Are Men Really Better At Chess Than Women?

The top 80 world ratings are all men but how is this possible? I know women have a disadvantage in physical sports because of biological differences but chess is a mental sport

I'm not entirely sure, it's probably a combination of several factors. Most of this is just speculation, so don't take it too seriously - these are just my possible ideas:

-Women see that tournaments are almost entirely dominated by men, and that discourages them from competing in future tournaments, especially if they experienced any sexism (I don't know how often that happens, but it almost certainly does happen to some people)

-In more traditional cultures women are expected to be housewives and will not get as many opportunities to seriously train and become better at chess.

-Women are encouraged to pursue women's titles and championships (like being a WGM or being the best woman in a particular region) rather than being encouraged to pursue the more general titles. 

I remember Hou Yifan talked a bit about the difference between men's and women's chess, here's the link if that interests you https://www.chess.com/article/view/hou-yifan-interview-chess

I suspect that the main reason is simple statistics.

Assume that women have about the same aptitude for the game as men, on average.

Assume that about ten times as many men play in rated events.

Both men and women will follow a roughly gaussian distribution (a bell curve) in rating.

The men's curve, being the same shape as the women's curve but ten times larger, will extend much further in both directions, high and low.

So there will be many more male chess geniuses, but also many more male chess idiots.

The idiots will mostly get discouraged and find a different hobby. The geniuses will stay.

This is just a rehash of another locked thread. No, men are not “just better” and I think Blue Emu got it right. Women make up like 2-3% of players, so of course there will be fewer women at the higher levels.

Or we could ask Nigel Short. What’s his record against Judit again?

https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/top-female-chess-players-of-all-time-611389

i hope this changes your mind @Oakus

No, many men are not are not 'better' than some women.

It only seems that way as the best player, Magnus Carlsen, is a man. The 'most known' (or so called) chess players are mostly men. This doesn't means if you're a man you're definitely going to beat Judit Polgar in two seconds (or three.)

There are really good women chess players out there, so many men have no chance. Only a few women are actually in the higher level of chess.

who said men are better? if this wasnt just an online forum id actually be quite offended by that. In fact there are many females that have obtained the WGM title which is the equivalent to the male GM title. its not easy to reach such a high level, less than 0.1% of total players will get this good. Women are just as good as men, if not better. Judit Polgar proved that women can fight with men on equal terms and she even beat Kasparov once.

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/22/middleeast/chess-yifan-hou/index.html

”Or we could ask Nigel Short. What’s his record against Judit again?”

“Women are just as good as men, if not better“

Polgar is the by far greatest woman chess player ever though, while no one would rank Short among the greatest among the men. Polgar scored +0-22=14 in her 36 classical games against Kramnik and Kasparov. Carlsen only faced her very early in his career, with a draw in 2007 and wins in 2008 and 2012.

Among the juniors, born 2000 or later, the highest rated girls are in the 2400s while the highest rated boys are in the 2700s. For various reasons the best men play much better chess than the best women, and no new Polgar seems to be in sight. The highest rated girl is 20-year-old Abdumalik (2478), while Firouzja still is 16 years old and rated 2728.

I have a statistical question.

Given your assumptions, simple logic would suggest there are about 9 or 10 women in the world's top-100 players.

But is this logic correct? Or does the distribution of the two curves lead to a different statistical outcome?

GM is not a male title.

WGM is not equivalent to GM. 

GM Hou Yifan would be offended on both counts if this weren't just an online topic. 

Why does WGM even exist?

the physical aspect of chess seems hard to spot for anybody asking this type of question or supporting the idea that there is no physical aspect.

you could research the first 1984 Karpov kasparov world championship match, which was abandoned due to the physical aspect to save Karpov.

Judits games against Kasparov and Kramnik are irrelevant because Nigel said “women don’t have the brain for chess.”

He said sexist stuff, and then has a losing record against Judit.

They stopped it because the soviets (all behind Karpov) were scared. Although Karpov did lose weight, he wanted to continue.

If there is an actual biological limitation, how could Polgar could get past 2700 fide to begin with?

In physical sports the difference between male and female GOAT is absolutely huge. In chess we don't observe that.

that was definitely thoughtful ..... not many would have seen that one coming.

lol

An original topic that's never been discussed before...

Girls can be equally strong as boys. Im not saying they always are, but ive lost quite a few games to girls at school tournaments myself. I just watched Alexandra Botez win a bullet match against Eric Rosen, and bullet chess is quite a physical type of chess, no one should underestimate it. Of course Botez was given queen odds, but that seems fair given that shes 200 pts lower rated. She won that match fair and square and Eric Rosen admitted it. There are many more instances of men losing to women. Everybody please stop being sexist and accept women and men are equal no matter what discipline you pick. I can imagine millions of people tuning in to watch an official WC match between Magnus Carlsen and Hou Yifan, maybe they could come up with some system to give Hou a winning chance, like 2h to 30min time odds, or Magnus playing blindfolded. Nigel Short is just bitter and disrespectful cause he has a bad score against female players.