I was just trolling through the Chessbase new archives and found a report of interesting work into gender differences between the play of men and women, both generally and when playing each other.

The approach was to classify the lines of play from a well-known encyclopedia of chess openings as either aggressive, solid or neutral (as polled by chess experts). The researchers then examined the openings selected by men and women generally, and then the openings selected by men when playing against women.

They found that male chess players selected openings that were more aggressive than their female counterparts, apparently controlling for playing strength and age. Also interesting was that men play more aggressively against women opponents, when controlling for other factors. Curiously, they appear to perform worse when selecting this strategy, so they are selecting irrational behaviour if they are conscious of it.

The article is located at http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6595 and is worth a read.

I almost feel sad doing this, but there's an old thread on the subject: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1369

_________________
Occupy Babel!

D'oh