Women's In-Tournament Training

Discuss anything you like about women's chess at home and abroad.
Sabrina Chevannes
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Sabrina Chevannes » Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:22 am

Gary Cook wrote:
Sabrina Chevannes wrote: As I said, if anyone else has any other better ideas for promoting women's chess, then please let me know. If you are against women's chess then please don't post, as this is a women's chess section and if you are not interested then you shouldn't be in this section.
Sabrina
Only having people who agree with women's chess posting in this section will not enable you to look at the whole picture - sometimes you need to look at it from a different angle - otherwise you will also get what you have always got - and since we are still talking about means that it hasn't been looked at correctly so far.

Gary

Sorry, Can I just ask, when have I EVER said that I only want to hear from people who agree with me? I have been asking for some suggestions to help women's chess. Never have I said I don't like someone because they don't agree so why have I been accused of this personally for about 5 pages of this thread?
I just wanted to hear some positive suggestions because I don't feel that people get anywhere with negativity. Some of this feedback is not going to help me do my job properly.

I still haven't heard any of you suggest anything positive to do for women's chess, but just continue to personally get at me. If this isn't discouraging for women, I don't know what is.

Gary Cook
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Gary Cook » Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:31 am

Sabrina Chevannes wrote:

I still haven't heard any of you suggest anything positive to do for women's chess, but just continue to personally get at me. If this isn't discouraging for women, I don't know what is.
The first question to ask is whether the current approach of saying to women that you are expected to be weaker than men - via women's prizes and titles - has actually worked.

When asked why they don't play chess what do women say?

Maria Yurenok
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Maria Yurenok » Sat Mar 19, 2011 10:49 am

Gary Cook wrote:When asked why they don't play chess what do women say?
Gary, I believe Sabrina has answered this already earlier in the thread.

With regards to the women's titles - even if you qualify for a title, you don't have to apply for it with FIDE if you don't want it. If you don't like it - just ignore it and carry on achieving your generic titles instead. I haven't heard of any women (apart from Louise) who gave up chess because of women's prizes and women's titles.

I can give you my story though. I gave up chess for 4 years during university because I didn't have the money to travel to competitions and my local club (Plymouth) was too weak for me to keep interested in playing as I prefer playing against stronger opposition than myself. However, I worked hard on my chess after I started working full-time, so was proud to achieve WFM title 4 years after leaving university. After that I was concentrating on progressing my career and played little chess for 7-8 years. Now I'm interested in progressing my chess again, have achieved the first WIM norm and working towards achieving the title. Women's prizes or entry discounts won't make any difference to my participation in tournaments because I am an established player, have my own coaches, have sufficient disposable income unlike when I was at university and I'm old enough to look after myself in a male-dominated environment.

Sabrina's and Jovanka's initiative at Sean's tournament is mainly aimed at encouraging as many promising girls as possible to stay with chess and to aspire to progress to at least my level (and hopefully well beyond) by offering coaching at a very discounted price and by creating girl-friendly environment so that they come to play chess again. Friendly environment plays a big part in whether a child wants to continue doing something or not and it's not reasonable to compare confidence levels of a fully-formed adult with that one of a child. I know that because I played chess throughout my childhood and like Sabrina I wasn't that confident to start with, but chess positively contributed to my development of character, so lets not deny girls an opportunity to become stronger individuals through chess even if they don't go as far as achieving generic FIDE titles.

John Moore
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by John Moore » Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:55 pm

I have been away for a bit - and some people have written 18 pages of guff. Anything that encourages more people to play chess and play chess better is good. So more power to this initiative. I don't mind if they are girls, boys, OAPs etc - I don't mind if Sean offers Martians free entry.

I do find Mr Burke a bit tiresome, but I think Sabrina might have been a bit less over the top. I applaud the initiative and I do know it's free and I hope it's a great success.

Gary Cook
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Gary Cook » Sat Mar 19, 2011 4:19 pm

Maria
As soon as you create incentives and titles purely for 50% of the population what you are doing is creating or reinforcing an artifical barrier between the two sexes in chess.

Many other sports men have a natural advantage in strength making it impractable for women to compete on the same footing as men - therefore you have men's and women's titles etc.

That is not the case in chess - there is no scientfic reason that I know of that says men should play the game better than women - but in general that is what happens. Instead women are encouraged to play in women's only tournaments and aspire to women's only titles - as I said this says to men that women are inferior and can be treated as such.

That is the reason why Louise gave up chess - she was actively steered to playing women's chess, be it the woman's boards in county chess and at 4NCL (both of which she refused to play), she was not picked for team chess because she was female, or put below weaker players because she was a woman - thus she hates women's chess - and I don't blame her in the least.

The one woman who made the conscious decision not to play in women's events (except at the start of her career) has shown that it is possible to compete on the same playing field as men.

Why put a limit on what the girls should be aspiring to just because of their sex?

Gary

John Moore
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by John Moore » Sat Mar 19, 2011 4:36 pm

Don't care, Gary - different people have different views. I entirely respect Louise's approach, but I also agree with what Sabrina is doing.

Maria Yurenok
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Maria Yurenok » Sat Mar 19, 2011 5:35 pm

Gary, no one is putting a limit on what girls should be aspiring to. I see nothing limiting in providing women's titles or women-only competitions. It hasn't stopped Susan Lalic, Jovanka Houska and Harriet Hunt achieving generic IM titles for example. It hasn't stopped me beating many many men in my chess career, including getting points off those with generic titles. I've played in many girls-only competitions as well as many mixed ones, I have played in various boards at the 4NCL and don't see it degrading playing on the bottom board (which is not a women's board by the way - there is no such thing at the 4NCL) if I'm the weakest player in the team. I rarely play in women-only competitions these days because there are very few around, instead I play a lot in international Open tournaments and get very reasonable scores playing almost exclusively against men (because there are so few women out there!). So, our views are completely different, now lets move on to the original topic of this thread - are there any suggestions for Sabrina and Jovanka on improving women's chess?

And with regards to men completely twisting the situation and interpreting that because of women's titles and women's competitions women should be treated as inferior - well, that's their problem and they'd better stay clear of me. Can't cure every chauvinist in this world.

IanDavis
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by IanDavis » Sat Mar 19, 2011 6:12 pm

Maria Yurenok wrote: And with regards to men completely twisting the situation and interpreting that because of women's titles and women's competitions women should be treated as inferior - well, that's their problem and they'd better stay clear of me. Can't cure every chauvinist in this world.
These posts could certainly be moved to another thread by some mods :)
I don't think men are twisting the situation, because women hold these views, and may even have been the first to promote them. I'm sure I've read Cathy Warwick extolling the virtues of this argument. Bringing accusations of chauvinism into it is just provocative.

Louise Sinclair
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Louise Sinclair » Sat Mar 19, 2011 6:41 pm

I think here the basic premise is that "womens chess is good" and anyone who shows opposistion is either a chauvinist or a woman with too much testosterone. I plead guilty to the testosterone and will never view womens chess in the current format as something I would play. There are some women who clearly enjoy it but personally I would like to see a broader view taken and feel strongly that women like myself should not have to battle people who attempt to bully them into playing these events.
I wasn't the weakest chess player in my club but certainly suffered enough grief for being typecast as the woman player.
Everyone should be able to do their own thing in following a chess path without the views of bigots impinging upon their freedom.
In my opinion the most important aspect about improving chess for all is to play in a pleasant relaxed atmosphere where a player can concentrate on the game without chess politics and establishment views hampering potential improvement.
As an aside I would recommend that if women do want a positive suggestion on improving their game I highly recommend utilising the services of a good hypno therapist.
This is not as bizarre as it sounds as often games are lost due to distractions and knowing how to use self hypnosis can be invaluable. I certainly found it useful when analysing tricky positions in an uncomfortable environment.
There nobody can say I haven't suggestesd an idea
Louise
You might very well think that ; I couldn't possibly comment.
' you turn if you want. The lady's not for turning'

Alan Burke

Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Alan Burke » Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:28 pm

John Moore ... What do find 'tiresome' - my pursuit of fairness for ALL members of the community or my defence against insults (ie 'you are a plank') and false accusations that I am against womens' chess ? Yes, I might put forward questions that, in this 'politically correct' world, others may fear to ask (in case they are labelled as an 'ist') and sometimes give an alternative point of view to those who claim to be oppressed, but what is wrong with that ? If someone gives a reasonable answer (as did Sean on the very first page of this thread), although I might not always agree with them, I will always respect their point of view, but certainly not if they then start to decry other sections of the community just to boulster their own aims.

I totally agree with your comment that anything which increases the number playing chess is good, but surely there has to be a limit as to how much the other members of the chess community have to pay in order for that agenda to be achieved ?

As a postive idea I would suggest that free coaching would be more beneficial in the long-run than free entries, but if someone wishes to disagree, I certainly won't look upon it as them just being negative - it is just their point of view and one that could be discussed to eventually find an amicable solution.

Richard Bates
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Richard Bates » Sun Mar 20, 2011 8:56 am

Alan Burke wrote:
I totally agree with your comment that anything which increases the number playing chess is good, but surely there has to be a limit as to how much the other members of the chess community have to pay in order for that agenda to be achieved ?
Don't really see that the other members of the chess community are paying. A free entry costs no more to the "other members" than no entry. And if they are taking up hotel bookings then they are probably actually contributing towards reducing costs for everyone else (Sean's financial model being partly dependent on individuals using hotel accommodation). There might be a small issue if a subsection were being given free entry and also running away with the prizes, but it's only the IMs and GMs who generally get to do that! ;) Except when they do pay the entry fee and don't run away with the prizes.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sun Mar 20, 2011 9:50 am

Alan Burke wrote:Sabrina - Let's just agree there seems to have been a toal misunderstanding on both sides in this case.

To put the record straight, I have NEVER been against women playing chess in any form, I originally just wanted to clarify the reason why the free offer was made and Sean gave me a very acceptable reply. As you have stated, there are probably many in the chess world who have often resented such favouritism, but unless someone asks why there are such occurances then nobody will ever be given a reason and those feelings will continue.

I think you wrongly took my question as an attack by me on women in chess, whilst I probably misinterpreted your reply of ''... I know that you might say that they shouldn't play then if they aren't strong enough'', as you trying to make me out to be against such women.

The only other point I will make at this time is that wasn't only on behalf of men that I asked such a question as I know of several mothers of boys who have taken part in the UK Chess Challenge and have themselves been unhappy that their sons have not had the same opportunity to progress in the tournament as some girls who have actually achieved a lesser score yet still gone through to the next stage. Therefore, on those occasions it is actually females who are questioning the benefits given to the girls - perhaps I should have got one of those ladies to submit the question so as to prevent any repost of possible sexism. However, unless those mothers can be given a reasonable answer to why their sons are not treated in same way as the girls, they will continue to think that the system is being unfair to them - and surely there can be nothing wrong in them asking the question ''why does that happen ?''

Sabrina, I therefore apologise if my original post was not clear enough to be understood as just a genuine question to establish the reasoning behind Sean's offer, whilst I hope you will accept that the written word is sometimes not the best medium in which to express one's true meanings over a certain issue.
I'm arriving rather late in the month to this thread, but I wanted to reply to Alan Burke's post above as I think there are several good points made here, and the last paragraph in particular is a good example of how initial antagonism in a thread like this can be dialed back if both sides are willing to swallow their pride and apologise and move on. Having said that, I'm only a few pages into this 18-page thread, so maybe things get worse later on.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sun Mar 20, 2011 9:53 am

LozCooper wrote:
Alan Burke wrote:Ah well, it looks like I'm invisible on here to someone ! Because surely an official of the ECF would show more dignity that just ignoring someone purely because they dared to give an alternative view to that of their own ... would they ???
Alternatively they might take the view that they have no need to respond to your personal attacks because they contribute nothing to the discussion :roll:
To be fair, from someone reading this a few weeks later, this does look like people closing ranks to defend their own. Some of what Alan Burke said was not necessary, but some of what he said was valid, and that is being lost in the (IMO) over-reaction here.
Last edited by Christopher Kreuzer on Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sun Mar 20, 2011 9:58 am

David Shepherd wrote:Not special prizes maybe, but special playing conditions yes and in my opinion rightly so, if that is positive discrimination then I am all for it.

In my opinion where possible/practical special allowance should be made to allow any disabled person to complete on as equal a basis with anyone else as they can. I do not think it is the same issue at all and it is wrong to link the two.
Indeed. The term used is 'accessibility'. Positive discrimination is providing inducements to encourage participation from minorities. Accessibility is providing the playing conditions that allow the disabled and others to play on an equal footing, in some cases these conditions are needed to allow participation at all (e.g. the boards used by blind players). Then you have playing conditions. If poor lighting affects any player's ability to see the board in front of them, they should always make that point to the organisers of the event.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Women's In-Tournament Training

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:15 am

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Ben Purton wrote:I bet Sean is thinking 'bloody hell , I offered free entry and all I get is 10 pages of bloody debate on the forum'.
Could be worse. Carl offered us a link to a funding paper, and got 53 pages of debate about it!
Hmm. Maybe I should have read that thread instead? :?