FIDE CEO roasts Vaishali, Judit Polgar’s ‘women’s chess’ views: ‘Important to rely on real data and not on some hype…’
FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky weighed in on banning women-only tournaments, something which has been supported by Vaishali Rameshbabu and Judit Polgar.
Vaishali Rameshbabu courted controversy recently, when she admitted that women titles should be abolished in chess, and supported legend Judit Polgar’s views from the past. Polgar, one of the greatest chess GMs in history, stopped taking part in women-only events during her career due to a lack of competition.
Meanwhile, Vaishali had stated that women titles like WGM and WIM should be removed completely, as it could inspire more women to compete directly for GM titles.
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Speaking on YouTube, FIDE CEO and also a GM, weighed in on the opinion and disagreed with Vaishali and Polgar’s views. He pointed out that Elo rating for the highest-ranked female players has been decreasing over the years, so women-only events make sense for competition and improvement.
“In spite of all the efforts and increase in prize money, we have biggest gap for 15 years or so. If previously we had top female players at age of 15,16 and 17 reaching 2500, today we have just a couple of players above 2400 at the age of 17 or 18,” he said.
“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, I think, 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.
“Once again, never restricting, but any women player should have a chance to compete and excel in girls-only or women-only events. But, of course, also to provide an opportunity to play in open events and compete on par with the best.”
‘Important to rely on real data’: FIDE CEO
Sutovsky also felt that such decisions by FIDE should be made on the basis of date and on personal opinion, taking an indirect dig at Vaishali and Polgar.
“It is also important to rely on real data and not on some hype or some opinion, which is not based on anything rather than personal beliefs or dreams. It cannot work like that,” he said.
Vaishali became a GM in 2024, and has a peak rating of 2506. He will be participating in the upcoming Norway Chess, along with the likes of Koneru Humpy.
