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Chess Project - Research on Chess

@krasnaya Thank you for taking part and the comments. I really appreciate that you took so much time and wrote your thoughts. This comments gives me a better view how I will write my research paper.
Interesting questionnaire. If given an ELO rating, gender does not matter for me. However, when asked any question about who is, on average, better at chess: males or females, I will say male. That's backed up by statistics... as an example, the top women chess player's rating brings her at #86 - #89 world rating. As such, I will consider myself having a higher winning chance when faced with a (completely random) female chess player compared to a (completely random) male chess player. Simple statistics.

Similar to a quantitative research I'm doing about student's success in university (a specific program) where gender also plays a role, but then in favor of women!
@SynapticSentinel

"As such, I will consider myself having a higher winning chance when faced with a (completely random) female chess player compared to a (completely random) male chess player. Simple statistics."

And there is a chance that you are terribly wrong and lose the game because you underestimated her ;) I think it's best to treat all chess players equally and with respect.
@xPhilosophusx

Not all chess players are equal in skill, so for that we have an ELO rating. And statistically women have lower ELO ratings than men, so my estimale is logical. This however does not mean that I will think that my opponent is bad since they are female, that logic is flawwed. If anything, their opening tells a lot about chess quality.

If you knew that, for example, people from another city are generally 50 ELO points lower than the people in your city, and a random person from your city plays chess against a random person from the other city, who do you think will win?
"Not all chess players are equal in skill, so for that we have an ELO rating."

Correct, but I would advise people to play the best moves no matter if it is against a low rated or high rated player. Just play the best you can, always. Unless it's a blitz game.

"statistically women have lower ELO ratings than men, so my estimale is logical."

They do as a group, but not as individuals. If you would play 100.000 women vs 100.000 men I would agree.

"If you knew that, for example, people from another city are generally 50 ELO points lower than the people in your city, and a random person from your city plays chess against a random person from the other city, who do you think will win?"

Depends on who of the city plays against who of the other city, of course. I can only estimate the outcome of the city playing against the other city like a club vs. another club, but I can't pick ppl at random and say that they will win bcs they are of a better city.

That's like saying a black men would fail at a chess game against a white one, because more white people learned chess well - and that's nothing but racist, because one individual is more than just a part of a group AKA a person is part of MANY groups. Only one of them is the gender. There are much more important ones. If you consider many factors you can still be wrong, but okay. But only taking gender or race or the origin of someone is not sufficient.

Imagine you randomly picked two and the women has 2500 elo and the men 1900. So who will win?
@SynapticSentinel said (#22):
> I will consider myself having a higher winning chance when faced with
> a (completely random) female chess player compared to a (completely
> random) male chess player. Simple statistics.

Sorry, but: no - and that is also simple statistics. You do not play against a "completely random" opponent, but against a certain one. And this certain player has a certain rating (and, hence, a statistical chance to win against you) and also not a "completely random" one.

This is a - quite common, but nevertheless - fallacy: there is no "statistical chance" for a singular instance. If you throw a brick from the roof of a house the chance that it breaks down in *any* certain fashion is nearly zero. And this is the case too for the way it does finally break down once it hits the ground. But from this you cannot conclude this extremely unlikely occurrence happened because of some supernatural force. You simply cannot examine a singular occurrence with statistical methods.

This is about the same argument some theists use: it is extremely unlikely that the universe is exactly as it is and therefore there must have been a planning intelligence ("god") behind it, so that the universe made life as we know it possible. Such an argument would only hold water if you have a significant number of universes to compare. Since you only have one this is nonsense.

krasnaya
Thank you all for taking part! In nearly 3 days are more than 180 participators :) The questionnaire will be online until end of February :)

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