'Chess doesn’t lack women’s talent, it lacks equal investment': Koneru Humpy

PUNE: Women empowerment, smart learning and gender equality are strategic buzzwords at the ongoing fifth leg of the Women’s FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament when stakeholders get ready for a speech or soundbyte. Sometimes mirage glows brighter than the real picture.
Going by hard data, the women in the 64-square game are trailing big time globally. Women’s world No. 1 Hou Yifan can maintain her rating and ranking without playing much. And reigning women’s world champion Ju Wenjun of China is at Elo 2561 well behind the top 350 men players. Less than 10 women in the history of sport have attained Elo strength of 2600. Currently, there are at least 200 men well above Elo 2600. “The practice hours are quite less for women compared to men,” reigning world rapid women’s champion K Humpy told TOI.

One of the participants here, Humpy has been among the world’s top 10 women players for more than 20 years now. “Professionally, men spend more quality time on preparation and build a strong team and all. Women have other responsibilities, especially after marriage and have to spend time on other things,” the 38-year-old said.
Humpy became a mother in 2017 aged 30. For almost two years (Oct 2016 to Aug 2018), she did not play a single classical game, missing also the Chess Olympiad last year for personal reasons and has played only 18 classical games in the last 10 months. She added: “If women are given the same sort of training and similar opportunities, probably the ratio (of disparity in chess strength of men and women) would be reduced.” Currently, there are 80-odd Indian GMs with only Humpy, Harika and Vaishali making the grade among women.

Still, Humpy won’t advocate talented girl players switching to playing open tournaments only in a bid to come out of a protected environment. Proper training and choosing the right tournaments are important, she reiterated. RB Ramesh, coach and mentor of Praggnanandhaa, Vaishali and many others, had told TOI last year: “I don’t see women getting better.
In most of the countries, the older women players are still in the forefront. “Judit Polgar (who decided not to play women-only tournaments, defeated multiple world champions and was a part of the chess elite) cannot be a role model or standard to judge everyone. She has been an exception rather than norm,” he said of the peerless Hungarian. “If we get out of the social obligations — the pressure from parents, peer pressure etc, then we will have a chance to have another Judit Polgar,” Levon Aronian said.
“Unfortunately, it is not quite natural for girls to be extremely isolated and extremely focused on one goal. I think every girl who does that during her youth, either becomes a crazy scientist or very successful entrepreneur. Any girl who is welcomed by her parents to work extremely hard, can become very successful and that applies to chess too,” the Armenian-American GM pointed out. Ramesh slightly differs. “It’s not social. It’s emotional. Women are more emotional than men. And chess tests your emotions a lot.
If you are extremely emotional, you need to be taught about how to deal with conflicting and fluctuating emotions. That is the crux of the issue,” said the coach. “Women are more emotional than men,” Humpy agreed with a smile, “There is no doubt about it.” Ramesh also added that chess ability across genders cannot be seen in isolation. “By nature women are more capable of nurturing other human beings, especially their offspring, than men.” Vaishali offered a firm “No comment” when asked about the disparity between the quality of chess among men and women.
She had recently suggested abolishing women’s chess titles (Woman Grandmaster, Woman International Master etc) and suffered a backlash. India’s former Olympian S Vijayalakshmi, who had qualified for the men’s National ‘A’, said the current generation cannot understand the value of those titles and what they meant during the 1990s. The changing times have not uplifted women’s chess much at the world level. The stagnation has been cloaked behind more polished and better branding.