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I still think that most girls are less competitive than boys.

Perhaps. But are they less competitive by nature? Or has it been drilled into them that it is unseemly to be competitive, whereas we encourage it in boys?

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And I'm a little confused about the original article - if the girl came into the tournament with a higher rating than a boy, what gender chess players did she play in the previous tournament? If girls consistently underperform against boys, then wouldn't their rating slip and begin to reflect that and their future performances would be less and less of an underperformance?

This seems to be a reasonable question. I didn't read the original article, which one always should.