Men are SMARTER than women at chess.

Women are smarter than men at sex.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

And a preprint of Bilalic's article, in case anyone is interested:

http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/2967

(click on "view/open" in the gray box)

That is quite intresting, I once played Merim Bilalic... although he did beat me, but I think I was giving him a run for his money for part of the game.

The article does indeed make a good case for why there *appears* to be such a large difference in ability between male and female chess players. And I agree that statistics is a significant factor.

However, the article also admits: "Averaged over the 100 top players, the expected male superiority is 341 Elo points and the real one is 353 points.". Now, people may argue that 12 points of a difference is negligible, fair enough, but when you're considering a country's top 100 players of each gender, 12 points isn't negligible in that context.

More significantly, the article does not make a convincing case of proving that the selection process which generates male/female pools of players is identical. Yes, it refers to " a study of 647 young chess players" but ultimately it concedes: "Our study does not deal directly with the reasons why there are so few women in competitive chess." The article only considers statistics for people who are chess players. This assumes that for both genders, the pool of chess players is equally representative of the entire gender population. The article states that there is no evidence to the contrary but leaves the point open and debatable. This devalues the overall conclusion.

The article does not prove that the entire female population is generally equal to the entire male population in terms of chess ability. It only explains why the gap appears to be so large.

i think men have a greater capacity to obsess rarther than greater intelligence 🙂

Originally posted by Black Star Uchess
i think men have a greater capacity to obsess rarther than greater intelligence 🙂

haha yeah

Well, there appears to be a few confused individuals left. I educated the others, but I have to try again. I'm here to help. I must reiterate that the total number of people in one group (men) CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT influence the SKILL level of the people in another group (women). It VIOLATES the laws of LOGIC and MATHEMATICS and PROBABILITY and COMMON SENSE. Did the hundreds of white golfers hurt TIger Woods' chance of being number one? NO. He is just more SKILLFUL at golf than everyone else. Doesn't matter how many white people he competes against. Numbers and color of skin have NOTHING TO DO WITH SKILL!!!!! Here it is....once again........

"Probability can ONLY be used when all things are EQUAL. For example, if I have 10 socks in a drawer. 9 red and 1 white, the probability of me picking the white sock are 1 in 10 or 10%. Call it probability or odds or whatever you like. Understand? Good. If I took 24 black ROOKS and 4 white ROOKS and floated them in a bucket of water, reached into the bucket, what would be the odds that I picked a black rook? 24 in 28. Reduced to 6 in 7 or 85.7%. Are you all following me? Good.

Now, when things are NOT equal, probability cannot be used. Allow me to explain. If I were to take a sinker and tie it to those 24 black rooks so they sunk to the bottom, would I still have an 85.7% chance of getting a black rook? NO. They SUNK!! Out of reach. See? Ok. If I were to sit across the chessboard from Vishy ANAND for a 40/120 game, the 2 possible outcomes are that I win or that I lose (let’s forget about the draw for this example). Right? Either I will win or I will lose. So, I have a 50% chance of beating ANAND, right? WRONG. Wait a minute, either I will win (50 percent) or lose (50 percent). Heck, with those odds, I want IN for the next WCC. Do you all see that I (a 1900USCF player) do NOT have a 50% chance of beating Anand? We are NOT equal. His skill FAR exceeds mine. The same can be said for Tiger Woods. He is the only black player on the PGA but is ranked #1 in a sea of white people. How can this be, you ask? There are soooo many whites on tour. A white should have like a 99% chance of being #1.

In conclusion, when whatever it is you are sampling is NOT equal, probability cannot be used, at least not fairly. Imagine if I got to pick 500,000 numbers on the next lottery for $1, I would have a better chance than you at winning. UNFAIR! The simple fact that more men play chess than women has ZERO relevance regarding why a man has ALWAYS occupied the #1 position. ZERO. Do I make myself clear? Good."

well I gues the ratings suggest that

Originally posted by cheater1
Well, there appears to be a few confused individuals left. I educated the others, but I have to try again. I'm here to help. I must reiterate that the total number of people in one group (men) CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT influence the SKILL level of the people in another group (women). It VIOLATES the laws of LOGIC and MATHEMATICS and PROBABILITY and COMMON SENS ...[text shortened]... Numbers and color of skin have NOTHING TO DO WITH SKILL!!!!! Here it is....once again........

You present a logical fallacy (well - one of many). If you accept the emergence of a particularly skilled player as a measurable event - which of course it is - then the laws of probability would indicate that the greater the number of emerging players in any given pool, the greater the likelihood that a particularly skilled player will emerge.

Assume for the sake of argument that 1% of newly emerging players are champion material. Take a pool that consists of (again, for the sake of argument) 10,000 men and 1,000 women, and if the ratio of skilled players to non-skilled players holds true you'll have 100 male champion-class chess players and only 10 female.

Stipulating for a moment that these skill levels are roughly equal and using these figures above, those same laws of probability state that the world champion is ten times more likely to be male than female.

In short - you're not merely wrong, but you're actually wrong in a very offensively silly way. I'm a layman, and I spotted your chicanery. In the furutre, please stop raping the entire field of statistics just to prop up your nonsensical trolling.

The first poster is probably correct, woman are good at multitasking. But when it comes to one thing like chess their brains are not clued up to it. That's why all the great masters aren't called Mary Kasparof or Lilly Fischer. Nothing bad, it's just the way our brains work. We're different in body and minds.

HPHOVERCRAFT, you deserve responding to because I ACTUALLY believe that you believe what you said. Allow me to debunk you.

1) How can a NEWLY emerging player be championship material? That 's what they said about Waitkin, but his poor memory prevented him. Gender aside, the person who is just learning how to move the pieces does NOT have his or her future mysteriously prewritten that they will have a 1% chance of being ranked #1. Pure CRAPOLA!!! "Hey kids, doesn't matter how hard you work or study, it's ALREADY decided, it's ALREADY written, if you're going to be #1 or not." BUNK.

2) You said that, "Stipulating for a moment that these skill levels are roughly equal and using these figures above...." DONT YOU GET IT???? The skills ARE NOT roughly equal. That is the point of my post. THEY are not equal. Male's brains have microevolved to superior levels of SYSTEMATIC ANALYZATION, allowing us to DOMINATE tasks which involve S.A, chess being one of them.

You are correct hovercraft, you are a layman. Sorry for the harsh tone, but I am intolerant towards ignorance. Please take a course of action, as I have, that elevates you from a mere layman, to a scholar.