Judit Polgar is actually the youngest of three sisters and by father is the best chess player of them all. She is no doubt the best woman player of all time and has been in the top elite of grandmaster superstars since the 1990s. It is interesting that she is also the one woman that refuses to play in all women events.
What incident are you talking about when you said that Judit was "cheated" of a victory by Kasparov? I don't remember it.
I'm not going to say anything important about the male/female divide in chess. But chess is very geometrical/spatial and people who are not good at spatial relations will never be great at chess. On the other hand I also think that the same suite of deficits that make boys more likely to be autistic than girls might also attract such boys to chess. This is nothing I can prove, and I surely might be wrong. Just take it as a guess.
I'm not sure if you know but Fischer, in his wandering exile used to stay with the Polgars, in Hungary. The Polgars always said that he was kind and polite when he was with them and they got along well. Then he would give an interview on a radio station and spew anti-semitic and sexist filth and not even consider that he might hurt his hosts. In fact when the Polgars would talk to him about it, he couldn't understand that what he said in public might be offensive to his hosts. Fischer would say something like, "but I wasn't talking about you... how is this hurting you? you are my friends." This could have been manipulation on Fischer's part. Then again his inablity to understand emotions from the other's point of view seems symptomatic.
Jerry
On 5/3/06, ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> wrote:
>
> At around 3/5/06 6:42 pm, Chris Doss wrote:
> >
> > I am possibly the worst chess player in the world.
> > Kasparov could probably defeat me with one pawn
> > against 16 queens. However, as a politician the guy is
> > an idiot. Any day now he will blame Putin for
> > programming Big Blue. ;)
> >
>
> I bet you could beat me at chess with just your king and all my pieces
> ;-). Talking of Kasparov: a while back he said something to the effect
> that women cannot (ever) play as well as men, which he has reversed
> recently. He also cheated young Judit Polgar (17?) of a victory, many
> years ago, though IIRC she recently beat him at speed chess. Another
> Larry Summers like genius Bobby Fisher made similar statements about
> women's abilities in chess. Funny that she became the youngest GM in
> history, beating old Bobby's record ;-).
>
> --ravi
>
> --
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-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
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