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According to this video, a Polish politician named Janusz Korwin-Mikke claimed:

Do you know how many women are in the first hundred of chess players? I tell you – no one.

Is he correct that zero women are in the first hundred top chess players?

EU Parliament video, and transcript of a debate on Wenesday 1st March 2017. Reported by the Independent and USA Today.

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  • Please use the comments to suggest improvements on the question. Your opinions on the topic should go in Skeptics Chat, and will be deleted without warning if posted here.
    – Sklivvz
    Mar 6, 2017 at 8:20
  • I edited the question to remove the part of the quote that was not related to the claim under investigation and frankly offensive. Anyone who wants to know can watch the video or look at the history of the question.
    – gerrit
    Mar 8, 2017 at 0:52

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103

As of March 2017, the top rated woman is Yifan Hou, with rank of 117 and a rating of 2649. The 100th ranked player is Evgeniy Najer (male), with a rating of 2659.

Therefore, currently it is true that no women are in the 100 top rated active players, although historically Yifan Hou had a higher rating and then appeared on the open list of top 100 players.

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  • Please use the comments to suggest improvements on the answer. Your opinions on the topic should go in Skeptics Chat, and will be deleted without warning if posted here.
    – Sklivvz
    Mar 6, 2017 at 8:21
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As of today, there are no women among the top 100 rated players.

Ratings are changing and Hou Yifan who is currently ranked No. 117 in the March 2017 FIDE World Rankings (https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=8602980) is a female player that could become again soon part of the top 100.

Judit Polgár was the No. 8 player in the July 2005 FIDE World Rankings. (source)

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  • 10
    +1 for mentioning Judit Polgar, as she's a good (however non-conclusive) counterexample for Korwin-Mikke's underlying assumption.
    – Szymon
    Mar 6, 2017 at 10:11
  • Janusz Korwin-Mikke is repeating this phrase very ofter, so his statment is true sometimes, sometimes is it not.
    – Sebastian 506563
    Nov 14, 2020 at 10:10

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