Zsuzsa Polgar
Zsuzsa Polgar (born April 19, 1969 in Budapest, Hungary), also known as Susan Polgar, is among the strongest female chess players in history.
Along with her two younger sisters, she was coached in chess by her father, Laszlo Polgar. Despite restrictions on her freedom to play in international tournaments, by 1986 Zsuzsa had become the top-rated female chess player in the world. Unfortunately, in November of that year FIDE decided to grant 100 bonus ELO rating points to all active female players except her, knocking her out of the top spot in the January, 1987 ratings list. The rationale was that Polgar had earned her rating primarly playing against men, whereas other female chess players had deflated ratings from playing in women-only tournaments. The statistical evidence supporting this decision was highly suspect 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 1991, Polgar became the first woman to earn the men's Grandmaster title by achieving three GM norms. (Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze had earlier been granted the title honorarily by virtue of being Women's World Champions). Zsuzsa's younger sister Judit earned the title of Grandmaster later in 1991, surpassing Zsuzsa in playing strength, as demonstrated by Judit being the highest rated female chess player in the world from 1991 to the present. Judit, however, has steadfastly declined to compete in women-only events. After being eclipsed by Judit, Zsuzsa remained the second- or third-highest rated woman on all FIDE ratings lists until she ceased to participate actively in FIDE-rated events in 1998.
In 1996, Zsuzsa Polgar won the Women's World Championship. 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 six 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, FIDE stripped her of her title. Polgar sued in the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland for monetary damages and the restoration of her title. In March of 2001 the parties settled out of court, with FIDE paying Polgar $25,000 in damages, and Polgar agreeing to relinquish her claim to the Women's World Championship.
In 1997 Polgar (along with her husband Jacob Shutzman) published the autobiographical book Queen of the King's Game (ISBN 0965705978).
As of July 2004, Polgar lives in New York City, where she runs the Polgar Chess Center, primarily to encourage young girls and boys in their pursuit of chess. She will play on the United States women's team at the 2004 Chess Olympiad to be held in October in Majorca, Spain.
Susan Polgar speaks several languages fluently, including Esperanto.
