The Queen is the most powerful piece in chess.

But one of the UK’s most well-known grandmasters has angered women by saying they aren’t smart enough to play the game.

Nigel Short, 49, said women were not suited to playing chess because it required logical thinking.

The chess commentator and writer said women should accept they were ‘hard-wired very differently’ and weren’t as adept at playing chess as men.

Mr Short, who was the first English player to play a World Chess Championship match, made the comments when explaining why there were so few women in competitive chess.

Nigel Short has controversially claimed women were not suited to playing chess because it required logical thinking

But critics immediately pointed out that he lost a high-profile game against a woman grandmaster. He told New in Chess magazine: ‘Why should [men and women] function in the same way?

‘I don’t have the slightest problem in acknowledging that my wife [Rea] possesses a much higher degree of emotional intelligence than I do.

'Likewise, she doesn’t feel embarrassed in asking me to manoeuvre the car out of our narrow garage.

‘One is not better than the other, we just have different skills. It would be wonderful to see more girls playing chess, and at a higher level, but rather than fretting about inequality, perhaps we should just gracefully accept it as a fact.’

His comments mirror those of his rival Garry Kasparov, who infamously said: ‘Women, by their nature, are not exceptional chess players: they are not great fighters.’

Female chess players reacted angrily to Mr Short’s statements last night.

Hungarian Judit Polgar, above, the former women’s world champion, beat Nigel Short eight classical games to three in total

Amanda Ross, the leader of the Casual Chess club in London, told The Daily Telegraph the comments were ‘incredibly damaging when someone so respected basically endorses sexism’.

She added: ‘Judit Polgar, the former women’s world champion, beat Nigel Short eight classical games to three in total, with five draws.

‘She must have brought her man brain.

‘Let’s just hope Nigel didn’t crash his car on those days, trying to park it.

'At least this resolves the age-old debate as to whether there’s a direct link between chess-playing ability and intelligence. Clearly not.’

Mr Short responded to Miss Ross’s comments on Twitter, writing: You seem to suffer from incomprehension.

‘Men and women do have different brains. This is a biological fact.

‘Furthermore, I never said women have inferior brains. That is your crude and false attempt to caricature me.’