Chess: Hungarian Legend Rejects British Master’s Rude Remarks On Women
- 27 Apr 2015 9:00 AM
The world’s most successful female player, now retired, Judit Polgár told Reuters that her career was proof that British chess master Nigel Short was wrong when he claimed women were inferior at the game. Nigel Short has made a bad opening gambit by saying that, insists the former Hungarian grandmaster, who has defeated Short eight times to three. Nigel Short set off a flurry of controversy this month when he told ‘New in Chess’ magazine that men make better chess players than women because they have “different skills”.
He later told Sky News that women were better at a number of things, including better verbal skills, but that the gap in chess was “quite large and I believe that’s down to sex differences”. Looking to defend himself from charges of sexism, Nigel Short said the facts spoke for themselves. ”Of the top 100 chess players, 98 are men,” he wrote in a tweet on April 20, adding that that number would rise to 99 when Polgár falls off the list in August.
“When we had equal conditions, I could compete with the best male players in the world, as a woman, with the proper amount of work, determination, talent and fire needed for fighting,” Polgár told Reuters in an e-mailed response to questions.
Judit Polgár has beaten 10 male world chess champions and, according to the chess database chessgames.com, beat Short eight times while losing three games to him, with five draws. ”In thinking, men and women are indeed different, but you can achieve the same goal of thinking differently, fighting in a different style, from a different direction,” she said.
Source: hungarytoday.hu
Republished with permission
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