Good article to publicize chess in Canada

[Zeljko Kitich]

http://torontostandard.com/the-spraw...a-orlova-chess

[Mate Milinkovic]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

when I realized the article was to encourage more girls to play tournament chess I did not want to continue reading the article. However the photo of the cute girl at the start of the article made me stomach the article and read it through to the end.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

when I realized the article was to encourage more girls to play tournament chess I did not want to continue reading the article. However the photo of the cute girl at the start of the article made me stomach the article and read it through to the end.

many people in Canada would say that when they saw that the article was about chess they didn't want to continue reading it, who wants to read about chess?

hopefully that may change in the future with the general public, bit by bit - thanks for doing your part to struggle through the article

[Bob Gillanders]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

Thanks for posting this article. I found Liza's observations about women's chess quite interesting.

Liza Orlova is a great ambassador for chess and I am delighted she has joined our team of volunteers at the Ontario Girls' Chess Championship in Mississauga on May 12th.

See our website for details: www.miltonchess.ca

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

Thanks for posting this article. I found Liza's observations about women's chess quite interesting.

Liza Orlova is a great ambassador for chess and I am delighted she has joined our team of volunteers at the Ontario Girls' Chess Championship in Mississauga on May 12th.

See our website for details: www.miltonchess.ca

When 5 of us were doing the YMCA junior chess program, I was able to invite a graduate student at McMaster to help out with our program. I got to see the difference it made to the girls in our program of having a woman working with them. Unfortunately being a graduate student she didn't have much time to continue her involvement. But while she was there their eyes literally lit up and they seemed to enjoy it more. I've been a believer ever since.

[Mate Milinkovic]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

I dont think there is ever going to be a big turn out of women at chess clubs or chess tournaments. Girls are not as competitve as guys are. They dont care and need chess to satify an inner desire to compete like guys do. I feel the women that try to promote chess for women are really trying to just promote themselves mainly. 90 percent of the girls you see at tournaments are asian or russian women. The rest of the women around the world dont care about chess and I think that is normal and good for the world. The only people that care about this issue are girls that play chess now that want to self promote themselves and guys who play chess because of selfish reasons.

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

The only people that care about this issue are girls that play chess now that want to self promote themselves and guys who play chess because of selfish reasons.

Wow... that escalated quickly!

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

Wow... that escalated quickly!

As I understand it, Mr. Milinkovic is quite young and (at least sometimes) highly opinionated.

Anyone who has ever checked FIDE listings, or perhaps been outside (or even inside) of Canada may have noticed women from all over the world play chess... just not in as high a proportion to men as anyone of either gender might wish for, for the sake of chess in general. To call such a wish 'selfish' on the part of all men who have it is unjustifiably and highly presumptuous.

[edit: Here's a link to a listing of (just the best??) female CFC rated players in Canada, from the CFC website:

http://chess.ca/players?player_searc...e02e168ae3273b

There are 61 names. At least 17 of them may not be either Asian nor Russian.]

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

As I understand it, Mr. Milinkovic is quite young and (at least sometimes) highly opinionated.

Anyone who has ever checked FIDE listings, or perhaps been outside (or even inside) of Canada may have noticed women from all over the world play chess... just not in as high a proportion to men as anyone of either gender might wish for, for the sake of chess in general. To call such a wish 'selfish' on the part of all men who have it is unjustifiably and highly presumptuous.

[edit: Here's a link to a listing of (just the best??) female CFC rated players in Canada, from the CFC website:

http://chess.ca/players?player_searc...e02e168ae3273b

There are 61 names. At least 17 of them may not be either Asian nor Russian.]

I think the problem may be that he's come to the realization that playing chess does not make one appear 'cool' to members of the opposite gender, as perhaps he hoped it would. I for one had to come to that disappointing realization early on in life.

I saw many women and girls playing in FIDE tournaments in Europe - in France and Greece. And TDing tournaments.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

I think the problem may be that he's come to the realization that playing chess does not make one appear 'cool' to members of the opposite gender, as perhaps he hoped it would. I for one had to come to that disappointing realization early on in life.

I saw many women and girls playing in FIDE tournaments in Europe - in France and Greece.

As I stated previously on chesstalk, when I was in Havana for the Capablanca Memorial 2 years ago there were plenty of young female players, from all over Latin America. Perhaps chess being played by a man is 'cool' to female spectators/fans (as well as players) there, at least moreso than in North America (or perhaps Europe generally[?]).

In my old (then non-CFC rated/affiliated) club in Brampton (before I moved back to Ottawa in 1989) there was a Dutch lady who was a member. There was another, older, German woman who joined the club in some years. For Toronto rated events there was at least one well known non-Asian/Russian top female player (a Yugoslav) back then.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

As I stated previously on chesstalk, when I was in Havana for the Capablanca Memorial 2 years ago there were plenty of young female players, from all over Latin America. Perhaps chess being played by a man is 'cool' to female spectators/fans (as well as players) there, at least moreso than in North America (or perhaps Europe generally[?]).

In my old (then non-CFC rated/affiliated) club in Brampton (before I moved back to Ottawa in 1989) there was a Dutch lady who was a member. There was another, older, German woman who joined the club in some years. For Toronto rated events there was at least well known non-Asian/Russian top female player (a Yugoslav) back then.

Serbia has 42 women over 2000 FIDE, including an IM. That's even after many people left after the civil war and a current population of only 7.1 million (est). Compare that to Canada with it's population of 33 million. http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml...=1&country=SRB

Croatia surprisingly only has 18, I thought it would have been more comparable to Serbia. Although that might be explained by a population of only 4.2 million. Still beats Canada by a mile though. http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml...=1&country=CRO

And no we are not Russian.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

Interestingly Russia has only 100 active female players listed, using the link to FIDE that you gave:

http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml...=1&country=RUS

China has just 67. Cuba has 95. Unsurprisingly, Afghanistan has 0.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

Interestingly Russia has only 100 active female players listed, using the link to FIDE that you gave:

http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml...=1&country=RUS

China has just 61. Cuba has 95. Unsurprisingly, Afghanistan has 0.

I believe they only list the top 100 players for each country on the FIDE top lists. You will only get 100 top at most, either men or women. You'll notice that the lowest on the list is 2153. Lots more rated below that, so Russia has more than 100 women over 2000. China has their own games and chess is less popular. Games such as Go or Chinese Chess/Xiangqi (note: this is not Chinese checkers). GO is popular in Japan, Korea and Taiwan as well. I don't think it's possible to make any kind of living playing chess in China; but GO supports a lot of professional players and maybe Xiangqi as well, I'm not sure. As an example, Japan has only 5 players on their list (all rated below my FIDE of 1799); so they either don't play much or they use their own rating system. My guess is they don't play much because their ratings are low and Shogi and GO are the Japanese games. The men have only 45 players and you can get on this list with a 1400 rating. India has only 47 women over 2000, less than Serbia!

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

India has only 47 women over 2000, less than Serbia!

I think you mean India only has 5 more active FIDE rated female players over 2000 than Serbia does.


A note for anyone who hasn't checked out the FIDE link(s) provided above: top lists for active female players, for a nation that has less than 100 names listed, can and do include women rated below 2000 FIDE.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: Good article to publicize chess in Canada

I think you mean India only has 5 more active FIDE rated female players over 2000 than Serbia does.


A note for anyone who hasn't checked out the FIDE link(s) provided above: top lists for active female players, for a nation that has less than 100 names listed, can and do include women rated below 2000 FIDE.

Right you are. :)