All posts tagged: Chess titles

The unstoppable genius of Magnus Carlsen

The unstoppable genius of Magnus Carlsen

Published by Parlour News

By a quirk of fate, the first and last sentence of Magnus Carlsen’s press conference after becoming the World Rapid Champion looked to drive home the same point. He started off by letting the world know that it’s never easy to come into such a tournament and win it. And he ended by sending a touching message to the 14-year-old Yagis Khan Erdogmus, who broke down during the final moments of his loss against the world No.1 on Sunday. And we get it. It is never easy, yet Carlsen has amassed 19 world titles (5 classical, 6 Rapid and 8 Blitz). The greater mystery though isn’t how the Norwegian does it. Rather, why haven’t the rest of the best managed to get a handle on him after so many years. The old days, way before Carlsen, were the age of novelties. New openings were a regular occurrence, positional play was still evolving and the non-availability of chess literature meant that preparation could be a hit-and-miss affair. So experimentation was fair game and even won many …

‘Removing women-only events would kill Women’s Chess’: FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky

‘Removing women-only events would kill Women’s Chess’: FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky

Published by Webster

The debate over the relevance of women-only titles and tournaments in chess has been ongoing for several months, with various grandmasters voicing their opinions. Most recently, FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky defended the continuation of such events, claiming that removing them would deprive women players of critical development opportunities. “If we were to remove all the possibilities to compete in women-only events, if we were to remove the possibility to support travel and so on, I think we would deprive many of these talents of opportunity under a false pretence that we will try to prove that women can grow in open tournaments better than they can by competing in women-only events,” Sutovsky said in an interview on FIDE’s official YouTube channel. According to Sutovsky, while top women players previously reached a rating of 2500 at ages 15-17, today only a few are rated above 2400 by that age. Currently, no female player apart from Hou Yifan has crossed the 2600 mark in recent years. “It is also important to rely on real data and not …

Chess legend Judit Polgar says women’s titles should be abolished: ‘It would not hurt at all, neither women nor men’ | Chess News

Published by Webster

Chess legend Judit Polgar has suggested that women’s titles should be done away with in order to ensure that the “environment and the life of girls and women in chess could change”. One of the strongest female chess players of all time, Judit Polgar is the youngest of the three Polgar sisters (Susan and Sofia being the other two). Judit Polgar was talking about her views on what’s holding back women in chess in a podcast for the New in Chess magazine, hosted by Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam. In 1991, Judit Polgar became a grandmaster at the young age of 15 years and four months, thus breaking the record of the legendary Bobby Fischer, which the American had held since 1958. Judit Polgar then went on to become the first and only woman to ever break into the world’s top 10. There are four specific titles that a female chess player can achieve: Woman Grandmaster (WGM), Woman International Master (WIM), Woman FIDE Master (WFM), Woman Candidate Master (WCM). This is besides the four other titles …