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Susan Polgar

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Susan Polgar
Full nameZsuzsanna Polgár
Country Hungary
 United States
TitleGrandmaster
Women's World Champion1996–1999
FIDE rating2577
Peak rating2577

Grandmaster Susan Polgar (born April 19, 1969, as Polgár Zsuzsanna) is a Hungarian-born American chess player. She is a member of the Executive Board of the United States Chess Federation, having been elected on July 26, 2007. She is also a chess writer and promoter.

On the July 1984 FIDE Rating List, at age 15, she was the top-ranked female player in the world. She was the first woman to earn the title of International Grandmaster in regular competition. She was the Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 until 1999. In October 2005 Polgar had an Elo rating of 2577, making her the second-ranked female player in the world at the time, after her sister Judit Polgar. She has been inactive and has not played in official competition since 2004.

She was born and brought up in Budapest, and now lives in Lubbock, Texas, having recently moved from Forest Hills, Queens, New York, where she ran the Polgar Chess Center and the Susan Polgar Foundation, which gives chess training to children, especially girls.

Chess career

Polgar and her two younger sisters, Grandmaster Judit and International Master Zsófia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, who sought to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age. "Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klara educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject. The father also taught his three daughters Esperanto. Most of her family eventually emigrated to Israel, but Susan Polgar moved to New York after marrying an American in 1994.

At age 4, Polgar won her first chess tournament, the Budapest Girl's Under-11 Championship, with a 10-0 score. In 1982, at the age of 12, she won the World Under 16 (Girls) Championship. Despite restrictions on her freedom to play in international tournaments, by 1984 at age 15 Polgar had become the top-rated female chess player in the world.[1]

In November 1986, 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 FIDE ratings list. The rationale was that the FIDE ratings of women were not commensurate with the ratings of the men because the women tended to play in women-only tournaments, Polgar being an exception because up to that point she had played mainly against men. The statistical evidence supporting this decision was disputed because the data on which it was based was a small subset of the available data, and Polgar and others alleged that the move was politically motivated and had been contrived to displace her from the top spot.

In January 1991, Polgar became the first woman to earn the Grandmaster title in the conventional way — that is, by achieving three GM norms and a rating over 2500. (Nona Gaprindashvili was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1978 as a result of winning Lone Pine 1977 but she did not make the normally required three GM norms. Maia Chiburdanidze was awarded the GM title in 1984 for beating Nona Gaprindashvili and two others in matches for the Women's World Chess Championship). Zsuzsa's younger sister Judit earned the title of Grandmaster later, in December 1991. In 1992, she won the Women's World Blitz as well as the Women's World Rapid Championship, ahead of her sisters, Chiburdanidze, Galliamova, Maric and many other top female players.

Zsuzsa Polgar competed for the Women's World Championship during the 1996 cycle, having previously played primarily against men, except in the previous woman's world championship cycle where she was eliminated in a drawing of lots after tying a match with Nana Ioseliani. She was successful the second time around and became the classical Women's World Champion in 1996. Two years later, her title defense against Xie Jun of China was scheduled to take place in November, 1998. However, Polgar requested a postponement because she was pregnant and also FIDE had been unable to find a satisfactory sponsor. Ultimately, in 1999, a match was arranged, but under conditions to which Polgar objected — firstly because she had recently had a child, Tom, and had not had sufficient time to recuperate, and secondly because the match was to be held entirely in China, the home country of her challenger. She also wanted a significantly larger prize fund.[2]

When Polgar refused to play under these conditions, FIDE declared that she had forfeited the title,[3][4] and instead organized a match between Xie Jun and Alisa Galliamova for the Women's World Chess Championship, which was won by Xie Jun.[5] 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 case was settled, with Polgar withdrawing her claims and FIDE agreeing to pay Polgar's attorney's fees in the amount of $25,000.[6] Since Xie Jun had already been crowned Women's World Champion, FIDE could not restore the title to Polgar. Polgar has not participated in subsequent Women's World Championship cycles.

Move to America

In 1994, Polgar married, moved to New York, and Americanized her name. She has two sons, Tom (born March 6, 1999) and Leeam (born November 22, 2000).

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 US Open Blitz Championship, against a field which included seven grandmasters. She won that title again in 2005 and in 2006.

She helped train and played the top board for the United States women's team at the 2004 Chess Olympiad held in October in Majorca, Spain. Overall, the team won the Silver Medal, but Polgar won an individual gold medal for achieving the highest performance rating in the women's event and the highest point total. This was not her first Olympiad: she has a total of ten Olympiad Medals (five Gold, four Silver, and one Bronze). She has played 56 games in the Olympiads, never losing a single game.

In July 2005, Polgar gave a large simultaneous exhibition in Palm Beach, Florida, breaking four records: the 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 former World Champion Anatoly Karpov in Lindsborg, Kansas to promote "Chess For Peace." There, Polgar participated in the second Clash of the Titans - Battle of the Genders match against Karpov at the same location, with Gorbachev making the first move for Karpov. The match with Karpov ended in a 3-3 tie, with each player winning two games and two draws. Their first match had taken place in September 2004. That also ended up in a 3-3 tie.

In June 2006, Polgar organized and played in the 2006 New York City Mayor's Cup, a 30-minute competition and the highest-rated double round robin tournament in US history. She finished second, behind Gata Kamsky and ahead of Alex Onischuk, Boris Gulko, Ildar Ibragimov, and Alex Stripunsky. In July 2006, Polgar represented the US in a side event to the Football World Cup in Dresden, Germany. She easily won the event by defeating International Master Elisabeth Pähtz in the final.

On May 12, 2007, Polgar was the undergraduate commencement speaker at Texas Tech University. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate degree. On the same day, as reported on the LubbockOnline website, it was announced that she would become the coach of the Texas Tech chess team and would be the director of the new Susan Polgar Institute of Chess Excellence.[7]

Composer

Susan Polgar composed her first chess problem (see diagram) at the age of four. She is considered the youngest chess composer of a published problem. Formerly, the record was held by Elliot Franklin Eichholtz.

Zsuzsa Polgár
Source unknown, 1973
abcdefgh
8
h4 white queen
d2 white pawn
g2 black pawn
e1 white king
g1 black king
8
77
66
55
44
33
22
11
abcdefgh
Mate in 2




Solution:

1.Kd1 Kf1
2.Qe1 mate


Author

Polgar has written several books, often in conjunction with Paul Truong, her business manager:

  • 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 also chess journalist, with columns in Chess Life, Chess Life for Kids, ChessCafe, Chess Horizons, Georgia Chess, Chessville, Empire Chess, School Mates, Europe Echecs, etc., and she publishes a blog with daily updates about chess news and daily chess exercise problems. She has released a series of 11 instructional chess DVDs.

Election Campaign

In December, 2006, she announced that she would run for election to the USCF Executive Board. The result of the election was that three out of four of Polgar's Slate were elected garnering all of the 4 year terms, those three being Polgar, Randy Bauer, and Paul Truong. The new board members took office on the evening of August 5, 2007, after the conclusion of the annual USCF delegate's meeting in Cherry Hill, NJ. She was elected as the first ever Chairman of the USCF.[8][9][10]

On October 2, 2007, Sam Sloan filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking to overturn the results of the 2007 election, alleging that there were more than 2,000 obscene "Fake Sam Sloan" newsgroup postings by Susan Polgar and Paul Truong impersonating Sloan, as a result of which Polgar and Truong were elected.[11] Susan Polgar has responded to the charges on her blog.[12][13][14][15][16][17]

Personal

Beside her mother tongue, Hungarian, Susan Polgar speaks 7 additional languages fluently: Esperanto, Bulgarian, German, Russian, Spanish, English, and Hebrew.

In December 2006, she married her long time business manager and friend, Paul Truong.[18][19]

References

  1. ^ The Grandmaster Experiment, Carlin Flora, Psychology Today Magazine, July/August 2005
  2. ^ Letter from Zsuzsa Polgar c. June 1999
  3. ^ First Saturday, June 1999
  4. ^ FIDE News from Executive Director Omuku 17 February 1999
  5. ^ Xie Jun defeats Alisa Galliamova in match for Woman's World Chess Championship June 5, 1999
  6. ^ Editor's Note April 13, 2001
  7. ^ "Texas Tech Hires Chess World Champion, Establishes Excellence Institute". 2007-05-14.
  8. ^ "I WILL run for the 2007 USCF Executive Board". 2006-12-06.
  9. ^ "Election Results In!". 2007-07-27.
  10. ^ "Election Summary (Endorsements)". 2007.
  11. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/nyregion/08chess.html
  12. ^ Susan Polgar Stating the Facts
  13. ^ Polgar Responds on her Blog
  14. ^ The Mottershead Report
  15. ^ NY Times: Chess Group Officials Accused of Using Internet to Hurt Rivals
  16. ^ NY Times: Interview With the U.S.C.F. President; a Chess Sponsor Says He’s Had Enough
  17. ^ NY Times: Founder of AF4C: The Chess Federation Needs a New Structure
  18. ^ "Polgar and Truong Marriage Revealed". 2007.
  19. ^ Susan Polgar Blogspot confirms her marriage to Paul Truong.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zsuzsa Polgár.
Preceded by Women's World Chess Champion
1996–1999 		Succeeded by
vacant, then Xie Jun
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