Despite women accounting for about 85% of recreational Scrabble players, men dominate the elite ranks, with no woman having won a national or World Scrabble Championship. In chess, some believe men excel due to a lack of interest among women, reflected in FIDE data showing a high male percentage at top Elo ratings. The debate continues on whether men are naturally better at chess, with observations of fewer women at various tournament levels.
The GMs and IMs on X all know that men are just naturally better at chess but don’t want to say it. But it’s obvious all the way down. At a Class A or B tournament, there aren’t many women. The one I used to see was homeless. Chess players are weird as a rule. https://t.co/LYo4kRrSAZ
carol hooven piece on why men dominate chess is must read https://t.co/FYouLRRAjg as the father of a brilliant young woman who has been playing competitive chess since 5 the *competitive* part is always the issue. her slower brothers have the killer instinct
Are men better at chess than women? To answer this let's use FIDE Data of almost 450,000 players. Here we see the male percentage steadily near 100% at the highest Elo ratings. It is probably the case that men are better. 🧵 https://t.co/6Z2spxvqzp
Good Economist article on young prodigies. Identifies three characteristics. Strong resemblance to great founders as well: (1) gifted children begin to master a particular discipline – a language, maths or chess – much younger than most (2) this mastery is achieved largely on…
I can explain why men are better at chess without a very long article. For most women - their eyes glaze over in total boredom when they see a chess set. Even more pronounced if they see study materials. Great female chess players are oddities - like boys who play with dolls.
In Scrabble, women account “for about 85% of all recreational players…women should be dominating the elite Scrabble ranks. But they’re not. Instead, men dominate Scrabble’s upper tiers…No woman has ever won a national or World Scrabble Championship.” https://t.co/IGISu2pIvc