The Road to the Temple

-Say, does this road lead to the Temple?
-This is Varlam Street. Not this one leads to the Temple
-Then what is the purpose of it? Who needs a road if it does not lead to a Temple?
From the movie “Repentance” by Tengiz Abuladze

It is 2008. The year 2009 is knocking on the door. How much time has passed? Well, that depends how to count. It has been almost 21 years since I saw “Repentance”. It’s been almost 15 years since I left my home town for United States of America. It’s been… only god knows how long since the Varlam street was built. And this street is still alive. It is alive here, it is alive there, and will likely survive all of us.

Everybody has own faith or absence of such.
Everybody has own Temple.
And everyone walk his road to the Temple.
One’s own Temple.
And that is right. And that’s good.

Just don’t walk on the Varlam Street.

Photo by Sergei Zdorovtsev

Putting Balls in Squares Holes

Photo by Sebb

Can women play chess? Can women play chess as good as men do?

I have recently read an interview with a super GM Levon Aronian where he bluntly states: “Women cannot play chess”. He was taken to the task by the readers of chessbase.com. Some of them went as far as calling him a chauvinist and sexist.

While, as a proponent of women’s rights, I may not agree with Mr. Aronian’s opinion, I would vehemently defend his right to say what he believes is true. Don’t we all go too far when starting an argument, we slap a label on our opponents? How can we have a sincere dialog when neither side wants to hear out another? And this is an excellent example how creation of stereotype or generalization of a very specific issue evokes other stereotypes.

What Levon does, he takes too broad of a brush: “women are generally much too emotional for chess”. Thus, he creates, or rather recreates an old stereotype. And who lives by stereotype, dies by stereotype. One could easily use an old myth and say: “Armenians are generally much too emotional for chess”. After all, Mr. Aronian admits: “Sometimes I have too much blood in my brain”. But would that mean that Armenians cannot play chess? Most definitely, not! And the level of play displayed by Mr. Aronian is a testament to that.

In the last about hundred years we have had world chess champions with such opposite personalities as Botvinnik and Tal, as Karpov and Kasparov; and more hot-headed player would often succeed the more cold-blooded one and then vice versa. And, although it is common knowledge that women on average do not perform in chess as well as men on average, it does not mean that it is because they are too emotional. And it definitely does not mean that a woman cannot outperform a man in chess.

I conclude my article on the proud note that I did not bring up name Polgar (or did I just do that?)