Judit Polgár (born July 23, 1976) is by far the strongest female chess player in history. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, the youngest person ever to do so at that time.
Judit has never played in women's tournaments and has never competed for the Women's World Championship. "I always say that 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", she said.
The 2012 Gibraltar Chess Festival took place just recently from January 24 to February 3 and is the strongest Open in history . That is probably the reason why Judit is playing an Open tournament.
"There will be an historic clash at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Masters in Round 7," wrote a bulletin reporter with a sense of tradition ("an historic"). "Women's World Champion Yifan Hou (China), rated 2605, will play white against Judit Polgar (Hungary), 2710, the highest-ever rated woman player in the history of the game. They have never previously met, as Judit doesn't play in women only events, and it is some years since she played in an open tournament."
When Yifan defeated Judit it made headlines in most websites. To my recollection This is the 1st time that Judit has lost to another female.
Yifan had an amazing tournament enroute to a performance rating of 2892. Hou was in the lead going into the last round, but was caught in the 9th and final round by Nigel Short. They both scored 8 points in 10 games and Nigel grabbed the title in a blitz playoff. Facing six grandmasters rated above 2700 ,she scored four wins and two draws, including that historic win against Judit.
Judit and her 2 sisters, Sofia and Susan, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained 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 mostly on chess. However, chess was not taught to the exclusion of everything else. Each of the sisters has several diplomas and speaks four to eight languages. Sofia is an International Master while Susan is also a Grandmaster.
Before age 13 Judit was already inside the top 100 players in the world and the British Chess Magazine declared, "Judit Polgár's recent results make the performances of Fischer and Kasparov at a similar age pale by comparison." Nigel Short called Judit, "one of the three or four greatest chess prodigies in history."
In 1993, Judit became the first woman to ever qualify for a Men's Interzonal tournament.
Judit has defeated nine current or former world champions in either rapid or classical chess: Anatoli Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov, Alexander Khalifman, and Rustam Kasimdzhanov
In August 2000, Judit married Hungarian veterinary surgeon Gusztáv Font.They have two children, a boy named Oliver and a girl named Hanna
Since her marriage and eventually having a family,she has played on a selective basis. I think this is partly the reason why her playing skill has diminished.
Hou Yifan is herself an amazing chess prodigy.
Only 17, She is the reigning Women's World Chess Champion, the youngest ever to win the title, as well as the youngest female player ever to become GM.
At the age of 12, Hou became the youngest player ever to participate in the FIDE Women's World Championship (Yekaterinburg 2006) and the Chess Olympiad (Torino 2006)
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