Judit Polgár

Judit Polgár, born on 23 July 1976 in Budapest to a Jewish-Hungarian family, is a Hungarian chess grandmaster considered the strongest female player in history. She is the only woman to have cracked the world top 10, surpassed a 2700 rating (peaking at 2735), and reached the final stage of a World Chess Championship. From January 1989 until her retirement in 2014, she held the top spot among women, remaining number one through the March 2015 rankings—a streak of 26 consecutive years.

Polgár was a chess prodigy. At age 12, she became the youngest player ever to enter the FIDE top 100, ranked 55th in January 1989. In 1991, at 15 years and 4 months, she became the youngest grandmaster at the time, breaking Bobby Fischer’s 33-year-old record. That achievement made her the fourth female grandmaster; her older sister Susan had become the third earlier that same year.

Early life

She and her two older sisters—Grandmaster Susan and International Master Sofia—were raised in an educational experiment by their father, László Polgár. His thesis: “Geniuses are made, not born.” He and his wife Klára homeschooled the three daughters, specializing in chess, and also taught them Esperanto. Critics argued the sisters were denied a normal childhood. László rejected the idea of women-only tournaments, writing, “Women are able to achieve results similar, in fields of intellectual activities, to that of men.” This put the family at odds with the Hungarian Chess Federation, which required women to play in female-only events.

Career

Polgár rarely played in women-only tournaments and never competed for the Women’s World Championship. She said, “Women should have the self-confidence that they are as good as male players, but only if they are willing to work and take it seriously as much as male players.” While her father coached her, the family also hired professional trainers, including Hungarian champion IM Tibor Florian, GM Pal Benko, and Russian GM Alexander Chernin. Susan, the eldest, was the first to gain prominence, becoming the world’s top-rated female player by 1986.

Initially, Judit was kept apart from her sisters during training, but her curiosity grew. After learning the rules, she could solve problems her sisters studied. Once, Susan and a trainer were stuck on an endgame; they woke Judit from sleep, carried her to the board, and she solved it half-asleep before being put back to bed.

Child prodigy

At age 5, Judit beat a family friend without looking at the board. When the friend joked, “You are good at chess, but I’m a good cook,” she replied, “Do you cook without looking at the stove?” Susan, however, said Judit’s ability came from hard work, not natural talent: “Judit was a slow starter, but very hard-working.” Judit described herself as “obsessive” about chess. She defeated her first International Master at age 10 and her first grandmaster at 11.

Top 10 player

Polgár won or shared first place at Hastings 1993, Madrid 1994, León 1996, the U.S. Open 1998, Hoogeveen 1999, Sigeman & Co 2000, Japfa 2000, and the Najdorf Memorial 2000. She is the only woman to have beaten a reigning world number one (Garry Kasparov, in 2002) and has defeated eleven current or former world champions in rapid or classical chess: Magnus Carlsen, Anatoly Karpov, Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov, Alexander Khalifman, and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

On 13 August 2014, she announced her retirement from competitive chess. In June 2015, she was elected captain and head coach of the Hungarian national men’s team.

On 20 August 2015, she received Hungary’s highest decoration, the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary. In 2021, she was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame. In September 2024, as part of FIDE’s centennial celebration, she received the FIDE 100 Award as the best female player of the past 100 years.