The buzz is still on about round 7. People are still talking about Anand. I am expecting to speak to him shortly. The energy level here is quite high. I will be attending the computer match at 10 AM this morning. Will bring you a lot more report soon.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
It is amazing tht you have nearly real time update. Thanx a lot
Finally, some real cool & interesting reporting. Thank you Susan. Could you teach others how to report, as the world championship reports I have seen so far are dry, without life, like written by clueless Jurassic Park inhabitants.
Susan,
Being a Petroff player myself I am really curious why Anand, Leko, and Svidler all played the same basic variation of it against Gelfand. Please tell me what you know or can learn about this.
I assume you saw the recent Chessbase report on women in chess. Its a shame that so many top male and female players apparently believe that women cannot compete at the top level. Your sister is, as they see it, an “exception”. And the reasons that are given are so lame such as lack of physical strength that makes women fade at the end of games. What stereotypes! I seem to recall reading that in certain endurance tests women exceed men in their capabilities!
-sputnick on ICC.
Am also Petroff player so hope Sputnik will see this as comradely inquiry.
OK then, so why aren’t there more women at the top level?
You can’t just say people’s reasons are “lame” without any alternative. Or are you saying there ARE lots of women at the top? The apparent lack of female top players in a game with no obvious HUGE physical component has always intrigued me. My own theory was always that as a group they’re too nice, intrinsically, to have that nasty killer-touch that helps in chess (oops…….but I suppose that explains why Judit hasn’t made it right to the absolute top……..)
Banjanx (Stereotype Fan No 1)
And why aren’t they women at the top level in bridge, philosophy, literature, checkers, arts, science, scrabble, mathematics ?
I wonder.
God help us if women DECIDED to be the top of the aforementioned endeavors. Perhaps our ego’s couldn’t take it. There are female players who could be in the top 50..but simply aren’t driven. I expect Humpy Koneru to make a run. I see the Chinese women to be quite capable because of government support and different goals for their society. Once woment decide to form a family, then chess takes a back seat. Perhaps they know whats important ( sustaining the Human Race). I would love to see Susan enter into the competitive level again. Her analysis is outstanding. Well i have said my ego-driven spiel so there. LOL!!!!
Probably this “killer” instinct demonstrates why top tyrants / killers are men- Stalin, Hitler, Bin Laden, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Alexander the Great, and this list is long. Is there any women who ordered cold blooded murders of children. Not that I know of.
There are famous women like Her Majesty the Queen of England & Mother Theresa. The Nobel Prize was awarded to Marie Curie (Poland, France) for her research on radium. Here is a list of women who received the Nobel Prize in arts & science: http://www.almaz.com/nobel/women.html
Any person, man or woman can accomplish anything that he / she set his / hers mind to. Many women mind is set to have a family and competing in chess or other disciplines are secondary.
“Women can never play like men simply because they are women. It is something innate. Have you ever seen women doing any better than men at anything?” Rauf. Rauf- you are ignorant, non-educated, incompetent bastard, who feels better about his inadequacy when frivolously undermining other humans.
just for fun … check Erzsebet (also written Elizabeth) Bathory
hey susan ! hope you will have a mojito tonight !!! i wish you the best !!!
“Any person, man or woman can accomplish anything that he / she set his / hers mind to.”
That is utter nonsense. I’d bet that there are many that have their minds seriously set on being world champion in chess, but almost none of them will make it.
Or how many thousands upon thousands of minor league baseball players and college players and high school players and little league players have their minds set on making it to MLB? Way, WAY more than are capable of doing it.
Granted, without great focus and dedication, great things are not accomplished, but some people are just not cut out to do certain things no matter how hard they try.
I think it is clear that women can perform at the top level in chess. The Polgar sisters have shown as much. It is just that very few women have chosen to dedicate their lives to the endeavor. That is, after all, what it takes.
-sputnick on ICC
On slightly different line:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Miles
(There was a time before Borg, when Sweden didn’t have many top tennis players…then there was a spurt of Wilander, Edberg and a few others…)
Not long ago, there weren’t any brit GMs…then Tony Miles and others broke through, Speelman, Short, etc … then it blossomed…
Remember an old introductory chess book “chess teacher” with pics of world champions over the years, mention of a young Garry Kasparov and mention of a young Nunn…
Would people have said “why are there no british GMs, is it that we can’t intrinsically play chess”? Or, conversely, “the russians are intrinsically the best at chess”?
There has been a blossoming of chess in India and China (the new to-be superpowwers?) who’ve invested in chess…so, if, before, people had said “there are no GMs from nation X” now they don’t.
GM Short has been coaching at least one of the major new talents…and lots of resources in those nations seem to be put into breaking the record of earliest aged GM…
On other hand, some federations with lack of resources and/or lack of interest can’t/are unwilling to help their talented get out into the wider world to improve.
The two new GMs/GM-elect from Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively seem to have done it all on their own (one going from US-Caribeann-to Euwe memorial recently…one from UK to Malyasia and so on).
So, perhaps, especially in the tutored/high tech present, the talented from anywhere and everywhere can start early, follow the rules, play against stronger people, improve and get to the top…
Perhaps, it’s not that one nation is intrinsically better (perhaps, at the most, it’s part of the school curriculum/culture but not impirically any better)…similarly, perhaps, one gender isn’t intrinsically any better – it’s just that the interest/resources, at present, aren’t into that area…
Physical culture and chess
http://www.spyur.am/asipc.htm
http://www.eao.ru/eng/?p=368
http://www.kalm.ru/en/sports.html
http://www.azeriworld.org/content/view/75/188/
Peace.
my few typhos at
Friday, September 21, 2007 3:01:00 PM
🙂
That was a great game last night, a pleasure to watch!
Anonymous 11:49 AM said: “Is there any women who ordered cold blooded murders of children. Not that I know of.”
That would be funny, if the subject wasn’t so serious.
Infanticide is, in the vast majority of the cases, committed by women (mothers).
It’s written in any criminology manual.
A book on the subject: “Unwilling Mothers, Unwanted Babies: Infanticide in Canada”, by Kirsten Johnson Kramar (UBC Press, 2006):
http://www.amazon.fr/Unwilling-Mothers-Unwanted-Babies-Infanticide/dp/0774811773
strange that this discussion began just when susan left for mexico …