Breaking the 1978 record for the world's youngest chess champion, Hou Yifan, 16, bagged the title at the WomenÂ’s World Chess Championship in Antakya, Turkey. She bested previous female champion Maia Chiburdanidze of Georgia, 17. Hou also beat fellow Chinese Ruan Lufei.
Despite this victory for Hou Yifan, questions remain about why women do not play chess as well as men do. Two theories seem plausible. The first (suggested by male chess players) is that they tend to be more aggressive, and this appears to be true of Hou, who is said to have a very conservative playing style.
The second, according to the New York Times, “cited in at least one university study, is that the talent pool among women has not been big enough to produce many great players.” Children need exposure to any new endeavor to develop skill, whether that involves learning a physical sport like skiing or an intellectual one like chess.
There are likely many more sports one can think of that men typically excel in, such as race car driving (despite Danica Patrick). However, several fields once male-dominated (like the legal field) are today populated by equal numbers of men and women. One day, chess, too, may find a woman at the top, especially if Hou Yifan has anything to say about it.
Among the world's male chess players, Garry Kasparov became the youngest champion at 22.
Meantime, top-ranking female chess player Judit Polgar of Hungary did not play in the Turkey championship. She previously ranked No. 8 among the world's male and female chess players and does not compete in women's tournaments.
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Comments: 8
We played chess during the weekends with his daughter running around and his wife sitting next to us watching television. She couldn't play chess and I was the only person he knew who could. What was so bad about that?
By the way, his wife used to tell my grandmother that she was glad that her husband was able to find a chess partner that lived so close because then he didn't leave the house. My grandmother saw evil in the wrong places.
But my chess game was great when I played the chess with him.