The Chess Greats of the World JUDIT POLGAR Copyright © by CAISSA KFf English translation and layout: Zoltan Molmir Consultant: IM Tamas Erdelyi Cover design: Ferenc Ko ISBN 963 8703 25 3 Publisher: CAISSA KFT H-6000 Kecskemet, Gyenes ter 1 8. TellFax: 0036-76-481 -685 E-mail:
[email protected] Home page: caissachessbooks.com Kecskemet 2006 THE CHESS GREATS OF THE WORLD JUDIT POLGAR Edited by Daniel Lovas CAISSA CHESS BOOKS Dear reader, this is an interactive book. It contains 50 chess diagrams , each showing a critical position in which a very strong move follows. You can also take part in the interesting chess fights by trying to find the moves in question. The game itself is always shown on the page after the diagram. The Caree r of Judit Polgar The appearance of the Hungarian Polgar sisters - Zsuzsa, Judit and Zsofia - in the mid-1980s has brought a turn in the judgement of female chess players. Of them, Zsuzsa was the tlrst to prove that she is an opponent of equal rank for any of the male Grandmasters. But it was Judit who got farthest, ranked 8th on the men's 2005 rating list with her 2735, and was given a chance to play in Argentina for the male World Champion title. Judit Polgar was born on 23rd July, 1976, in Budapest. The ambitious father and the family background had, in fact, predestined her for a chess player's career. She studied privately, and from her early girlhood - along with her two sisters, Zsuzsa and Zs6fia - she has been play ing chess almost all day long. Her first tournament successes were record ed from 1984. She appeared on the scene of 5 international interest at the age of 12, when at the 1988 Thessaloniki Chess Olympiad she scored 12.5 points out of 13 games. Together with her two sisters they became female Olympic Champions under Hungary's colours. In 1991, at the age of 15, Judit won the Super-Hungarian Men's Championship. When she earned the male International Grandmaster title, she was a month younger than Bobby Fischer had been at the time of earning it. In the early 1990s, she had practically burst into the international vanguard of men. In 1992, in Madrid, she came second behind Karpov, in Hastings she finished joint first. In 1993 she defeated ex world champion Boris Spassky in a match. She finished in the first three in several high-ranking grandmaster tournaments. In 1998. in a rapid chess match, she won against Anatoly Karpov, FIDE World Champion of that time. In the same year, being the first ever to do it, Championship. 6 she won the USA female Open In 2001, after stepping over to the new mil lennium, she was awarded the World Chess Oscar, offered to the most successful woman chess player of the 2 0th century. In this year she won two tournaments, and was runner-up in Linares, behind Kasparov. In 2 002, as a member of the 'World' team, she even defeated the active male world champion in a game - a feat that