Do Women Have a Chance against Men in Chess?

By Peter Zhdanov

“I had rather be the first in this village than second in Rome.”
—Attributed to Julius Caesar by Plutarch, Life of Caesar.

Abstract

FIDE publishes chess rating lists every two month. Even a casual observer will notice that most of the strongest players in the world are male. This article dedicated to the International Women’ Day will partially address another important question: how developed is women’s chess in each particular country? How do the strongest female players compare to their most chess-proficient compatriots?

Methodology

Many criteria can be introduced to define the level of development of women’s chess: what percentage of the registered players is female, what the average rating of female players compared to male is, etc. In this article the idea was to use the official FIDE ratings to analyze the places occupied by the #1 female player of each country in the overall national rankings. The basic assumption behind this approach is that if the country’s environment allows at least one player to succeed, then others might have a chance as well.

Here is an example for Hungary:

1	Leko, Peter	2720
2	Almasi, Zoltan	2719
3	Polgar, Judit	2709
4	Berkes, Ferenc	2682
5	Balogh, Csaba	2664
6	Gyimesi, Zoltan	2652
7	Erdos, Viktor	2631
8	Chernin, Alexander	2614
9	Ribli, Zoltan	2588
10	Acs, Peter	2587

As you can see, the highest-rated female player in Hungary, Judit Polgar, is ranked #3 on the overall national rating list. Similar data has been collected for other chess federations.

Data analysis: the findings

Detailed statistics on the ratings of top female chess players in each country as compared to male players is provided below [w-rank = world female rank (active players); n-rank = national rank (all players)]:

No	Country	Player	rating	w-rank	n-rank
1	Hungary	Judit Polgar	2709	1	3
2	China	Hou Yifan	2639	2	6
3	India	Koneru Humpy	2589	3	8
4	Slovenia	Anna Muzychuk	2583	4	3
5	Georgia	Nana Dzagnidze	2559	5	12
6	Ukraine	Kateryna Lahno	2546	7	42
7	Russia	Nadezhda Kosintseva	2535	9	104
8	Bulgaria	Antoaneta Stefanova	2531	10	12
9	France	Marie Sebag	2512	12	30
10	USA	Anna Zatonskih	2511	13	40
11	Lithuania	Viktoria Cmilyte	2497	17	7
12	Poland	Monika Socko	2493	18	30
13	Qatar	Zhu Chen	2490	19	3
14	Sweden	Pia Cramling	2481	24	15
15	Armenia	Elina Danielian	2478	25	23
16	Turkey	Ekaterina Atalik	24754	26	8
17	Austria	Eva Moser	2460	30	7
18	Greece	Elena Dembo	2460	31	13
19	Germany	Elizabeth Paehtz	2459	32	83
20	Mongolia	Batkhuyag Munguntuul	2451	35	3
21	Scotland	Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant	2434	47	5
22	Romania	Corina-Isabela Peptan	2420	49	42
23	Spain	Olga Alexandrova	2419	51	77
24	Singapore	Li Ruofan	2419	52	7
25	Slovakia	Eva Repkova	2416	55	12
26	Netherlands	Peng Zhaoqin	2405	64	60
27	England	Jovanka Houska	2396	69	58
28	Serbia	Natasa Bojkovic	2395	71	102
29	Peru	Deysi Cori T.	2386	76	14
30	Ecuador	Martha Fierro	2380	81	7
31	Cuba	Oleyni Linares Napoles	2366	95	71
32	Argentina	Carolina Lujan	2364	99	89
33	Montenegro	Jovana Vojinovic	2356	105	24
34	Vietnam	Thi Bao Tram Hoang	2356	107	18
35	Italy	Elena Sedina	2353	111	49
36	Indonesia	Irine Kharisma Sukandar	2349	117	21
37	Belarus	Nastassia Ziazulkina	2343	127	43
38	Iran	Atousa Pourkashian	2343	129	23
39	Belgium	Anna Zozulia	2342	130	26
40	Luxembourg	Elvira Berend	2337	139	5
41	Uzbekistan	Nafisa Muminova	2327	151	28
42	Azerbaijan	Gulnar Mammadova	2324	154	47
43	Israel	Masha Klinova	2321	162	110
44	Latvia	Laura Rogule	2317	168	36
45	Czech Republic	Kristyna Havlikova	2312	180	141
46	Croatia	Valentina Golubenko	2297	206	130
47	Iceland	Lenka Ptacnikova	2289	225	40
48	Kazakhstan	Guliskhan Nakhbayeva	2276	246	87
49	Australia	Arianne Caoili	2269	262	52
50	Norway	Ellen Hagesaether	2265	273	77
51	Colombia	Aura Cristina	2262	282	58
52	Moldova	Svetlana Petrenko	2250	320	44
53	Estonia	Valeriya I. Gansvind	2246	331	44
54	Finland	Johanna Paasikangas-T.	2230	366	108
55	Brazil	Vanessa Feliciano Ebert	2226	377	165
56	Venezuela	Sarai Sanchez Castillo	2219	403	40
57	Switzerland	Barbara Hund	2209	431	172
58	Denmark	Nina Hoiberg	2209	435	206
59	Philippines	Chardine Cheradee Camacho	2190	499	156
60	Lebanon	Knarik Mouradian	2185	520	13
61	Portugal	Catarina Leite	2165	583	63
62	Albania	Astrit Zimberi	2161	592	28
63	Bangladesh	Akter Liza Shamima	2160	595	38
64	Iraq	Iman Hasan M. Al-Rufaye	2159	604	67
65	Canada	Natalia Khoudgarian	2158	609	251
66	Myanmar	May Hsett Lwin	2152	641	69
67	El Salvador	Lorena Zepeda	2130	748	18
68	Egypt	Khaled Mona	2125	772	177
69	Bermuda	Zuzana Kovacova	2123	787	6
70	Mexico	Yadira Hernandez Guerrero	2120	800	227
71	Uruguay	Camila Colombo	2102	892	52
72	Macedonia	Gabriela Koskoska	2094	950	136
73	Dominican Rep.	Eneida Perez	2083	1021	71
74	Bolivia	Daniela Cordero	2082	1023	67
75	Wales	Jane Richmond	2074	1082	66
76	Chile	Emilia Larrachea Formas	2061	1156	349
77	South Africa	Melissa Greeff	2059	1170	55
78	Algeria	Amina Mezioud	2053	1209	84
79	Paraguay	Gabriela Vargas	2043	1280	44
80	Tajikistan	Marvorii Nasriddinzoda	2033	1344	22
81	Malaysia	Nur Shazwani Zullkafli	2032	1352	109
82	Turkmenistan	Govher Jorayewa	2029	1368	97
83	New Zealand	Sue Maroroa	2026	1389	96
84	Puerto Rico	Tammy Segara Choe	2006	1548	50
85	Costa Rica	Carolina Munoz	1995	1646	92
86	Jamaica	Deborah Richards	1989	1704	29
87	Nicaragua	Ana Daniela Madrigal	1974	1814	71
88	Jordan	Natalie Fuad	1970	1851	84
89	UAE	Nora MohdSaleh	1944	2084	105
90	Sri-Lanka	S D Ranasinghe	1914	2321	102
91	Ireland	Poornima Menon Jayadev	1904	2403	171
92	Monaco	Julia Label-Arias	1897	2455	24
93	Angola	Maria Conceicao Venancio	1867	2756	37
94	Cyprus	Christianna Markidou	1846	2935	36
95	Faroe Islands	Herborg Hansen	1844	2963	59
96	Thailand	Chanida Taweesupmun	1826	3134	78
97	Surinam	Ekaterina Naipal	1821	3179	23
98	Japan	Emiko Nakagawa	1806	3299	87
99	Panama	Yaribeth Gonzalez	1804	3321	44
100	Trinidad & Tobago	Aditi Soondarsingh	1772	3617	61
101	Malta	Oana Pulpan	1769	3645	45
102	Yemen	Mada Elshereif	1740	3902	69
103	Barbados	Corinne Howard	1721	4112	52
104	Macao	Xiaoyu Xu	1707	4223	20
105	South Korea	Yoomi Lee	1636	4945	48
106	Andorra	Diana Da Rocha Soares	1614	5152	41
107	Palau	Angie Parrado	1551	5681	18
108	Mozambique	Josefa Mendes Lucas	1548	5705	9
109	Aruba	Zaily M. Arbona Avila	1545	5722	12
110	Honduras	Rosa Daniela Ortiz	1538	5765	40
111	Chinese Taipei	Mi Wang	1533	5799	29
112	Libya	Inas Emhemed	1523	5870	51
113	Bahrain	Ishwaryaa Lakshminaryanan	1509	5976	31

Here are some statistics:

Not a single female player is #1 in her country overall. The relative best results belong to: GM Judit Polgar (2709, #3 in Hungary), GM Anna Muzychuk (2583, #3 in Slovenia), GM Zhu Chen (2490, #3 in Qatar), IM Batkhuyag Munguntuul (2451, #3 in Mongolia).
27/141 (19.1%) chess federations don’t have any female FIDE-rated players.
15/141 (10.6%) federations have a female player who belongs to the top-10 of all players in the country. In other words, only in 10.6% of the chess federations a woman has a tangible chance to play for the main national team. Of course, this is a very optimistic estimate, because only 5 players actually make it to representing the country.
47/141(33.3%) federations have a female player rated from #11 to #50 in the country.
32/141(22.7%) federations have a female player rated from #51 to #100 in the country.
19/141 (13.5%) federations have a female player rated from #101 to #349 (Chile) in the country.
1/141 (0.7%): at the time of this writing (March 9th, 2012) no data was available on the ratings of Botswana’s players.

Date source: http://ratings.fide.com/

It is worth noting that this data offers an interesting insight on how successful women’s chess is in each particular country relatively (compared to men’s chess), not absolutely (compared to women from other countries). For example, Russia is usually rated #1 on both the overall top countries list and on the top countries (women) list. In March 2012 China has overtaken the #1 spot on the women’s rankings. More importantly, the highest-rated Russian female chess player, Nadezhda Kosintseva, is ranked only #104 on the national rating list, while Hou Yifan is rated #6 in China. This demonstrates that, while being among the strongest on the world female rankings, Russian women are relatively weak chess-wise in comparison with their male compatriots.

Conclusion

The study proves once again that women are strongly underrepresented in chess at the top levels. 19.1% of the chess federations (nearly every fifth) do not have any FIDE-rated female players. In 70.2% of the federations women are rated #11-#349 in the country, thus basically having no chance to compete for the supreme national title, or even play for the national team. Only 10.6% of the countries have a truly powerful female player ranked #3-#10 on the overall rating list.

About the author

Peter Zhdanov is an IT project manager, debate expert and author of two books on parliamentary debate, BSc in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science and final year PhD student in Sociology.

In chess Peter is a Russian candidate master, author, husband and manager of grandmaster Natalia Pogonina.

Copyright Zhdanov/ChessBase

Previous articles on the subject

Do men and women have different brains?
30.06.2009 – In a recent thought-provoking article WGM Natalia Pogonina and Peter Zhdanov presented their views on the topic of why women are worse at chess than men. A number of our readers were unconviced: they think that efforts at "explaining" differences between the sexes only from environmental factors are doomed at the outset. Recent studies seem to support this. Feedback and articles.

Women and men in chess – smashing the stereotypes
20.06.2009 – On June 5, 2009 WGM Natalia Pogonina and Peter Zhdanov got married – she a Women's Grandmaster, he a successful IT-specialist and debate expert. Peter is also Natalia’s manager, together they are writing a book called "Chess Kamasutra". Today they share with us their views on the perennial topic why women are worse at chess than men, and take a look at the future of women’s chess.

Congratulations to Natalia and Peter, the new chess couple
10.06.2009 – He had read about her in chess magazines and websites. In August 2008 they met at the Tal Memorial. Peter Zhdanov and Natalia Pogonina played some blitz, and a new friendship was born, which eventually blossomed into love and led to a marriage between the two young Russian chess players. They are currently working on an extraordinary book, one you are not going to want to miss.

Gender differences in chess – feedback and a new theory
30.01.2012 – We recently told you about a report on the gender differences in chess – why it is that there is just one woman in the top 100 players in the world, and just 2.2 percent in the top 1000, according to the FIDE rating list. Naturally we received a large number of more or less adamant opinions from our readers, which we now share with you, together with a pet idea of our own.

Gender differences in chess
09.01.2012 – A new and very commendable women's live rating list of top players is being maintained by the Russian chess news portal ChessPro. Fired by this list we did a little additional research to find out how many female players there are in the top 100 and top 1000. What would you estimate? And what are the possible reasons for the superiority of males in certain intellectual activities? Latest research.

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