Chess Grandmaster Loses Job After Making Sexist Comments At Women’s Tournament

Screenshot: FIDE

At its highest ranges, chess is a male-dominated exercise. There are presently solely 39 ladies who maintain the International Chess Federation (FIDE)’s highest title of Grandmaster, in comparison with over a thousand male Grandmasters. Even “Woman Grandmaster,” a type of comfort prize title from FIDE that requires a 2,300 score as a substitute of Grandmaster’s 2,500, has solely a pair hundred recipients. This historical past is what made Israeli Grandmaster Ilya Smirin’s distasteful feedback a few “woman grandmaster” throughout a stay broadcast of the Women’s Grand Prix on September 27 so hurtful to ladies gamers, and why FIDE has determined to right away take away him as an official commentator.

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Smirin claimed the title of Grandmaster in 1990 and as soon as outplayed then-World Champion Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik within the 2002 Russia vs. Rest of the World match. In an interview main as much as the Grand Prix, the GM famous that the printed can be his “first time debut in English,” a problem, since he usually commentates in Russian. Disappointingly, Smirin’s commentary made it sound like he was dissatisfied with what few inches of gender equality and progress chess has made, and his first English broadcast doubled as his final.

“Why she wants to be like man Grandmaster in this case?” Smirin requested offhand throughout 19-year-old Woman Grandmaster Zhu Jiner’s match with Grandmaster Aleksandra Goryachkina in considered one of two clips that circulated on Twitter. Though Jiner was enjoying with a feminine Grandmaster, Smirin questioned if it was even attainable to obtain a “man” Grandmaster norm throughout a women-only competitors. He additionally dismissed Goryachinka’s Grandmaster title as a product of her enjoying in a supposedly manly method, with “a very strong endgame.” He additionally requested “Why women can play with men and men cannot play with women?”

“Question for another day,” Luxembourgish Woman International Master and co-commentator Fiona Steil-Antoni, who didn’t instantly return Kotaku’s request for remark, answered Smirin, showing to wish to transfer the dialog again to the unfolding match. But Smirin saved at it, lamenting and laughing saying about how “today everyone for parity.”

“But […] you’re saying, you know, chess is maybe not for women?” Steil-Antoni responded.

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“I didn’t say it openly,” Smirin stated.

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Smirin’s remarks have been disconcerting. After these feedback surfaced, they have been put facet by facet with one other clip from the Women’s Grand Prix broadcast the place Smirin tells Steil-Antoni that the Grandmaster “maybe didn’t achieve too much” as a result of she has by no means performed Sicilian Defense earlier than, a chess opening or preliminary cluster of strikes initially of a sport. In response, chess execs like American Woman Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade expressed disappointment within the sexism so blatantly displayed throughout an official FIDE broadcast.

“Gross to see such sexism in the broadcast for a women’s event,” Shahade wrote on Twitter, “Fiona did a great job in an uncomfortable convo she never should have been in.”

FIDE swiftly responded to chess gamers’ frustrations, writing in a information weblog that “Although we have great respect for Grandmaster Ilya Smirin as a chess player, the views he expressed on air are completely unacceptable, offensive, and do not represent any of the values that FIDE stands for.”

“FIDE not only strives to increase women’s representation in professional sports and official positions but also to change the perception of chess as purely a men’s world,” the group continued.

Chief advertising and communications officer David Llada instructed me over Twitter DM that Smirin didn’t comply with the seven-page doc FIDE gives for its commentators. He did, nonetheless, categorical regret.

“It is obvious something went very wrong here, and we will have to reassess our selection process,” he stated. Otherwise, FIDE usually “tries to have some rotation for the role of commentators, giving an opportunity to different people. We make our decisions based on their ability to explain chess concepts—which is not an easy task.”

Going ahead, Llada says FIDE will proceed to implement the Corporate Social Responsibility Guidelines listed in its handbook, and desires to impress on those who “Chess is as global as it gets, and it is played by people of all ages, cultures, and different backgrounds. This diversity is something we treasure. But it also implies that once in a while, a member of the chess community expresses an opinion that is simply not acceptable to the majority, and not in line with FIDE’s values expressed above.

“It is our duty to do everything in our hands to prevent that. We will continue working to raise awareness, and fight these ‘outdated’ views in the best way: making the members of the chess community more educated.”