Susan Polgar

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Image:Susan Polgar.JPG Grandmaster Susan Polgar (born April 19, 1969 as Polgár Zsuzsanna) is a Hungarian-American chess player, and one of the strongest female players ever, having been Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 until 1999.

She is also known as Zsuzsa Polgár: Zsuzsa is a shortening of Zsuzsanna; and Hungarian personal names have the family name first, but Hungarians often reverse this when communicating with non-Hungarians. She has since Anglicized her name to make it easier for English speakers to pronounce. She was born and brought up in Budapest, and now lives in Forest Hills, Queens, New York.

She was the # 1 female player in the world at age 15, and has remained in the top 3 for the past 22 consecutive years. In October 2005 Polgar had an Elo rating of 2,577, which made her the # 2 female player in the world behind her sister Judit.<ref>Top 50 FIDE Women October 2005</ref>

As of October 2006, Polgar lives in Queens, New York, where she runs the Polgar Chess Center (see below) primarily to encourage young girls and boys in their pursuit of chess and education.

She played on the United States women's team at the 2004 Chess Olympiad held in October in Majorca, Spain, and won the gold medal for highest performance rating in the women's event and most point scores. She has a total of 10 Olympiad Medals (5 Gold, 4 Silver, and 1 Bronze). She has played 56 games in the Olympiads, never losing a single game.

1 Chess family
2 Chess career
- 2.1 Move to America
3 Author
4 Personal
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Chess family

Along with her two younger sisters, Judit and Sofia, she was taught chess by her father, László Polgár. They are Jewish, and the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.[1]

[edit] Chess career

Polgar began winning tournaments at age 4. Despite restrictions on her freedom to play in international tournaments, by 1984 Polgar had become the top-rated female chess player in the world.

In November, 1986, FIDE (under pressure from the Soviet federation which did not want to see a non-Soviet ranked # 1) made a highly controversial ruling. FIDE decided to grant 100 bonus ELO rating points to all active female players except Polgar, which knocked her from the top spot in the January, 1987 ratings list. The rationale was that Polgar had earned her rating primarily playing against men, whereas other female chess players had deflated ratings from playing in women-only tournaments. The statistical evidence supporting this decision was disputed because the data on which it was based was a small subset of the available data. No similar interference with ratings has occurred since.

In January 1991, Polgar became the first woman to earn the men's Grandmaster title by achieving three GM norms and a rating over 2,500. (Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze had earlier been awarded the title automatically by virtue of being Women's World Champions). Zsuzsa's younger sister Judit earned the title of Grandmaster later, in December 1991.

In 1992, as the underdog to her sister Judit, who was ranked # 1 in the world, Polgar won both the Women's World Blitz and Rapid Championship ahead of her sisters Judit and Sofia, as well as many other top women players in the world.

In 1996, Zsuzsa Polgar won the classical Women's World Championship, her 4th World Championship title. She is the only World Champion (male or female) to win the triple crown in chess (World Blitz, Rapid, and Classical World Championships).

FIDE had difficulty finding a sponsor for Polgar's title defense two years later, and ultimately arranged it in 1999 under conditions Polgar objected to, first because she demanded at least 6 months to recuperate and prepare after bearing her first child, and secondly because the match was to be held entirely in China, the home country of her challenger Xie Jun.

When Polgar refused to play under these conditions, FIDE stripped her of her title. Polgar sued in the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, for monetary damages and the restoration of her title. In March 2001 the court ruled in favor of Polgar, ordering FIDE to pay Polgar $25,000 in damages. However, since a new World Champion was crowned, FIDE cannot restore her title. Polgar never competed in the World Championship again.

The United States Chess Federation named Polgar "Grandmaster of the Year" in 2003, the first time a woman has won that honor. In that same year (2003), Polgar also became the first woman to win the strongest US Open Blitz Championship ever, a field which included 7 grandmasters. She did not compete in 2004, but won the title again for the second time in 2005 and a third time in 2006. She published another autobiographical book, Breaking Through: How the Polgar Sisters changed the Game of Chess (co-authored with Paul Truong) in 2005.

[edit] Move to America

In 1994, Polgar married Jacob Shutzman and moved to New York. They co-wrote her autobiography, Queen of the King's Game, which was published in 1997. They had two sons, Tom and Leeam. Polgar and Shutzman are now divorced.

In July 2005, Polgar broke 4 international records at a single match, played in Palm Beach, Florida, including: largest number of simultaneous games played (326, with 309 won, 14 drawn, and 3 lost); consecutive games played (1,131); highest number of games won; and highest percentage of wins (96.93%).

In October 2005, Polgar joined former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and 7-time World Champion Anatoly Karpov in Lindsborg, Kansas to promote "Chess For Peace."

Polgar also participated in the second Clash of the Titans - Battle of the Genders match against Karpov at the same venue, with Gorbachev making the first move for Karpov. The match ended in a 3-3 tie, with each player winning 2 games and 2 draws. Their first match took place in September 2004. That also ended up in a 3-3 tie.

In June 2006, Polgar organized and played in the 2006 NY City Mayor's Cup, the highest-rated double RR tournament in US history. She finished 2nd, behind Gata Kamsky and ahead of Alex Onischuk, Boris Gulko, Ildar Ibragimov, and Alex Stripunsky. In July 2006, Polgar represented the US in the Women's World Chess Cup in Dresden, Germany. She easily captured the Women's World Chess Cup by defeating IM Elizabeth Pahtz in the final.

In August 2006, Polgar won her 3rd US Open Blitz Championships (2003, 2005, 2006 -didn't play in 2004) in Oak Brook, IL, by 2 points ahead of the field.

[edit] Author

Polgar is one of the best-selling chess authors in the world. Her current books include

Queen of the King's Game (as Zsuzsa Polgar) (1997) ISBN 0-9657059-7-8
Teach Yourself Chess in 24 Hours (2003)
World Champion's Guide to Chess (2005) ISBN 0-8129-3653-1
Breaking Through (2005) ISBN 0-02-864408-5
Chess Tactics for Champions (2006) ISBN 0-8129-3671-X

Polgar is an award-winning chess journalist, with columns in Chess Life, Chess Life 4 Kids, ChessCafe, Chess Horizons, Georgia Chess, Chessville, Empire Chess, School Mates, etc., and she publishes a blog with daily updates about chess news and daily chess exercise problems. She has released a series of 11 highly popular instructional chess DVDs.