Zsófia Polgár
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Zsófia Polgár | ||
|---|---|---|
| Photo by Gennadiy Titkov | ||
| Full name | Zsófia Polgár | |
| Country | ||
| Born | November 2, 1974 Budapest, Hungary |
|
| Title | International Master Woman Grandmaster |
|
| FIDE rating | 2459 | |
| Peak rating | 2540 (December 1999) at age 24 | |
International Master Zsófia Polgár ([ˈʒoːfiɒ ˈpolgaːr], born November 2, 1974) is a Hungarian-born Canadian chess player. She is sometimes known by the familiar form of her name, Zsófi , and in some contexts (e.g., the FIDE rating list) by the anglicised form Sofia Polgar. She is an International Master and Woman Grandmaster[citation needed], and is the middle sister of Grandmasters Susan and Judit Polgár.[1]
[edit] Career
Polgár is Jewish, and from Budapest. She and her two sisters 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 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.[2]
They also taught their daughters the international language Esperanto, and to play table tennis.
In 1989, at the age of 14, she stunned the chess world by her performance in a tournament in Rome, which became known as the "Sack of Rome". She won the tournament, which included several strong Grandmasters, with a score of 8.5 out of 9. According to the Chessmetrics[3] historical rating system, her performance rating was 2735. Although hundreds of players have had better performance ratings in tournaments than hers, these performances were from seasoned older grandmasters and not teenagers. Bobby Fischer's 2724 performance at age 16 at the 1959 Zurich Candidates Tournament, Garry Kasparov's 2748 performance at Banja Luka in 1979 at age 16, Gata Kamsky's 2724 performance at the Palma de Mallorca Open 1989 at age 15, are the only comparable performances, so her performance appears to be the strongest ever by a 14-year-old. Other prodigies (e.g., Magnus Carlsen) have not produced such high historical performance ratings.
On February 7, 1999 Polgar married Georgian-born Israeli Grandmaster Yona Kosashvili, and made an aliyah to Israel with her parents. They now have a son, Alon. Later, they moved to Toronto, Canada (see Yerida). For a time, she ranked as the 6th-strongest female player in the world. She played one FIDE-rated game in July, 2005. Prior to that, her last FIDE-rated game was in September 2003. At one point she beat Viktor Korchnoi, regarded by some as the strongest player never to be world champion, at a game of fast chess.[4]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Cathy Forbes The Polgar Sisters: Training or Genius?
- ^ All the right moves – a Haaretz account of the education and accomplishments of the Polgar sisters
- ^ Chessmetrics Player Profile: Sofia Polgar.
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9k5oBgaZGI Video of Sofia Polgar defeating Victor Korchnoi
[edit] External links
- Zsofia Polgar at ChessGames.com
- FIDE rating card for Sofia Polgar

