Be first to comment this article

Comments (1)

“I had rather be the first in this village than second in Rome.”
—Attributed to Julius Caesar by Plutarch, Life of Caesar.

Abstract

FIDE publishes chess rating lists every two month. Even a casual observer will notice that most of the strongest players in the world are male. This article dedicated to the International Women’ Day will partially address another important question: how developed is women’s chess in each particular country? How do the strongest female players compare to their most chess-proficient compatriots?
 

Methodology

Many criteria can be introduced to define the level of development of women’s chess: what percentage of the registered players is female, what the average rating of female players compared to male is, etc. In this article the idea was to use the official FIDE ratings to analyze the places occupied by the #1 female player of each country in the overall national rankings. The basic assumption behind this approach is that if the country’s environment allows at least one player to succeed, then others might have a chance as well.

Here is an example for Hungary:
 

1	Leko, Peter	2720
2	Almasi, Zoltan	2719
3	Polgar, Judit	2709
4	Berkes, Ferenc	2682
5	Balogh, Csaba	2664
6	Gyimesi, Zoltan	2652
7	Erdos, Viktor	2631
8	Chernin, Alexander	2614
9	Ribli, Zoltan	2588
10	Acs, Peter	2587

As you can see, the highest-rated female player in Hungary, Judit Polgar, is ranked #3 on the overall national rating list. Similar data has been collected for other chess federations.
 

Data analysis: the findings

Detailed statistics on the ratings of top female chess players in each country as compared to male players is provided below [w-rank = world female rank (active players); n-rank = national rank (all players)]:
 

Here are some statistics:
 

• Not a single female player is #1 in her country overall. The relative best results belong to: GM Judit Polgar (2709, #3 in Hungary), GM Anna Muzychuk (2583, #3 in Slovenia), GM Zhu Chen (2490, #3 in Qatar), IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul (2451, #3 in Mongolia).

• 27/141 (19.1%) chess federations don’t have any female FIDE-rated players.

• 15/141 (10.6%) federations have a female player who belongs to the top-10 of all players in the country. In other words, only in 10.6% of the chess federations a woman has a tangible chance to play for the main national team. Of course, this is a very optimistic estimate, because only 5 players actually make it to representing the country. 

• 47/141(33.3%) federations have a female player rated from #11 to #50 in the country.

• 32/141(22.7%) federations have a female player rated from #51 to #100 in the country.

• 19/141 (13.5%) federations have a female player rated from #101 to #349 (Chile) in the country.

• 1/141 (0.7%): at the time of this writing (March 9th, 2012) no data was available on the ratings of Botswana’s players.
   

  

Date source: http://ratings.fide.com/

It is worth noting that this data offers an interesting insight on how successful women’s chess is in each particular country relatively (compared to men’s chess), not absolutely (compared to women from other countries). For example, Russia is usually rated #1 on both the overall top countries list and on the top countries (women) list. In March 2012 China has overtaken the #1 spot on the women’s rankings. More importantly, the highest-rated Russian female chess player, Nadezhda Kosintseva, is ranked only #104 on the national rating list, while Hou Yifan is rated #6 in China. This demonstrates that, while being among the strongest on the world female rankings, Russian women are relatively weak chess-wise in comparison with their male compatriots.
 

Conclusion

The study proves once again that women are strongly underrepresented in chess at the top levels. 19.1% of the chess federations (nearly every fifth) do not have any FIDE-rated female players. In 70.2% of the federations women are rated #11-#349 in the country, thus basically having no chance to compete for the supreme national title, or even play for the national team. Only 10.6% of the countries have a truly powerful female player ranked #3-#10 on the overall rating list.
 

About the author Peter Zhdanov is an IT project manager, debate expert and author of two books on parliamentary debate, BSc in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science and final year PhD student in Sociology. In chess Peter is a Russian candidate master, author, husband and manager of grandmaster Natalia Pogonina.

Comments (5)

Comments (1)

Comments (2)

Be first to comment this article

Here are the three typical situations when you might want to take your time:

1.      Choosing a plan.

2.      When you can significantly improve your position, e.g., gain advantage or equality.

3.      Critical moments when the result of the game is at stake.

Choosing a plan is typical of the opening-middlegame transition and for the later stages of the game. Mindless shuffling of pieces won’t lead to any good. You should have clear goals in mind and know what to aim for in the current position. Evaluating the position, choosing where to place pieces, preventing your opponent’s counter-play – all this requires time. If you are playing without a plan, you had better stop and reconsider what you are doing.
 

However, even if you have a good plan, things are still not easy. How does one notice opportunities for improving the position? The better your intuition is and the more experience you have, the easier it is to feel such moments. But there are also some signs that should serve as an alarm to you:
 

1.      A promising sacrifice is available, but you can’t evaluate the consequences.

2.      You see that the opponent has probably made a wrong move, one that doesn’t follow his correct plan.

3.      Your pieces are optimally placed, and you feel there’s got to be a way of capitalizing on their potential.

4.      Your opponent’s pieces are misplaced.

The strength of a player is largely dependent on whether he can feel when a critical moment occurs, and act accordingly. Here are a few signs of that:
 

1.      Many candidate moves lose on the spot, or lead to a bad position. Maybe there is only one playable move available, and you should find it.

2.      Tactical fight. E.g., when both sides are attacking each other's kings, at some point a critical moment will happen.

3.      Transitions, e.g. when one side can simplify into a winning endgame.

During critical moments there is usually only one really good move, while others are significantly inferior.
 

In the game against Kaplan from the Women’s World Team Chess Championship’11 there were a few points when I had to take a deep think:
 

1.      On move 9 I had to choose between the calm continuation Rb8 and a pawn sacrifice Nd5. In the latter case I also had to decide where to retreat with the knight. This belongs to the first category – choosing a plan.

2.      On move 16 I had to determine the future course of events: leave the knight on a3, or allow it to enter the game.

3.      The first critical moment in the game happened on move 22. Instead of Ng5 with a strong attack I decided to win an exchange. The signs were: misplaced White pieces (queen, rook on f3 and king) and a significant change in the course of the game after winning the exchange.

4.      On move 25 I had to choose a new plan, and didn’t quite succeed.

5.      On move 29 I had to make the right move to equalize. The main idea was to stop the White pawns, so it wasn’t hard to find the move. However, I somehow overlooked it, and my position became rather gloomy. Things went downhill after I played h6 instead of creating counter-play with h5.  

6.      Move 35 was the second critical moment of the game. I had to settle for a draw, but instead started pressing for a win at all costs.

7.      The third critical moment – move 39. Only one continuation led to a win, while other moves gave White at least equality. The prerequisites of the sacrifice were a strong bishop on a7 and the fact that if Black lingers, White can start pushing the pawns on the queenside.  

 

Comments (1)

Be first to comment this article

Be first to comment this article