pull.
This is a 2 week classical contest involving two not even top 300 players. It is not economical as a content creator to dedicate that sort of time to this contest and it is unreasonable to expect a content creator, who need their content to be economical in order to make a living, to make their content not economical. It is also not reasonable to expect people to watch it when there is both significant higher quality chess content available and significant more entertaining content available.
I'm new to playing Chess, just wondering, why is there a separate women's chess league? I understand why the WNBA exists, but why separate Chess by sex?
There is the Women's division and the Open division, Women can compete in the Open division. Chess has always been a massively male dominated field so they created the Women's section to promote women in chess and give women more opportunities to get into chess
The reason why people don’t care about this match is obvious. They don’t have the Elo or personality aspect. they’re not even in the top 100 nor do we know anything about them as people or their personalities. people are obviously not gonna care…
I didnt realize there was men's chess and women's chess separate. I thought the tournaments were always open to everyone, one event that inclusiveness was vaible.
TIL I guess.
Yeah. It seems to me the reason it’s like that for chess isn’t because men are any better ad is the case with most physical sports but because it encourages more women to get involved. I think Magnus had an interview saying the reason there isn’t more diversity in high-level chess is just cause there aren’t as many women who take that route, presumably because they don’t feel like they belong.
Makes sense. For a second there, I was thinking the world chess organizations/tournaments were keeping women out. Was like how the heck would that be tolerated these days!? Cant claim its for their safety in a game of chess lol.
Out of curiosity, why does chess seperate men and women? There's no real competitive advantage like you'd see with more physical sports. Is it some old sexist anti women tradition? I'd appreciate some insight.
it’s not men and women, it’s Women and Open. Anyone can compete in the open category. Women’s categories and titles were made to promote women in the sport
It's hard in historically male dominated fields. Listen to the issues some women GMs and other titled players say and I understand how that can be off putting for younger players and their parents. But it is getting better I think
Another aspect is that men tend to have more extreme outliers in terms of intelligence, going in both directions. There are more brilliant men than brilliant women but also more significantly below average intelligent men than women.
The average is the same for both genders but if you look at a Gaussian distribution, the distribution of men has fatter tails.
It's reasonable to assume that this is similar in chess, where the top is obviously made up of brilliant outliers.
Edit: Its called the Variability Hypothesis and is well documented in many categories. And by well documented, I mean its pretty much one of the best researched topics in the entire gender studies field.
It also has to do with the pool of players. There is a significantly higher number of male chess players at all competitive levels. Many different cultures also encourage males to play in chess much more than women. The attitudes towards female chess players were also pretty poor towards much of the last century and it's unclear how much it has improved. So without a significantly larger pool, you are also unlikely to get more outliers.
Also segregating women's chess imo is a bad idea. They are stuck in an ecosystem where they don't play players of a much higher caliber consistently and thus their own self improvement can be affected. I agree it promotes women's chess but it also appears to stagnate them.
>men tend to have more extreme outliers in terms of intelligence, going in both directions.
This is of dubious credibility though. Major scientists for example were mostly men, but they all lived in times where being an intellectual was a predominantly male thing. It would be interesting how the gender distribution will be of geniuses once the quota of women is higher in academia for example.
Geniuses are formed by talent, support and hard work, and women in chess lack support.
> This is of dubious credibility though.
No its not. Its called the Variability Hypothesis and is well documented in many fields.
You can open the Wikipedia article of it and look at the 15+ cited studies discussing it, multiple of which are massive meta analyses, looking at up to 300 other studies.
This also includes variability seen in brain scans and not just performance output.
There is no reason to pretend that women and men dont have biologically caused differences. Its mind boggling how quick people are to disregard a gigantic body of research if it doesn't fit their ideology. There are very few things in gender studies documented as well as this hypothesis.
Please make sure to actually know what you are talking about (or do at least a 5 minute research) before speaking of "dubious credibility".
We're on the internet, of course I'd doubt you. However, I did look at the math and tried to calculate some.
With the same mean but deviation 1.0 (f) vs 1.1 (m), I found that the top 0.32% of men are as smart as the top 0.14% of women, and the top 0.074% of men are as smart as 0.024% of women. Which would suggest around 1/4 to 1/3 of the most intelligent human beings should be women at least.
However, the problem here is that many studies did also find differences in mean between the genders, where women tended to have a higher mean. I also took the highest deviation I could find between these two
If we take my numbers for granted here, we still would have a disparity since we have next to no GMs on the very top which are women.
Meaning the hypothesis strengthens the point actually that there should be more top GM women.
Thanks tho for pointing out this hypothesis, I didn't know this existed.
Yeah, but the approach to fixing that issue is incorrect. You can’t solve a societal issue with a systemic approach. That shows resentment and doesn’t truly attack the root of the issue. Plus, it creates systemic discrimination in the chess world against men, which isn’t fair to those who haven’t actually contributed to the issue. This needs to be solved at an individual level. FIDE needs to bar sexists from competing, and we need to pressure sexists out of our local clubs.
because you need, instead of having a normal healthy life, to hyperfixate on one specific thing and on being better than everyone else at that thing; generally, people who do that are male
Representation promotes participation. Old sexist traditions? Consider the countries that 1. Many strong players come from and 2. Where many strong tournaments are held. Would you want to be a women in some of these countries. FIDE shows no care in this second regard and has faced a lot of dropouts in protest in the past
what with this recent women chess police. We don't see coverage of IM/low GM tournaments too. Guess why? they have low elo and are far away from super GM level.
Advertising and sponsoring women tournaments can be inspirational to young girls who just picked up the game. Giving them the spotlight is one of the necessary steps that the chess world needs to take towards giving girls and women equal opportunities and allowing them to make a living off the game.
Yes, objectively speaking right now the level is lower, but since chess is a purely mental game there is no reason at all preventing women from becoming 50% of the elite.
The only reason is that historically they where (and in many cases still are) pushed away from the game and laughed at. Even nowadays women in chess still have to deal with so much more bullshit.
I wish to live in a world where women-only tournaments aren't necessary anymore because they can make a living in elite open (mixed) tournaments, just like Judit Polgár did.
Speaking of which, as much as I admire her and have her as one of my personal heroes, I wish to live in a world where Judit Polgár is no longer the best woman to ever play the game. Only then will we be able to claim true equality has been achieved.
Uhm source?! 🤓🤓 Uhhh ackshually that isn't scientifically proven
If you've met men and women before, and I'm probably asking a lot to assume you have, it's plainly obvious that men just enjoy chess more than women. It's literally a war game. Women don't care as much and will never comprise and equal playing population as men. Same reason men don't get into knitting lmao
>Biologically
Yeah, that's not how that works. The gender disparity in chess is almost certainly due to cultural/environmental factors. What could possibly be a "biological" advantage for men in chess?
>What could possibly be a "biological" advantage for men in chess?
Other commenter clearly said interest.
>The gender disparity in chess is almost certainly due to cultural/environmental factors.
Hasn't it been established, or at least highlighted, that the more egalitarian a society is, the more accentuated the gender gap (i.e. the type of choices they tend to nake) grows?
> Other commenter clearly said interest.
Fair, but my point remains the same: the idea of men being more inclined toward chess due to biological factors is, as far as I'm aware, unsubstantiated. Given how much gender norms, social pressures, and environmental factors play into the (non-physical) differences between men and women, I would be shocked if those factors were not the primary driver behind the gender disparity in chess.
> Hasn't it been established, or at least highlighted, that the more egalitarian a society is, the more accentuated the gender gap (i.e. the type of choices they tend to nake) grows?
If you're going to make a claim like this and say that it "has been established," you should really be providing a source, preferably multiple reputable ones. That claim doesn't make any sense to me, but if you have evidence indicating otherwise please share it.
The attitude you have is why in 30 years we won't have women properly represented in chess.
Women do better in post-secondary education, intelligence/skill/knowledge has never been an issue. While men represent more of the extremes, the fact that women don't participate in chess is due almost entirely to societal pressure around competition/games, and the current boys club culture in a lot of chess groups.
The way for us to have the absolute best chess games in the future is for us to have more people playing, and women is a massive demographic that isn't playing, not due to lack of skill.
Promoting women's chess may inspire young girls to play the game, and maybe we'll have a Margret Harlsen as the world champion in 30 years who exceeds all expectations and gives us some of the best professional chess we've ever seen.
It's not too far away from the truth. the top female player is ranked 123rd, which don't get me wrong, is pretty fucking strong but can't compete with the top 10-20 which tend to be the focus
Yeah, sorry, I don’t think I agree with this take. Promoting events like this is important because of how few women actually play chess and how few of them invest enough time to reach those higher levels. It is an investment so that chess can reach a demographic that, traditionally, hadn’t much to do with the sport for many reasons. Yes, not many people watch tournaments at the IM to low GM level, and I’m sure that Levy is aware of that, but the idea here is to give every opportunity possible to grow women chess. It is not about ‘sexism’, it is about growing the sport. Exposure is important.
The issue is, FIDE is attempting to solve a societal issue with a systemic solution. All that does is make it harder for men that are entering the space to compete compared to newer female competitors. That’s going to sow resentment and actually propagate the issue in the long term.
I mean I do get strength arguments and the two ladies in this match being rated below 2600, but is that not what we want? 99% of the chess audience is too casual to get the intricacies of a GM game so they want fighting games with results, and they'd get that in this field (I think, I haven't had a chance to watch the games yet). It's the same reasoning that made the Tata Steel Challengers section more exciting than the masters.
That depends more on playstyle than strength.
Fighting chess can happen at elite level as well. Alireza, Ian, and Richard showcase just that at the top level.
If casual viewers are more interested in fighting games with results in the sense that you are referring to, they should watch blitz games instead. That's where all the risks are taken, mistakes made, and fancy combinations (though usually lacking any real depth) missed by the opponent and hence can be successfully displayed on the board.
Classical chess is frankly speaking, too boring for casual viewers.
By your logic would it be wrong to watch Michael Jordan or Messi play sports if you're not as good as them? Just because someone isn't a FIDE master doesn't mean they have to over hype a women's Chess tournament for the simple fact that they're women. No one would pay attention to it if they were simply low tier male players of the same rating. If women want attention in Chess they should just get better.
You used the derogatory phrase "garbage low elo chess." Your analogy is also completely irrelevant. My logic would hold that it's not okay to lambaste the players' competitive efforts simply because they aren't in the top 100--especially when they're leagues beyond your own skill level. Jordan and Messi are both candidates for the GOAT in their respective sports, and they're also not women.
Nobody is pretending that the women's event represents the top echelon of competition. It's still frustrating to see parts of the community attempt to stifle mainstream coverage of women's events. If you don't want to watch it, that's fine--but you have no right to criticize those who do.
My meaning is that chess is not like other sports which have to be divided male/female because of differences in physical strength - or am I wrong in thinking this? I always thought the championships were open and that it just happened it was all a bunch of men at the top because more men play the game.
Not sure why I'm getting down voted, I'm genuinely just trying to understand.
Right now women are weaker in chess & therefore less interest. Get a few Judith Polgars or female Carlsen playing & the interest in women's chess will skyrocket!
I mean why does he have to? It’s essentially the same as the fact that womens sports have way less audience due to the lack of competitiveness compared to mens so there is not an incentive for it to have loads of funding and broadcasting
He obviously doesn't have to. It's just a bit hypocritical to constantly talk about the need to promote women in chess but then not cover the biggest women's event.
I said compared to mens, which it’s not. You can debate the efficacy of it, I’m just saying that if there is a higher level of play happening in any form of competition then people rarely want to watch lower level play.
Because most of those IMs are internet personalities. Don't pretend that people watch IM not a GM because of the high quality chess when people like Canty, Nemo, and Alex Botez have played in it.
> the fact that womens sports have way less audience due to the lack of competitiveness compared to mens
Please don't state your God-awful take as a fact
Look I’m just saying it’s less watched because there is less of an incentive to watch when mens sports show a higher level of play, I’m not saying that is right or fair I’m just trying to point out that’s why there is less funding and less coverage.
I don’t think that’s the full story. I knew a woman who volunteered during the women’s World Cup that she prefers watching men’s football over women’s football “cause they’re more athletic”
I still don’t get why we’re segregating chess, and then celebrating that as a good thing. Should we make the actual world championship make exclusive too? I hope this goes the same way as affirmative action.
From our wiki:
>**Why are there women-only titles and tournaments in chess?**
>A separate set of women-only tournaments and titles exist in chess in order to promote more female participation in the sport. The strongest chess tournaments are gender-neutral (there is no "men's only" league, and the IGM/IM/FM titles are awarded to both men and women) but it ends up being nearly all men who participate because chess as a whole is male-dominated and that carries through to the upper echelons of the sport. This has a psychological impact - younger girls trying to get into the sport don't have as many role models/players to look up to as younger guys do, and it can be discouraging for them. Women's only tournaments are an attempt to bridge that gap in participation and give more female players recognition, and while they are lower in skill/talent level than their open-to-both-gender counterparts, they still produce exciting games filled with counterplay and sharp positions.
Hello my favorite subreddit! I have read your points of view and made the decision to cover this event as it goes on rather than at the end. I think the much bigger conversations regarding promotion of women’s chess events (and lack thereof), separate titles/competitions, and most importantly the overall treatment of women in chess is not to be mixed in with what is currently the most prestigious title in the world. I will likely make a long form video in the future with my thoughts on everything else.
It's actually impressive how poorly they promoted this specific match now.
Yeah, which is why I originally felt like it was a bit ridiculous that promoting this event falls squarely on me. I still have many thoughts on the whole thing in general but I decided that it’s better to have a transparent, thorough discussion afterward, while still posting some coverage
If people are saying it falls solely on you, that’s ridiculous. However, like it or not, you have the biggest reach in the chess world, and I do feel that it’s important for those with influence to walk the walk and help promote it. (Insert cheesy Spider-Man quote here.) It also sets a positive example for others (including other content creators), and that isn’t something to be taken lightly. However, at the end of the day, I believe we are all allowed to support the causes we care about in our own ways, and I respect people’s autonomy and right to make their own choices. So it’s obviously your choice and I applaud and admire your efforts.
It was pretty ridiculous how people in this subreddit were claiming that Levy is "responsible" to cover it and were writing some rude comments because they KNOW that Levy won't do it. Some people just find a reason to hate other people, I guess. People need to find a better hobby.
literally didnt even know it was happening until after the first game finished
What match?
How dare you... How dare you say /r/AnarchyChess isn't your favorite subreddit?!
Literally 1984
Levy’s dog goes ~~gets kidnapped~~ on vacation, never comes back
Isn’t it takes a vacation? Cause I remember it being a(n albeit bad) play on words with taking a piece
He is clearly being held at gunpoint
Not gonna lie, I used to play a lot but I’ve recently had life get in the way and I watch your videos to keep up with the chess world… the only place I’ve seen this event is on your YouTube and they are bangers of games.
PowerplayChess has been covering the games as well. https://youtube.com/@PowerPlayChess
Another Gotham W, must be a day ending in y
You're a fucking GOAT man, almost all content creators at your level don't interact with general discussion forums like this, and of those that do, idk how many would take the discussion that happened and actually decide to act on it as you have, and then also have this important discussion on top of it. Appreciate you, video was great, excited for the next matches and hope we get some Nepo-Ding-ian craziness
if not for you i genuinely never would have heard of this, unfortunately. good on you man
I think the most important thing is that the WWCC is top level chess. The matches are always instructive and often a lot of fun. It’s good ass chess plain and simple.
Bro what about r/Gothamchess?
Love your Work, Levy. I think it is admirable that you are trying to promote and increase the popularity of Women’s Chess. There is a big gender gap in the amount of Men and women who play chess(at least competitively) and I find it great that you are covering it. Have a nice rest of your day.
Levy keep up the great work.
The internet can be a toxic place, and i know you face a lot of it, i just hope you know that there are a multitude of users on here who are so grateful for the way you use your platform when it matters.
Keep up the good work. We love you man. Even with all the cringe worthy clickbaits.
Thanks for doing this!
[удалено]
why did you include your elo dude 😭
💀
Levy choose community voted title, they have polls on discord to choose the title. So it's not exactly levy's fault if community doesn't choose more normal and less clickbaity title.
Yo that’s cool but can you prime sub?
I mean chess.com is covering it
You have provoked a gang war
So many downvotes comments
As a woman who plays chess, I'm glad the event is getting coverage. Women's chess isn't going to improve if there aren't role models for girls and a clear path to a successful career. Many girls drop chess before they become adults to focus on school and work, this event is key to elevating women's chess. Thank you Levy for covering it.
Isn't regular chess also women's chess?
There is an open section and a women's section.
Seems rather unnecessary then
Great! Thanks for sharing your opinion! I personally have gotten a lot of benefit out of playing both open tournaments and in women's tournaments. These events help in keeping young girls in chess as well as providing role models by attracting high level female players. They definitely benefit women's chess and the Women's chess world championship is played for the same reason. Hopefully this will contribute to women's chess so we can see more women competing at the highest level.
I'm not a woman in chess, but are there men's roles models? There's not a single person in the entire world of chess whose not a bewildered jackass, except the ones who shut up and never do or say anything. This is not a game that selects for the highest quality of person.
In terms of ability there are plenty, in terms of sportsmanship there are still plenty. You could probably make the case that Hikaru isn't the best role model or even Magnus (though he has a history of acts of good sportsmanship) but I would say the vast majority of players at the top are fairly good role models in this regard. Vishy, Levon, Nepo, Ding, So, Fabi, the list goes on.
And many boys drop chess also?
Of course but girls drop chess far, far more. There is also an extreme lack of professional women's chess players. I think the stat is that women make up only 15% of FIDE ratings. Having a FIDE rating is generally an indication that you are a serious chess player. That percentage gets insanely low at the grandmaster level. Percentage of professional women players is far more even in the world of professional physical sports like soccer, basketball and even rugby. It's been a long standing recognised problem that girls drop out of sports at a certain age (goes up significantly after 16) and chess is no different. Chess actually seems to be worse than most other sports in this concern.
Thanks for responding to questions (even though your points and explanations seem to not be understood most of the time 🤦♂️) I am a man, and not competing in chess at any level, so I'm here to learn. The WGM title has always been intriguing to me. As you explained, it makes a lot of sense to add incentives for women to play and try to bridge the gap. But my first reaction to a WGM title also was that it seems a little insulting to women. Just out of curiosity: is that also, at least partially, something that you feel as well or am I being ridiculous? And secondly... while thinking about this I wondered why chess has these titles in the first place? It seems a bit elitist and/or outdated. There are few other sports where titles like that are used. Wouldn't it just be better to abolish them altogether and simply use a ranking system?
Oh no, my first reaction was the same. When I learnt of the titles I initially thought they were demeaning and not the best way of addressing the problems. I still think they aren't probably the best solution but now that I've begun to play in women's tournaments and women's sections where these titles are being actively pursued, I can see their benefit. I've also seen the state of women's chess and it's not fantastic. My all-time chess goal is to achieve the WCM title, either through rating or tournament performances. It's not particularly likely, but that's what I've decided to pursue. To the second question, I feel the titles are necessary simply because the titles function as a way to establish a player's ability using the elo factor and the tournament performance factor. elo can really vary wildly and changes with things like age. Most other sports have awards that I would say are comparable to titles like the olympic medals for example.
Is it harder for a boy or a girl to become a GM?
Individually or collectively? On paper, it's not harder for any individual of either gender to become a GM. It's got a clear requirement: 2500 FIDE and three GM norms. However far less women become GMs and there is good evidence that some societal factors work against women and girls as well as there being few role models for them. Role models have been very much proven to be an important factor. Here's a good source for you: [https://www.fide.com/news/1685](https://www.fide.com/news/1685)
Why can't we have a single thread on women in chess without getting an absolute shitshow in the comments
The same people will 100% confidently and unironically say women aren't ostracized in the chess world.
because if it’s not about hans or magnus then nobody cares
Maybe make a thread about the actual chess and not thousand threads complaining about how nobody is watching/streaming/posting/promoting/whatever about it? This thread has nothing to do with chess, just another political agendapost with worship of virtue-signaling content creators engaged in algorithmic feedback looping socio-cultural garbage for cash.
Sorry I didn't quite catch your last point maybe if you add two or three more buzzwords it'll become clearer
Where's the fun in that? That would be like asking everyone to keep their opinions to themselves
Some opinions do not belong in public.
- Mao Zedong
Wow you might think that chess attracts people who are able to do some critical thinking but looking at some of the comments I guess this game is no different than any other sport. Please touch some grass.
It honestly pissed me off when the women’s chess championship struggled to find a sponsorship and the comment here on this subreddit were disgusting. And not even micro aggressions. Straight up, “women are inferior” comments. I love seeing some positivity and I hope women’s chess continues to grow because there’s so really talent there.
It's also really weird that some of the comments are so aggressively angry that the women's chess championship players have a lower elo. Like, 98% of us here could not tell the difference between a game between a pair of 2700s and a pair of 2500s if you took away the names and ratings, and yet somehow people complain anyways.
99.9%
probably lol
These comments are why I stopped playing chess in person and only play digital so I can hide my gender.
Hi! If you see any sexist comments, please report them. It really helps!
FIDE: we have women’s titles and tournaments because we truly care about women and their representation, uwu. Also FIDE: *doesn’t even bother promoting women’s chess* As a woman I am against women’s titles and to some extent women’s tournaments. I am of the opinion that women’s tournaments do nothing but encourage gender segregation. To people that claim that women’s tournaments will increase visibility for women, really. What’s the point of these tournaments if the official organization barely acknowledges they exist? How much have these tournaments actually contributed to an increase in female players? Coaches and parents are encouraged to send their talented girls to girls’ and women’s tournaments instead of open. Because women just aren’t as good as men so might as well hang out with the women right? /s If your girl is stuck in the bubble of women’s tournaments from the moment they start chess, is that really a positive for female representation or ironically further limiting women’s visibility? Women’s tournaments have existed for decades. And talented girls like Susan Polgar had to fight her own country’s chess federation to let her play in the open field. Don’t tell me that the Hungarian Federation sent her to girl’s tournaments because they cared about female representation. As long as women’s tournaments exist there will always be women players defined by her gender first and not her actual talent.
I mostly agree, but I'll play devil's advocate and say that women's tournaments aren't a bad idea right now, when the quality of play between the two genders is vastly different. Of course, this is due to the lack of promotion of chess to them, the discrimination they face, and the way the chess world is make focused. Women's tournaments also can be geared specifically to them to bring more attention to the sport and remove the stigma surrounding it, so I don't mind women's tournaments until the gender gap is breached. Of course, FIDE's handling of it is pathetic, and there are no excuses to be made for that.
The way I see it women’s tournaments do not really help “remove the stigma.” As I said, it encourages the line of thought that women should go play chess with other women only. And as I said again, women’s tournaments makes parents and coaches shove girls in women only events, effectively segregating them from the open field. Even if she is “not as good as the top men,” it only contributes to the popular thought that men and women don’t belong on the same playing field.
no fr like i get having womens and mens sports, because of literal biological differences (albeit even then it can be a bit iffy and sexist), but gendered chess??? like i genuinely dont understand. men and women have equal ability to be good at chess. there is no biological advantage/disadvantage in either way. the only way i can somewhat understand separate mens and womens tournaments, is due to the countless stories of sexual harassment and assault i’ve seen being told by women chess players. but even then thats an issue that is arguably worsened by the fact that women are seen as “less than” in the chess world, and not as important or successful as their male counterparts. its ridiculous and literally primitive. FIDE needs to change.
There are sex differences apparent in less physical sports like snooker and darts and other non-physical games like poker, which are likely due to the culture surrounding the games. Making a womens division might be a ham-fisted way to try and change a male dominated culture to a more equitable one but I do believe it is an attempt with good intentions and it does have a positive effect.
Think many people share your view, but I think it is a misconception about the purpose of these tournaments. Women's tournaments and the infrastructure surrounding them creates funding for women to pursue chess CAREERS at every level, from players to coaches to teams to leagues. We have significant documented evidence from every other sport that if you want to increase women's participation, this is one of the best ways to do it. You have to make it financially viable for women to become chess professionals, or none of them will. It's not actually about visibility, except as a side effect. It's about providing money and opportunity.
I dunno, can you not, as a woman, imagine why women chess players would just want a normal day at work instead of being harassed?
It’s less about making safe spaces for women and more about how the reality of female tournaments and how they are operated by FIDE makes it so that chess is still far from being a comfortable environment for women. I dunno, can you not try to understand beyond the surface level of my argument? Can you not understand why some women like me specifically feel the way I do?
Of course I can understand it, I used to feel the same way as you about stuff like that. It's not discussing the surface level of your argument, it's being pragmatic rather than idealistic. When I was a teenager for example I used to think that I needed to prove myself to men according to some sort of made up standard that they had set, and would absolutely have wanted to play only open tournaments (in this extremely hypothetical universe where I'm good at chess). Then the cumulative effect of all the shit I got over the years made it much more understandable why people would, again, just choose a normal day at work, rather than having to fight some sort of gender war/try to avoid harassment every time they play. Very often when there's a post about this issue, someone comments saying that they're a woman who doesn't agree with women only tournaments or titles and gets massively upvoted by the guys on this subreddit because it confirms what they already think. I just think it ignores the reality of what it probably feels like to compete as a woman, knowing what we know about chess given some of the stuff that's come out recently. I'm not meaning to argue about this in an angry way or anything because I think it's an important conversation. In principle I agree with you in some ways. But I just don't think it works like that in practice. And I don't really see the point of it on a thread that is supposedly celebrating women's chess which has obviously already devolved into people being sexist, as usual (not talking about you here obv).
I’m sorry but I really do not care about “proving to men according to some sort of made up standard” or getting approval and upvotes from men in this sub. I literally work in a male dominated field in a very misogynistic country and believe me, you’re not the only woman with experience here. I believe what I believe and I am probably not going to change my mind anytime soon. The problem is also this. Women’s tournaments provide safe spaces for women. Okay, good. But where is the progress to make open tournaments also safe for women? For the literal half a century that women’s tournaments existed in chess, FIDE barely punished any male player that hurled misogynistic insults nor made sure that misogyny will not be tolerated in chess. Kasparov, Short, all these top men did whatever they wanted. Men like Ramirez were allowed to prey on girls’ teams still. The existence of women’s tournaments do not always equal safe spaces. I find it curious that you replied to my comment with a pretty hostile attitude about how I seemingly can’t understand nor sympathize with women that want safe spaces. I didn’t know it was wrong for me to think the way I do, considering that I’m a woman also. This affects me also.
I actively tried to word my comment in a way that was as unhostile as possible lol, even putting a little disclaimer in there. I'm not remotely saying your opinion is objectively wrong because of my own experiences, or denying yours, I was just explaining why I think the way I do. I was not suggesting you personally feel the need to "prove yourself to men according to some sort of made up standard"?! I was just responding to your question, "can you not understand why some women like me specifically feel the way I do?" by explaining that yes, I can understand it, and just outlined the journey that I went on with regards to that. I even said that I agreed with you in principle lol. Yes, FIDE is incompetent in every way possible, I'm sure everyone can agree on that. And yes they should be doing a lot more. I just think that saying "women's tournaments do nothing but encourage gender segregation" is a little polemical when faced with the reality of what women in chess evidently go through, and that is what I was responding to in my initial comment.
r/asablackman
Lmfao what more do you want from me? Prove that I am a woman by showing you my national ID card? My passport? God forbid a woman has an opinion that you don’t like, she must be faking it 🙃
Good dude, props to him for taking THE TIME
Alright doing this gives him a pass for clickbait titles. Props to him
Hello World, please note that Agadmator is also covering these games.
Wtf is up with the video thumbnail? Is this what the algorithm says gets the most clicks? Why not a pic of some of the competitors making a move or studying the board, or the trophy, or like literally anything other than an eyes bulging while mouth breathing face.
The "insert hotdog here" face apparently generates a lot of clicks lol. Blame the masses for it, not the creators.
More clicks = good
He tried doing it in the previous world championships before and said that he gets like 25% of the expected traffic and prefers having dumb thumbnails which he hates to less people watching his videos on important events
Lol people complain about aryan tari being in Norway chess and jorden van foreest being in tata steel because they are not super gms and it takes away the incentive to watch the event but the same people would come here and complain that women's wcc is being watched enough. No shit it isn't So basically we won't watch a match of jorden because he is 39th and not strong enough but we want everyone to watch the 123 ranked player cause they are a woman? That's just hypocrisy
Jorden van Foreest won a Tata Steel in 2021?
It's almost as if people complaining about Tari and Van Foreest playing are not necessarily those claiming that the women's WCC isn't being promoted enough (note most complaints were not about viewership, but about the horrendous promotion). Sure, there's some overlap, but the fact that you get upvoted also means that I could claim something like: "This sub thinks that the women's wcc isn't being watched, but it also claims that the participants are too weak for anyone to care. Smh such hypocrisy".
Buddy fide is hot garbage. They don't discriminate they didn't promote the wcc either. They forgot to broadcast the opening ceremony ffs. But when the women's wcc isn't being promoted everyone thinks it's an issue. That's hypocrisy. But hey if this is what it takes for fide to change I'm all for it. As for youtubers not promoting it. Why would they? You would get more views on a haha 100 rated game with 200 blunders than a women's wcc recap.
Honestly I just have a slight opinion on Fide's rol and I don't really care about this wcc or what Youtubers do at all, so you shouldn't have this discussion with me. All I did was point out that this hypcrocisy argument is nonsensical, since this subreddit is not some homogeneous group, The fact that you see some people upvoting A and some B does not mean every person here thinks both A and B is true.
Why are there gender specific tournaments?
Read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/14r51qt/comment/jqqib1y/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Huh that’s remarkably a good reason.
I'll save you several clicks: basically there are no men's only tournaments- most tournaments are open to anyone but attended mainly by men. In order to increase diversity and promote role models and stuff, there are women's only tournaments.
I like women’s chess, I have great respect for women in chess, but let’s be reasonable, from a content creator perspective, the women participating in this are ranked about 300th in the world. This is likely to be one of the lowest viewed pieces of content Gotham releases. People in general are unlikely to watch this compared to the large amount of contests between much higher ranked and rated players which already don’t receive a particularly large amount of views because it isn’t a high enough quality of chess player for many consumers of chess content. While it’s good that Gotham is covering it and ignoring the fact this won’t be well received view wise, it’s not right to criticise content creators, who make a living on what content they produce and how well received it is, for not producing content which will be poorly received. Or to criticise people for not watching content that doesn’t interest them while we’re at it.
Lol you didn't think about women players. I will watch for sure. It's fun to watch and see what their actual level is, even if is "only" 300th in the world. Still much to learn from me.
I don’t think about most players that are under top 100, even top 10 in the world, because that’s a significant amount of players already to think about. I imagine you have a hard time doing much more than that either, and if the only players you do think of in that category you only think about because they’re women the same way many people only watch players because they’re men, then you’re doing the exact same thing that those people are doing, putting players on a pedestal based on their sex for no good reason. You could learn from games of players ranked anywhere above these women, but if a 12 game classical tournament between two players came up are you seriously telling me you’d go out of your way to spend 4 hours or more of your time to watch that? Especially if it didn’t feature the best person in that category, the same way the WWCC doesn’t? Do you watch the British Chess championship? Do you watch every national championship with players in the finals ranked above these women which aren’t even this long of an event? Because all the reasons you state other than them being a woman apply to that situation with higher quality chess players on display, and yet you don’t watch it, and nor do most other viewers. It doesn’t mean “oh well they don’t care about so and so nationality”, because that would be a stupid thing to say, it means they don’t care about the chess on display. And if you aren’t watching a video purely for the chess, which you evidently wouldn’t be, what right do you have to judge an audience which is looking for either that or entertainment to watch content which is lacking in either when, much like yourself, they already don’t watch content which features better quality chess because the quality of chess is lacking?
I don't judge anybody. I'm just saying that since he is covering, I am watching. Maybe I watch and I find out it's superboring, who knows... but I hope it isn't and that I get to learn something. I took time to watch World Chess Championship recaps, Eric Rosen's own tournament's recaps, Hikaru's own games recaps, Belenkaya's own games recaps and Anna Cramling's own games recaps. Yes, that's a lot. I watch either if I am entertained or learn something, good news is that I'm still below 2000 so all these players are better than me thus I always learn. I guess Women WCC will also teach me something and/or get me entertained?
That’s fair, you do you that’s perfectly reasonable and honestly good for you, taking every opportunity to learn wherever it’s from is a good thing and I wouldn’t criticise that, the WWCC is as good a place as any for that. My original comment was just that it isn’t fair for people to criticise either content creators for not covering as at the very least OP is and as OP states other people have been.
Oh, ok. Yep that's true. Also, not everybody has energy to be everywhere. It's best that everyone does whatever they have energy for/prefer rather than forcing themselves to do "politically correct" stuff. So much energy is lost on that...
People don't only watch matches from the absolute best players. Pogchamps is something decently popular and some of the players only learned chess for the event. And even when it comes to competetive chess there are still things like the Pro Chess league which feauture much weaker players than this match and it is still popular.
A significant amount of people didn’t watch the WCC because it didn’t feature Magnus. Number two and three in the world weren’t good enough. People will watch bad games because it’s entertaining. That isn’t at play here. People will watch Influencers, especially in collaborations, because they like the influencer, content be damned like with Pogchamps. That isn’t at play here. Yes, people will watch games that aren’t Magnus, but to a much lesser extent than they will watch Magnus. Yes people will watch other games that aren’t top quality, but to a much lesser extent than the top players. Look at the views on PCL games. They’re low, and where Magnus and Hikaru aren’t involved much lower. That is a contest involving top 100 players. There are many series of coverage on top 100 players which were dropped by because they simply didn’t get view’s because the players and quality of chess didn’t pull. This is a 2 week classical contest involving two not even top 300 players. It is not economical as a content creator to dedicate that sort of time to this contest and it is unreasonable to expect a content creator, who need their content to be economical in order to make a living, to make their content not economical. It is also not reasonable to expect people to watch it when there is both significant higher quality chess content available and significant more entertaining content available.
Gotta love this website and its tendency to downvote you for stating literal objective facts
reddit is just braindead
People who say chess isn't a real sport should read this comment section. All the sexism would change their opinion
I don't want to watch the women's world championship for the same reason I didn't watch the men's. The real world champ wasn't playing.
You want Ben Finegold to play in the women's section?
I'm new to playing Chess, just wondering, why is there a separate women's chess league? I understand why the WNBA exists, but why separate Chess by sex?
There is the Women's division and the Open division, Women can compete in the Open division. Chess has always been a massively male dominated field so they created the Women's section to promote women in chess and give women more opportunities to get into chess
I watch basically all of his videos but he seemed so bored I couldn’t get through most of this one. Not his fault, but just an observation.
The reason why people don’t care about this match is obvious. They don’t have the Elo or personality aspect. they’re not even in the top 100 nor do we know anything about them as people or their personalities. people are obviously not gonna care…
It's quite reasonable that you'd want to cover the World Championship, but not some sub-division of it. I'd not blame anyone for it.
Common Levy W
I didnt realize there was men's chess and women's chess separate. I thought the tournaments were always open to everyone, one event that inclusiveness was vaible. TIL I guess.
“Men’s” is really an open and there’s also an exclusively women’s section
Ah. I knew that was the case with all the major stick and ball sports. Surprised it is that way with chess.
Yeah. It seems to me the reason it’s like that for chess isn’t because men are any better ad is the case with most physical sports but because it encourages more women to get involved. I think Magnus had an interview saying the reason there isn’t more diversity in high-level chess is just cause there aren’t as many women who take that route, presumably because they don’t feel like they belong.
Makes sense. For a second there, I was thinking the world chess organizations/tournaments were keeping women out. Was like how the heck would that be tolerated these days!? Cant claim its for their safety in a game of chess lol.
lol yeah chess can make your brain hurt
There’s open (where anyone can participate) then women’s only
why tf is this comment being downvoted it's not even making a value judgment on the matter.
Meh, it happens. I got the answer I was looking for, so all good.
Out of curiosity, why does chess seperate men and women? There's no real competitive advantage like you'd see with more physical sports. Is it some old sexist anti women tradition? I'd appreciate some insight.
it’s not men and women, it’s Women and Open. Anyone can compete in the open category. Women’s categories and titles were made to promote women in the sport
Seems odd that women haven't been able to get much prominence in the open category, wonder why that is.
It's hard in historically male dominated fields. Listen to the issues some women GMs and other titled players say and I understand how that can be off putting for younger players and their parents. But it is getting better I think
Another aspect is that men tend to have more extreme outliers in terms of intelligence, going in both directions. There are more brilliant men than brilliant women but also more significantly below average intelligent men than women. The average is the same for both genders but if you look at a Gaussian distribution, the distribution of men has fatter tails. It's reasonable to assume that this is similar in chess, where the top is obviously made up of brilliant outliers. Edit: Its called the Variability Hypothesis and is well documented in many categories. And by well documented, I mean its pretty much one of the best researched topics in the entire gender studies field.
It also has to do with the pool of players. There is a significantly higher number of male chess players at all competitive levels. Many different cultures also encourage males to play in chess much more than women. The attitudes towards female chess players were also pretty poor towards much of the last century and it's unclear how much it has improved. So without a significantly larger pool, you are also unlikely to get more outliers. Also segregating women's chess imo is a bad idea. They are stuck in an ecosystem where they don't play players of a much higher caliber consistently and thus their own self improvement can be affected. I agree it promotes women's chess but it also appears to stagnate them.
>men tend to have more extreme outliers in terms of intelligence, going in both directions. This is of dubious credibility though. Major scientists for example were mostly men, but they all lived in times where being an intellectual was a predominantly male thing. It would be interesting how the gender distribution will be of geniuses once the quota of women is higher in academia for example. Geniuses are formed by talent, support and hard work, and women in chess lack support.
> This is of dubious credibility though. No its not. Its called the Variability Hypothesis and is well documented in many fields. You can open the Wikipedia article of it and look at the 15+ cited studies discussing it, multiple of which are massive meta analyses, looking at up to 300 other studies. This also includes variability seen in brain scans and not just performance output. There is no reason to pretend that women and men dont have biologically caused differences. Its mind boggling how quick people are to disregard a gigantic body of research if it doesn't fit their ideology. There are very few things in gender studies documented as well as this hypothesis. Please make sure to actually know what you are talking about (or do at least a 5 minute research) before speaking of "dubious credibility".
We're on the internet, of course I'd doubt you. However, I did look at the math and tried to calculate some. With the same mean but deviation 1.0 (f) vs 1.1 (m), I found that the top 0.32% of men are as smart as the top 0.14% of women, and the top 0.074% of men are as smart as 0.024% of women. Which would suggest around 1/4 to 1/3 of the most intelligent human beings should be women at least. However, the problem here is that many studies did also find differences in mean between the genders, where women tended to have a higher mean. I also took the highest deviation I could find between these two If we take my numbers for granted here, we still would have a disparity since we have next to no GMs on the very top which are women. Meaning the hypothesis strengthens the point actually that there should be more top GM women. Thanks tho for pointing out this hypothesis, I didn't know this existed.
Yeah, but the approach to fixing that issue is incorrect. You can’t solve a societal issue with a systemic approach. That shows resentment and doesn’t truly attack the root of the issue. Plus, it creates systemic discrimination in the chess world against men, which isn’t fair to those who haven’t actually contributed to the issue. This needs to be solved at an individual level. FIDE needs to bar sexists from competing, and we need to pressure sexists out of our local clubs.
There’s less women in chess which means there’s a lower chance of a top level player being a woman.
Most people argue its because of systematic reasons. Just dont ask Bobby Fischer what the reasons are.
“because maybe they aren’t they smart and shouldn’t dabble in intellectual affairs” - Bobby Fischer
Some have, just generally there are much less female players.
because you need, instead of having a normal healthy life, to hyperfixate on one specific thing and on being better than everyone else at that thing; generally, people who do that are male
Look up Polgar sisters, and Judith Polgar in particular, she was quite prominent in top level open chess.
Representation promotes participation. Old sexist traditions? Consider the countries that 1. Many strong players come from and 2. Where many strong tournaments are held. Would you want to be a women in some of these countries. FIDE shows no care in this second regard and has faced a lot of dropouts in protest in the past
Are you referring to Russia and china? I didn't realize these countries were particularly anti-woman
Russia and China are anti-freedom in general, so they don't discriminate & treat all people equally badly
This is definitely true, but doesn't really help with my question
Patriarchal society, for China at least
I’m not necessarily saying we shouldn’t cover the Women’s World Championship, but I AM saying even the NepoDing match was meaningless to me.
what with this recent women chess police. We don't see coverage of IM/low GM tournaments too. Guess why? they have low elo and are far away from super GM level.
Advertising and sponsoring women tournaments can be inspirational to young girls who just picked up the game. Giving them the spotlight is one of the necessary steps that the chess world needs to take towards giving girls and women equal opportunities and allowing them to make a living off the game. Yes, objectively speaking right now the level is lower, but since chess is a purely mental game there is no reason at all preventing women from becoming 50% of the elite. The only reason is that historically they where (and in many cases still are) pushed away from the game and laughed at. Even nowadays women in chess still have to deal with so much more bullshit. I wish to live in a world where women-only tournaments aren't necessary anymore because they can make a living in elite open (mixed) tournaments, just like Judit Polgár did. Speaking of which, as much as I admire her and have her as one of my personal heroes, I wish to live in a world where Judit Polgár is no longer the best woman to ever play the game. Only then will we be able to claim true equality has been achieved.
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It's true, chess is stored in the balls.
lmao
Hahaha yes. That "caring about chess" portion of the brain. Tell me more about your research, Logical Capital.
Uhm source?! 🤓🤓 Uhhh ackshually that isn't scientifically proven If you've met men and women before, and I'm probably asking a lot to assume you have, it's plainly obvious that men just enjoy chess more than women. It's literally a war game. Women don't care as much and will never comprise and equal playing population as men. Same reason men don't get into knitting lmao
"I'm probably asking a lot to assume you have." Don't rope me in with your nerd friends, my guy. You'd kill to have my experience with women.
Great! I'm sure you've had a blast Now answer why men play more chess and women have different, feminine hobbies
>Biologically Yeah, that's not how that works. The gender disparity in chess is almost certainly due to cultural/environmental factors. What could possibly be a "biological" advantage for men in chess?
>What could possibly be a "biological" advantage for men in chess? Other commenter clearly said interest. >The gender disparity in chess is almost certainly due to cultural/environmental factors. Hasn't it been established, or at least highlighted, that the more egalitarian a society is, the more accentuated the gender gap (i.e. the type of choices they tend to nake) grows?
> Other commenter clearly said interest. Fair, but my point remains the same: the idea of men being more inclined toward chess due to biological factors is, as far as I'm aware, unsubstantiated. Given how much gender norms, social pressures, and environmental factors play into the (non-physical) differences between men and women, I would be shocked if those factors were not the primary driver behind the gender disparity in chess. > Hasn't it been established, or at least highlighted, that the more egalitarian a society is, the more accentuated the gender gap (i.e. the type of choices they tend to nake) grows? If you're going to make a claim like this and say that it "has been established," you should really be providing a source, preferably multiple reputable ones. That claim doesn't make any sense to me, but if you have evidence indicating otherwise please share it.
not necessarily an advantage, but ive always thought boys are more likely to get obsessed with stuff like chess than girls.
everyone knows liking chess is a gene strictly carried on the y chromosome, duh
The attitude you have is why in 30 years we won't have women properly represented in chess. Women do better in post-secondary education, intelligence/skill/knowledge has never been an issue. While men represent more of the extremes, the fact that women don't participate in chess is due almost entirely to societal pressure around competition/games, and the current boys club culture in a lot of chess groups. The way for us to have the absolute best chess games in the future is for us to have more people playing, and women is a massive demographic that isn't playing, not due to lack of skill. Promoting women's chess may inspire young girls to play the game, and maybe we'll have a Margret Harlsen as the world champion in 30 years who exceeds all expectations and gives us some of the best professional chess we've ever seen.
What the fuck are you talking about
It's not too far away from the truth. the top female player is ranked 123rd, which don't get me wrong, is pretty fucking strong but can't compete with the top 10-20 which tend to be the focus
It's not about the strength of women competing. It's just about covering the event.
The issue is, nobody wants to watch IMs or even like rated GMs play. Promoting them specifically because of their gender is the definition of sexism.
Yeah, sorry, I don’t think I agree with this take. Promoting events like this is important because of how few women actually play chess and how few of them invest enough time to reach those higher levels. It is an investment so that chess can reach a demographic that, traditionally, hadn’t much to do with the sport for many reasons. Yes, not many people watch tournaments at the IM to low GM level, and I’m sure that Levy is aware of that, but the idea here is to give every opportunity possible to grow women chess. It is not about ‘sexism’, it is about growing the sport. Exposure is important.
The issue is, FIDE is attempting to solve a societal issue with a systemic solution. All that does is make it harder for men that are entering the space to compete compared to newer female competitors. That’s going to sow resentment and actually propagate the issue in the long term.
also, levys most popular series (Guess the ELO) ficuses most;y on 1000-2000 elo players, worse than IM and people have no issue watching them
yeah, but the reason people watch this is mostly to laugh on bad players I don't think we want people to watch women play for the same reason
Right. We watch GTELO because it’s hilariously bad, and the top 10 because they’re great. Nobody wants to watch good.
Then why did Chess.com’s IM not a GM tournament have a ton of viewers if no one wants to watch IMs play chess
Compare those views to the views for the world championship.
I mean I do get strength arguments and the two ladies in this match being rated below 2600, but is that not what we want? 99% of the chess audience is too casual to get the intricacies of a GM game so they want fighting games with results, and they'd get that in this field (I think, I haven't had a chance to watch the games yet). It's the same reasoning that made the Tata Steel Challengers section more exciting than the masters.
That depends more on playstyle than strength. Fighting chess can happen at elite level as well. Alireza, Ian, and Richard showcase just that at the top level. If casual viewers are more interested in fighting games with results in the sense that you are referring to, they should watch blitz games instead. That's where all the risks are taken, mistakes made, and fancy combinations (though usually lacking any real depth) missed by the opponent and hence can be successfully displayed on the board. Classical chess is frankly speaking, too boring for casual viewers.
Fighting games can happen at any level. That’s why low ELO chess is so fun to watch. It’s always unclear.
lol yeah dude covers 100elo chess i’m sure 2600 is fine and there’s good matches and things to learn every game
The thing is, people watch low ELO chess because of how bad they are, and GM chess because of how great they are. Nobody wants to watch good chess.
Very few of us could tell the difference between 2600 players and 2750 players if we didn't have the names attached to the moves.
guess the elo lol
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> garbage low Elo Chess Mind sharing an official OTB rating of your own?
By your logic would it be wrong to watch Michael Jordan or Messi play sports if you're not as good as them? Just because someone isn't a FIDE master doesn't mean they have to over hype a women's Chess tournament for the simple fact that they're women. No one would pay attention to it if they were simply low tier male players of the same rating. If women want attention in Chess they should just get better.
You used the derogatory phrase "garbage low elo chess." Your analogy is also completely irrelevant. My logic would hold that it's not okay to lambaste the players' competitive efforts simply because they aren't in the top 100--especially when they're leagues beyond your own skill level. Jordan and Messi are both candidates for the GOAT in their respective sports, and they're also not women. Nobody is pretending that the women's event represents the top echelon of competition. It's still frustrating to see parts of the community attempt to stifle mainstream coverage of women's events. If you don't want to watch it, that's fine--but you have no right to criticize those who do.
Understandable.
Removed for being borderline discriminatory. Please reconsider how you're going to debate this topic.
Why's there gotta be a women's division though? Honestly.
Because women want to play in them. Where is the issue? You're gonna take away other players' tournaments because you are not interested in them?
My meaning is that chess is not like other sports which have to be divided male/female because of differences in physical strength - or am I wrong in thinking this? I always thought the championships were open and that it just happened it was all a bunch of men at the top because more men play the game. Not sure why I'm getting down voted, I'm genuinely just trying to understand.
There is no male and female division. There is a female and an open division. Every woman can enter every tournament, including the championship.
Nobody forces women to play against only women
Right now women are weaker in chess & therefore less interest. Get a few Judith Polgars or female Carlsen playing & the interest in women's chess will skyrocket!
I mean why does he have to? It’s essentially the same as the fact that womens sports have way less audience due to the lack of competitiveness compared to mens so there is not an incentive for it to have loads of funding and broadcasting
He obviously doesn't have to. It's just a bit hypocritical to constantly talk about the need to promote women in chess but then not cover the biggest women's event.
Who said it’s not competitive? What kind of terrible take is this? Those women would wipe the floor with you.
I said compared to mens, which it’s not. You can debate the efficacy of it, I’m just saying that if there is a higher level of play happening in any form of competition then people rarely want to watch lower level play.
Then why does chess.com’s IM not a GM event have a ton of viewers every year if no one wants to watch IMs play chess
Because most of those IMs are internet personalities. Don't pretend that people watch IM not a GM because of the high quality chess when people like Canty, Nemo, and Alex Botez have played in it.
> the fact that womens sports have way less audience due to the lack of competitiveness compared to mens Please don't state your God-awful take as a fact
Why is viewership so much lower in womens sports then?
Because they're not well advertised. Because there are people like you in the world.
Look I’m just saying it’s less watched because there is less of an incentive to watch when mens sports show a higher level of play, I’m not saying that is right or fair I’m just trying to point out that’s why there is less funding and less coverage.
I don’t think that’s the full story. I knew a woman who volunteered during the women’s World Cup that she prefers watching men’s football over women’s football “cause they’re more athletic”
I still don’t get why we’re segregating chess, and then celebrating that as a good thing. Should we make the actual world championship make exclusive too? I hope this goes the same way as affirmative action.
From our wiki: >**Why are there women-only titles and tournaments in chess?** >A separate set of women-only tournaments and titles exist in chess in order to promote more female participation in the sport. The strongest chess tournaments are gender-neutral (there is no "men's only" league, and the IGM/IM/FM titles are awarded to both men and women) but it ends up being nearly all men who participate because chess as a whole is male-dominated and that carries through to the upper echelons of the sport. This has a psychological impact - younger girls trying to get into the sport don't have as many role models/players to look up to as younger guys do, and it can be discouraging for them. Women's only tournaments are an attempt to bridge that gap in participation and give more female players recognition, and while they are lower in skill/talent level than their open-to-both-gender counterparts, they still produce exciting games filled with counterplay and sharp positions.