What is being done to get more women into chess?

Chess is a game prided on the fairness of its rules, which give both players equal opportunities. So why is it that women compose only 15% of tournament chess players?

Many of the game’s leading minds have tried to answer this question. Most notably, British grandmaster and former World Championship contender Nigel Short received media backlash in 2015 after claiming that men are “hardwired” to be better at the game than women.

It is worth noting however that although women have been shown to exhibit higher risk aversion and lower competitiveness, potentially due to differences in testosterone levels, there is no evidence to suggest this affects chess performance.

Women’s Grandmaster and YouTuber Dina Belenkaya said: "When it comes to chess, there are no biological differences between men and women.

"A lot of it comes down to physical shape and being able to control your emotions.

"So, for example, a woman who is physically fit will have an advantage against a man who is unfit, because you have to sit there for around six hours during a match and your brain needs to be active."

Women's Grandmaster Dina Belenkaya (Credit: Paul Meyer-Dunker at Wikimedia Commons - licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Women's Grandmaster Dina Belenkaya (Credit: Paul Meyer-Dunker at Wikimedia Commons - licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

The biggest testament to this is Hungary’s Judit Polgár, who is generally considered to be the strongest female chess player of all time. Polgár, who was ranked eighth in the world at her peak, was tutored in chess by her father from age three alongside her two sisters who also achieved great success at the game.

Although Polgár retired in 2015, she is still the only woman to have broken into the world’s top 10. Of the 1826 active grandmasters, only 42 are women - just 2.3%. Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can receive (apart from World Champion), and is awarded for reaching an international rating of 2500 and achieving favourable results (called norms) from at least 27 tournament games.

"We are capable of the same fight as any man. It’s not a matter of gender, it’s a matter of being smart."

Judit Polgár

Image credit: Stefan64 at Wikimedia Commons - licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Short’s comments were not the first of their kind. Former World Champion Bobby Fischer, who won his title in 1972, said in an interview that women are “terrible chess players”.

Given the prevalence of these views, many argue that the gender divide in chess is the result of a sexist and unwelcoming culture that deters women from playing the game.

To combat this, there are initiatives working to make chess more welcoming to women.

The Women in Chess Foundation is a non-profit organisation set up last year after Women’s Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade and eight other female chess players accused Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez of sexual assault. Ramirez is currently being investigated by the United States Chess Federation, the national governing body for chess in the US.

The Foundation aims to create a safer and more inclusive environment for women at chess tournaments, while promoting women's chess to further the game.

As part of this, The Foundation runs its Advocates Initiatives which sees it provides independent advocates at chess tournaments to create a safer environment and offer support to anybody who needs it.

Advocates are trained to identify and address potential safety issues, in addition to providing emotional support and guidance to players who may be experiencing harassment or discrimination. The Foundation has trained more than 100 advocates and this year worked with the European Chess Union to train advocates in every one of its member states.

Co-founder of The Women in Chess Foundation Emilia Castelao said: “We have been able to have a big impact by showing women that there is an organisation out there that is looking out for them exclusively and this has inspired women to want to stay in the chess world despite everything that's going on.

“We are paving the way for the younger generations to come up and have the environment that they deserve when it comes to playing chess.

“Obviously we're hoping to expand and definitely aiming to make more of a direct impact.

“What that looks like for us is really supporting women at chess tournaments and making sure that young girls who might be disadvantaged, whether it be financially or geographically, have access to quality coaching.”

Castelao explained that male allyship and support from chess’ international governing body, The International Chess Federation (FIDE), is important to create a safer environment for women.

She said: “The support I would like to see from them (FIDE) when it comes to the safety aspect is really a revision of policy.

“In my ideal world, that would come from the top down and would set a baseline standard for how we would address misconduct like sexual harassment or sexual assault, and they would have a designated committee that's separate from the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission to deal with those types of cases.

“I would love for that to be replicated on a national level so we have all of those systems working together in order to address women's concerns and instances of misconduct.”

Last year FIDE made the controversial decision to ban transgender women from competing in women's chess tournaments. Under the ban, players who have transitioned from male to female are not allowed to participate in women's events. They can still compete in open tournaments.

Castelao said: "That really says a lot about how they want the international community to view trans people and I think that it is a very negative development for the sport."

In a statement to CNN, FIDE said the policy was created in order to better define the processes involved when a player changes gender.

The statement said: “The absence of such regulations caused ambiguity and therefore an established order was needed to provide the right of the transgender players being properly represented on the official register of FIDE.”

Women in Chess Foundation logo (Credit: Women in Chess Foundation)

Castelao playing chess against three girls (Credit: Klaas Jan van der Weij)

Reigning Women's World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun wearing a Women in Chess Foundation t-shirt (Credit: Klaas Jan van der Weij)

Another initiative trying to get more girls to play chess is the UK non-profit organisation She Plays to Win which was founded by International Master and current England International Women’s Chess Coach Lorin D’Costa.

D’Costa founded the project in April 2020 after noticing that not many girls in England were playing chess.

He said: “I am one of the key coaches in England who teaches most of the top girls in a lot of girls' schools and I noticed that this is an area which needs some help.

“I always noticed that the girls I was teaching were doing quite well but they were in a minority, you know, we're talking about junior school kids aged under 11.

“I was trying to encourage them to go to tournaments but they would tell me that there are not many girls there and it can be quite daunting playing against boys.”

As D’Costa started the project during the COVID pandemic, he decided to give lessons to girls over Zoom for free.

“I basically emailed all the parents of the girls I was teaching in schools.

“It has just grown from there really. There were not even 100 people on my list when we started and now we have about 1,500.”

According to 2023 membership data from the English Chess Federation, only 8.4% of registered chess players in England are female. D’Costa explained that because many girls stop playing chess after the age of 12, the project aims to encourage participation at secondary school and university age.

“The focus is on trying to create a community of girls. If you are a 14-year-old girl and you go to a chess tournament, it is like 98% men and 2% women, and that is hardly appealing when a girl can go and spend time with her friends or go to the cinema instead.

“That is why we have got to create a community and a social bridge for the girls so that they play chess not just because they like it but also because their friends will be there.

“If we can get to a point where it is like 30 girls out of 100 at a tournament, then more girls are going to want to play chess.”

She Plays to Win fielded four teams in the 2023/2024 season of the Four Nations Chess League (4NCL), which is the national chess league of the British Isles. It put forward the only all-female squad the competition has seen since it was founded in 1993.

D’Costa said: “The 4NCL has been the greatest achievement so far with She Plays to Win.

“The girls know going into the games that they are going to be playing against old men.

“It is all about them finding a way to deal with that and I think the idea of a community and going in numbers as a pack really works.”

Lorin D'Costa (right) teaching a student (Credit for all images on this page: She Plays to Win)

A She Plays to Win university tournament

A She Plays to Win student receiving a coaching lesson

She Plays to Win at the 2023/2024 4NCL

One factor that may have had an influence on She Plays to Win’s success at boosting female chess participation is the surge in interest in the game after the popular Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit was released in October 2020.

The Queen’s Gambit was directed by Scott Frank, and is based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis.

It is set during the Cold War era and follows young female protagonist Beth Harmon in her quest to become the greatest chess player in the world.

The series caused a spike in interest in the game, with registrations of female players on popular site chess .com up 15% at the end of 2020 compared to the number of women joining the site before the show was released.

Belenkaya said: “The Queen’s Gambit was huge. In fact, we have seen an incredible boom of chess, particularly online.

“So many people started playing chess everywhere, so we are just hoping that soon there will be a second part.

“It has helped chess so much, but especially women’s chess because the main character is a woman.”

Belenkaya explained that YouTube and streaming platforms like Twitch have been effective at introducing women and girls to chess.

She said: "A lot of young girls look at us female streamers as an inspiration to start playing chess or to remain in the game so it is very important to have these role models.

"So many people tell me "my daughter started playing chess because she was watching you".

"I always feel flattered by that and kind of surprised because I never expected to have this kind of impact."

It is unclear whether there will ever be a 50:50 gender ratio in chess, but initiatives like The Women in Chess Foundation and She Plays to Win are helping to make the game more accessible for women.