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The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster
by Susan Polgar
A real life Queen's Gambit, this captivating memoir tells the story of one of the most renowned women in chess history, Susan Polgar, taking on a sexist establishment, standing up to an authoritarian empire and rewriting the rules of what women could achieve against the oppressive backdrop of Cold War Eastern Europe.
Born to a poor Jewish family in Cold War Budapest, Susan Polgar would emerge as the one of the greatest female chess players the world had ever seen.
Susan would become the highest rated female chess player on the planet and the first woman to earn the men's Grandmaster title — chess' highest designation. Still a teenager, in 1986, she became the first woman to qualify for the men's World Chess Championship cycle. Then, she would make history again, by becoming the first chess player, male or female, to achieve the game's "triple crown," holding World Championship titles in all three major chess time formats (blitz, rapid, and classical), and still the only one to earn all 6 of the world's greatest chess crowns (triple crown, world #1 ranking, Individual and Team Olympiad Gold).
Yet, at every turn, she was pitted against a sexist culture, a hostile Communist government, vicious anti-Semitism, and powerful enemies. She endured sabotage and betrayal, state-sponsored intimidation, and violent assault. And she overcame all of it to break the game's long-standing gender barrier and claim her place at the pinnacle of professional chess.
After retiring as a player, she defied the odds again, leaving all she had known in Hungary to start a new life as an American citizen, and becoming the only female Division 1 college coach in the country. Over her 14-year coaching career, she built two separate college chess dynasties from scratch, and led them to more national titles, world championships, major titles, and Olympiad medals than all other college chess teams combined.
Before her improbable rise, it was taken for granted that women were incapable of excellence in the game of chess. More than question those entrenched beliefs, Susan Polgar disproved them single-handedly.
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Hungarian-born Susan Polgar is one of the most decorated female chess players ever.
She was discovered as a child prodigy, when at age 4, she won the Budapest elementary school championship for girls with a perfect 10-0 sore. In 1984, at age 15, she became the youngest ever to earn the world #1 ranking. In 1986, she made history by qualifying for the Men's World Championship but was not allowed to play due to her gender. In 1991, she broke the gender barrier again by being the first female in history to earn the Men's Grandmaster title by norms and rating. She is the only player in history to earn all 6 of the world's most prestigious chess crowns (world chess triple-crown, individual and team Olympiad gold, and world #1 ranking). She became the first player to ever play 1,131 consecutive games, winning 1,112 games while losing only 3! She also broke the record for 326 simultaneous games played with 309 wins, and the highest winning percentage (96.93%).
In addition to her storied career, Polgar founded the Susan Polgar Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization to promote chess, with all its educational, social and competitive benefits throughout the U.S., for young people of all ages, especially girls. After her professional playing career, she became the only woman to coach a men's division I collegiate team (Texas Tech 2007-2012 and Webster University 2012-2021). Her teams in the past 10 years have won more world championships, national championships, major titles, and Olympiad medals than all other collegiate chess programs in the United States combined, including a record 7 consecutive final four championships, and 10 consecutive years as the #1 ranked team in the nation. In 2019 she was inducted to the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame, and the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2023, becoming the only woman to be inducted in both. Susan was the subject of a National Geographic documentary, entitled My Brilliant Brain.
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