Ah, chess parents

Last week a story broke about a 12 year old girl who withdrew from a chess event in Malaysia, after being told her dress was 'inappropriate'. I held off on covering the story, as I have seen this sought of story start with sensationalist coverage, before turning out to be not quite what it seemed to be.
The last few days has seen more information come to light, and it does seem that there is more to the case than initially reported. There appears to be no dispute that the comment was made, but the claim is that the comment came from a teacher from the hosting school. But to confuse matters, the teacher was also a tournament arbiter, so it isn't clear whether it was the teacher speaking or the arbiter.
Nonetheless it is still a pretty poor state of affairs, as I have never heard a complaint of this type levelled against a male player (of any age). Nigel Short once had a complaint made against him for playing in shorts, but I don't recall if this was because the sight of his legs was making it hard for other players to concentrate. On the other hand I know of at least 2 well reported incidents in Australia, where the 'making it difficult to concentrate' complaint has been made against female players.
The Malaysian incident has now turned into a battle of competing versions, and legal action is being tossed around by both sides. It will probably run for a bit, and like most incidents of this type, will be misremembered and misreported for years to come.

My brain wasn't wired right

Nigel Short has become the latest "Chess story du jour", after his comments concerning men's and women's chess was picked up by the main stream media. As a provocative main stream topic he probably could not have done any better, and I suspect this debate will run on for a bit.
I am not going to weigh into the substance of the debate, simply because it is not my area of expertise. By that I am focusing on the single quote "Men and Women's brains are had-wired very differently ... ", which is quite a definitive claim. And to make such a claim (or to disprove it) requires a  specialisation in neuro-science, or at least access to the relevant literature.
In my own personal experience, I haven't noticed a difference between the way males and females play the game. I've never looked at a move (or a game) and thought "that move was particularly male". Strong moves are strong moves, and weak ones are weak, and that is generally all I have seen. The closest manifestation I have seen to gender affecting style has curiously been in the area of over compensation, where female players are coached/rewarded for playing aggressively, as though they would not develop this talent naturally.
And to prove nothing at all, here is a game played this evening between myself and Alana Chibnall. The fact that the game ended in a draw probably shows we are chess players of comparable strength, but given the collection of mistakes that occurred at various points, I am not sure what this strength really is.


Press,Shaun - Chibnall,Alana [C43]
Murphy Memorial, 21.04.2015

Gender based behaviour modification

"Strategic Behavior across Gender: A Comparison of Female and Male Expert Chess Players" is the title of a new research paper that well, compares the strategic behaviour of Female and Male Expert chess players. One of the arguments made in the paper is that male players are less risk adverse that female players, and that male players will even take more risks against female players than they do against male players of similar strength.
I initially came across the paper here, which discusses its conclusion in relation to risk behaviour on Wall Street (and other investment environments). I'm not sure how much of the papers conclusions are transferable (given the limited reward structure in chess ie win, loss, draw) but it is an interesting approach nonetheless.
Coincidently, Susan Polgar links to another article concerning gender and chess, although this is more about participation levels, and the disparity between the number of male and female players.