page_title: Judit Polgár
section_title: Child prodigy
hierarchical_section_title: Judit Polgár / Career / Child prodigy
caption_attribution_description: English: Judit Polgár and Zsófia Polgár, Chess Olympiad 1988 in Thessaloniki, Photographer Gerhard Hund. Deutsch: Judit Polgár und Zsófia Polgár, Schacholympiade 1988 in Thessaloniki, Photo von Gerhard Hund.
context_page_description: Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess player. She is generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. Since September 2015, she has been inactive. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by former World Champion Bobby Fischer. She was the youngest ever player to break into the FIDE top 100 players rating list, ranking No. 55 in the January 1989 rating list, at the age of 12. She is the only woman to qualify for a World Championship tournament, having done so in 2005. She is the first, and to date only, woman to have surpassed 2700 Elo, reaching a career peak rating of 2735 and peak world ranking of No. 8, both achieved in 2005. She was the No. 1 rated woman in the world from January 1989 until her retirement on 13 August 2014.
  She has won or shared first in the chess tournaments of Hastings 1993, Madrid 1994, León 1996, U.S. Open 1998, Hoogeveen 1999, Sigeman & Co 2000, Japfa 2000, and the Najdorf Memorial 2000.
context_section_description: Trained in her early years by her sister Susan, who ultimately became Women's World Champion, Judit Polgár was a chess prodigy from an early age. At age 5, she defeated a family friend without looking at the board. After the game, the friend joked: "You are good at chess, but I'm a good cook." Judit replied: "Do you cook without looking at the stove?" However, according to Susan, Judit was not the sister with the most talent, explaining: "Judit was a slow starter, but very hard-working." Polgár described herself at that age as "obsessive" about chess. She first defeated an International Master, Dolfi Drimer, at age 10, and a grandmaster, Lev Gutman, at age 11.
  Judit started playing in tournaments at 6 years old, and by age 9, her rating with the Hungarian Chess Federation was 2080. She was a member of a chess club in Budapest, where she would get experience from master level players. In 1984, in Budapest, Sophia and Judit, at the time 9 and 7 years of age, respectively, played two games of blindfold chess against two masters, which they won. At one point, the girls complained that one of their opponents was playing too slowly and suggested a clock should be used.
  In April 1986, 9-year-old Judit played in her first rated tournament in the U.S., finishing first in the unrated section of the New York Open, winning US$1,000. All three Polgár sisters competed. Susan, 16, competed in the grandmaster section and had a victory against GM Walter Browne and Sophia, 11, finished second in her section, but Judit gathered most of the attention in the tournament. Grandmasters would drop by to watch the serious, quiet child playing. She won her first seven games before drawing the final game. Although the unrated section had many of the weaker players in the Open, it also had players of expert strength, who were foreign to the United States and had not been rated yet. Milorad Boskovic related a conversation with Judit's sixth-round opponent, a Yugoslav player he knew to be a strong expert: "He told me he took some chances in the game because he couldn't believe she was going to attack so well." Not able to speak English, her mother interpreted as she told a reporter her goal was to be a chess professional. When the reporter asked her if she would be world champion one day, Judit answered: "I will try."
  In late 1986, 10-year-old Judit defeated 52-year-old Romanian IM Dolfi Drimer in the Adsteam Lidums International Tournament in Adelaide, Australia. Edmar Mednis said he played his best game of the tournament in beating Judit: "I was careful in that game...Grandmasters don't like to lose to 10-year-old girls, because then we make the front page of all the papers."
  In April 1988, Polgár made her first International Master norm in the International B section of the New York Open. In August 1988, she won the under-12 "Boys" section of the World Youth Chess and Peace Festival in Timișoara, Romania. In October 1988, she finished first in a 10-player round-robin tournament in London, scoring 7–2, for a half point lead over Israeli GM Yair Kraidman. With these three results, she completed the requirements for the International Master title; at the time, she had been the youngest player ever to have achieved this distinction. Both Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov were 14 when they were awarded the title; Polgár was 12. It was during this time that former World Champion Mikhail Tal said Polgár had the potential to win the men's World Championship.
  Judit was asked about playing against boys instead of the girls' section of tournaments: "These other girls are not serious about chess...I practice five or six hours a day, but they get distracted by cooking and work around the house."
  In November 1988, Judit and her sisters, along with Ildikó Mádl, represented Hungary in the Women's section of the 28th Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki. The International Chess Federation would not permit the Polgárs to play against men in team competitions. Prior to the tournament, Eduard Gufeld, Soviet GM and team coach for the Soviet women's team, dismissed the Polgárs
caption: Judit with sister Sofia at Thessaloniki 1988
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Autosave-File vom d-lab2/3 der AgfaPhoto GmbH", "Image Make": "AgfaPhoto GmbH", "Image Model": "d-lab.2/3", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "RB98k or later from AgfaPhoto GmbH  d-lab.2/3", "Image DateTime": "2010:02:26 09:17:37", "Image Artist": "Only the Best :-))", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "384", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2996", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000"}