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Love these visualizations of the current top 10 men’s and women’s chess players in the world.

Discussion  3 comments

CW Moss

This is incredible. I'd love to see this chart for an even longer period and something like top 20. It's fun to see who flirts with the crown.

I'd also love to see this style of visualization for so many sports. Tennis, basketball teams, and even restaurants and their Michelin star ratings could be fun.

Josh Fischel

I’m curious why chess rankings are gendered.

Thomas Cowart

The labels are “women” and “men”, but I bet it would have been more accurate to say “women” and “everyone”. The #1 rated woman, Hou Yifan, isn’t even in the top 100 overall.

This disparity between women and men in chess is also why top level tournaments often have separate “open” and “women” sections. Its not that women aren’t allowed compete with the men (thats why the section is “open” and not “men”), but theres such a huge skill difference at the top level that its seen as more sporting to have a separate womens section.

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