#fide

[dduane]

"UK MP Angela Eagle, who was a joint winner of the 1976 British Girls' Under-18 chess championship, said: 'There is no physical advantage in chess unless you believe men are inherently more able to play than women - I spent my chess career being told women's brains were smaller than men's and we shouldn't even be playing.

"'This ban is ridiculous and offensive to women,’ she added.”

[crossdreamers]

"Transphobes believe women are inferior to men in general"

TizzyEnt gives a great explanation of how the International Chess Federation's ban of transgender women proves that such anti-trans policies are not about protecting women.

In the video he quotes Kate Montogomerie, who writes:

"In banning trans women from chess the insane anti-trans lobby has fully revealed their hand. They don't just believe that sex is a non-material immutable binary, they also think that women are intellectually inferior. Which is what we've been saying they believe from the start. ... "To a transphobe there is a supernatural order. Men first, women second. Women are inferior in body and mind. And that cannot be changed, no matter what physical or social changes one undergoes. Because if it could be changed then that hierarchy falls apart. It threatens order."

See also our article on FIDE banning trans women and punishing trans men.

[russnightlife]

This is why FIDE's ban on transgender players is not only insane, but reflective of an ongoing contempt for women in FIDE.

Here's one big takeaway from this essay: women don't have separate chess tournaments because they are not as good as men. They have separate chess tournaments because they do not want to be harassed and assaulted at chess tournaments. Some of the most successful male players are serial assaulters, and FIDE does... nothing.

[sammypofficial]

not sure if it has been posted on here but FIDE are a fucking disgrace

[ksenka-zarazka]

i would like to make an announcement - arkadiy dvorkovich, being russian, is a little bitch x2.

thank you.

[euchreiade]

FIDE : We will not act to curb the harassment that women, cis and trans, face in the chess world.

Everyone with sense : Go fuck yourself, FIDE.

FIDE : But we will ban trans women from women's tournaments and do nothing to prevent harassment to follow the bandwagon, knowing that will rally the extremely conservative male board and will give TERFs the illusion that we are being noble saviours of the patriarchal gender binary by further isolating trans women from the sport. And we will litterally not be doing anything about harassment.

TERFs : HELL YEAH! FIDE'S FINALLY FIGHTING FOR WOMEN BY ???

[omogolonkwe247]

League division - Chess.com

New Chess levels lets go!!

[paulgadzikowski]

[thatstormygeek]

So, uh. This is a fucking mess. TIL there are gendered chess competitions. Trans men will be "stripped" of their titles (women's titles, I guess) post-transition and trans women can keep their "male" titles, but won't be able to compete as women? And, once again, nonbinary folks are just...smoke? We don't exist anywhere.

[carolyn-magazine]

Seriously?!

Chess?!

This is incredibly ridiculous and insulting! I've been a fan of chess since I was a child and never thought I would be addressing this issue.

1) Trans women are banned from playing until "further analysis" is done, which could take up to two years (because they think you're male and superior to females...basically, saying it would be an unfair advantage).

2) Trans women will not have any titles taken away prior to transitioning (again, because they think you're male and superior to females).

3) Trans men will have titles taken away that were won prior to transitioning (because they think you're female and inferior and don't deserve the titles).

On a more positive note, the article states chess stars across the world have spoken out against FIDE's new policies, saying they will bring unnecessary harm to transgender competitors.

"The new regulations will make trans chess players all over the world face a horrible dilemma: transition or quit chess," professional chess player Yosha Iglesias wrote on X."

I have to Blaze 🔥 this post...and if tumblr denies it, they're buttheads.

[crossdreamers]

The real champion of the chess board is a transgender woman!

Laura Amalasunta wrote over at Mastodon:

Trans women have a biological advantage at chess because we know how to go a long distance as a vulnerable little piece that everyone is always threatening in order to become a queen

To which Andrew responded with this comic:

For those who are not familiar with chess: This is called" "queening".

When a white or black pawn reaches its promotion square, players can exchange it for a queen, the most powerful piece in a chess game, of their respective color. This type of promotion is known as “queening the pawn” or “queening.”

See also:

“Transphobes believe women are inferior to men in general”

The International Chess Federation’s new transphobic policy is beyond belief

[lejournaldupeintre]

FIDE bans transgenders from Women events

In a move that is sure to cause a significant stir, FIDE announced that it would be setting restrictions on transgenders participating in official FIDE Women events, specifying that any such restrictions pertain exclusively to man to women transgenders. These regulations come into effect on August 21. Regardless of one’s thoughts on this, the physical disparity between men and women is not in…

[vocalwarrior24]

[journeysendinlovers]

The official first game Women's World Chess Championship begins in approximately 2 hours! Very exciting for me as a new player who thoroughly enjoyed Nepo-Ding and all the emotion and fanfare and drama that came with it. But I couldn't help but notice: there is a distinct lack of promotion for the women's chess championship on FIDE's part. In some form this could be blamed on general inadequacy; FIDE struggled to even bill a location for the 2023 men's championship until the 11th hour and the event itself was. Not the most glorious, to put it lightly. It was to the point that they were being questioned by members of the chess media about if the event was even going to happen until the announcements were made. So it could be as simple as a bumbling organization doing their inevitable dropping of the ball on a prestigious event that will go on to be great for chess in spite of them. But do you want to know what the CEO of FIDE thought was smart to post this morning?

Encouraging people to shit on the women's world championship HOURS after the opening ceremony (which they did NOT make available to stream online either btw) is on its own, clear misogyny on the part of FIDE's highest ranking official, but it actually gets worse.

The WWCC does not yet have an official website. We are HOURS away from the first move.

There are two players billed to commentate the games: GM Alik Gershon (1994 under 14 world champion) and GM Xu Yi (world #716 of all players). No offense to these accomplished players, but neither of them are recognizable chess players to even dedicated viewers and neither are competitive globally. By contrast: the official FIDE stream for the men's championship featured GM Irina Krush (former US women's chess champion) and GM Daniil Dubov (2018 world rapid chess champion, currently ranked 28th of all players). As pointed out by twitter user @ChessProblem, the chess dot com commentary team is comparatively stacked: GM Judit Polgar (former world chess championship candidate, former world 8th ranked player, former women's 1st ranked player for 25 years consecutively, considered the GOAT of women's chess), GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (former women's world chess champion, women's world rapid chess champion, swiss national champion, both open and women's, Russian women's national champion), IM Jovanka Houska (9 time British women's chess champion)

I'm not (yet) a competitive women's player, and I am probably never going to reach the level of any of the players I've mentioned here, but if I was a younger women's player earning my norms and excited about this championship match, I think I would be equally if not more frustrated than I am right now. This is embarrassing, but women in chess unfortunately know all too well how FIDE rolls.

In fact, Susan Polgar, Judit's older sister called out FIDE for refusing to give her her final norm for years because of the misogyny of FIDE as she was on pace to break the record set by Bobby Fischer for youngest person to reach the status of grandmaster (GM), a record eventually broken by Judit. Unfortunately this year, there's a continuation of a long and awful trend in FIDE of treating women in chess as inherently weaker and less interesting players and it frustrates me as a woman player, especially as a trans player.

However, if like me you want to watch the match you can watch it here:

enjoy chess!

[nemhiszlekelvilag]

egymás után jött a kettő poszt, egyben jobb

[politrixter]

World Champion Magnus Carlsen takes on Cheating in Chess (not Hans Niemann!)

Chess just became mainstream. Sadly, it did not do so all on its own, “drama’ followed suit.

Magnus Carlsen, the current reigning world champion since 2013, ‘insinuated’ by an unprecedented withdrawal from an ongoing tournament and a cryptic tweet that his opponent the 19-year old American grandmaster Hans Moke Niemann is not exactly as he seems… and the latter seems to be on a crusade to prove to anyone who is listening that he is the reincarnation of Bobby Fischer, only better.

GM Niemann admitted to have cheated “only online, and never otb” (otb: chess lingo for ‘over the board’) and only twice, the very two times when he was caught at ages of 12 and 16, and never in-between or never after. A very unlucky cheater, indeed.

In the ongoing online tournament, Magnus Carlsen faced Hans Niemann as black and after two moves… Carlsen resigned. Yeah, no shit.

For people who are not aware of who Magnus Carlsen really is and what chess means to him… please watch this video at your leisure.

Magnus Carlsen has nothing to gain by what he is doing and he is doing this for what he actually loves - the game of chess.

There are people who have called him a lot of names including “unsportsmanlike”, but what he has really done is to take on a huge responsibility of doing what many have had wanted to be able to do. He is trying to undo something several have exploited, and many have let pass for their own convenience - cheating in chess.

May be Magnus Carlsen is doing this for all the career chess professionals who survive on talent, hard work, and dedication alone - who are cheated against, whose confidence get destroyed because while they suspect they are playing a machine they can’t always prove it, whose careers are put on the line and is the price they have to pay.

This cannot go on.

FIDE director general, Emil Sutovsky was quoted saying:

But may be the system does need to be broken down, and rebuild. Because the primary objective should be to protect the real players and not penalize them for their integrity. Because past instances bear examples that the current system seems to think a slap on the wrist is sufficient to allow a known cheater come back and play in titled tournaments.

May be the organizers should swallow their gigantic egos, loosen the purse strings, and strive to do better.

May be there should be a system put in place that assesses phenomenal rises, uncharacteristic behaviors, and frankly, the opinions of the few top chess players in the world (who are capable, definitely not all GMs qualify).

Because the best chess players often can know after a while when they are playing a human and when it is a computer.

May be if the system took responsibility, Magnus Carlsen wouldn’t have had to resort to these passive aggressive “vigilante” methods to make his point, to try and right a wrong.

Chess is not “just a game”, it is a passion and a career for many and it is time that “the system” awarded integrity and talent. And not those who has hidden access to Stockfish with a higher processing power.

P.S. If it isn’t obvious, this author considers HMN to be cheating. For every nitpicks, several points have not been addressed, but they might be in subsequent posts.

P.P.S. Finally, if chess values its “child prodigies” so much - if becoming a GM or a titled player, access to elite tournaments, earning money in chess has no age limit then no one is exempt from the penalties of cheating in chess, simply because “he is just a kid” either. No one talks about the careers, the minds that are affected, ruined even, in the wake of the havoc wrecked by a cheater. Chess is not just a game, it is somebody’s life and livelihood.