The Media’s Female African Chess ‘Prodigy’ Is Actually Nothing Of The Sort (New Disney Movie)

Dailt Caller ^ | 9-22-2016 | Jonah Bennett

[brucedickinson]

Her actual performance in the chess world shows these to be puff pieces with very little attention paid to empirical fact. Mutesi has no doubt achieved something as a young Ugandan girl living in poverty, to capture the attention of the world, but that something she accomplished is not being good at chess.

She achieved her highest chess rating in 2012, a 1686, as listed by FIDE. As of September 2016, her rating has dropped to 1622. FIDE lists that from the 40th Olympiad in 2012, to April 2016, she played a grand total of 39 matches and never scored above a 1686 rating.

Her rating has been in a near-linear decline since she began playing.

Now, compare Mutesi’s track record with that of Judit Polgar of Hungary, who is considered to be the best female chess player of all

[brucedickinson]

New Disney movie coming out, Chess Prodigy, blah blah blah. Whoops, not a prodigy--

"Mutesi’s current ranking out of all world registered players is 176,281. Out of all active registered players in the world, her ranking is 91,051. Even among all female active players, her ranking is similarly unremarkable: 5,422."

On the other hand, here is Hungarian Judit Polgar who legitimately earned the rank of Master at age 12, and reached as high as 55th in the world! Disney will not be making a movie of her any time soon, for some (cough-cough) reason.

[ConservativeMind]

Crud, I was within a hundred points of her when I was in high school, and that was just playing for fun.

[Mr. Mojo]

As of September 2016, her rating has dropped to 1622

That's the ranking of a decent club player.

[MUDDOG]

Judit Polgar

I wouldn't get my shins too close to her feet under the table though.

She looks like Rosa Klebb.

[Mr. Mojo]

Bad link. Takes me to an article about a burning F-35.

[Robert DeLong]

Links provided take me to this article: F-35 Bursts Into Flames On The Runway

[brucedickinson]

In the bullpen, (thanks to Black Lives Matter-induced Stockholm Syndrome) is this movie about the "mathematicians" who helped put the Apollo mission on the moon. Whoops, actually they data-processed and punched the math (which had already been finished) onto punch cards. God bless them, they worked on the space program and did their part- that's great BUT, do not compare them to the scientists and engineers who came up with the technology.

[brucedickinson]

Here is the link to the article

[Robert DeLong]

The Media’s Female African Chess ‘Prodigy’ Is Actually Nothing Of The Sort

[AC Beach Patrol]

There have been quite a few Master-level black players. Then there’s Maurice Ashley, a Jamaican-American Grandmaster who had a FIDE rating of 2440.

[bramps]

I can see the case for the movie being made.

Hope’s not a bad thing.

[brucedickinson]

[Alberta's Child]

The top-rated player in my club back when I was in my teens was rated a 2100. He was admittedly a bit rusty, though. The BEST player in the club was rated about an 1800 but actually beat a world-renowned GM in a 50-game simultaneous match.

[rfp1234]

Bobby Fischer was a true prodigy. He could win 20 or more 1-minute exhibition games before tournaments, then write down every move from every one of those games from memory, and tell his opponents how he beat them.

[vladimir998]

When I click on your link this is the story that comes up: F-35 Bursts Into Flames On The Runway

[brucedickinson]

And getting back to the Hungarian girl who was ranked 55th in the world, I don’t care who you are, whatever your ranking— if #55 sits down next to you and your board, you’re going to sweat. 55 is real impressive.

[April Lexington]

This whole meme is embarrassing. Why stretch to make this woman look like something she isn’t? Different people have different skills. Why pretend???

[Alberta's Child]

Kangugi “K. K.” Karanja was a black prodigy back in the 1980s. He was living in New York, but I think he was born in Africa. He was a Candidate Master (2200+) at the age of 10.

[maro]

If the film inspires a few kids to take up chess, that’s fine with me.

[gaijin]

An experiment:

Go to

http://images.google.com

Now input “American couple”

Do you see any kind of anamoly?