Zara: Three of The Greatest Women Chess Players

Her Move Next highly values female representation and participation in chess. According to sportsshow.net, the top three women chess players of all time are…

BY ZARA SHAH - THE SPENCE SCHOOL - COACH & COLUMNIST

Simul with Gm Yifan Hou - HerMoveNext.com

Her Move Next highly values female representation and participation in chess. Thus, I thought it would be interesting to research a few of the women who have impacted the history of the game. According to sportsshow.net, the top three women chess players of all time are Judit Polgar, Yifan Hou, and Susan Polgar. Here is a brief overview about each player.

Judit Polgar - Hungary Today

Judit Polgar

Judit Polgar is a Hungarian chess player who was born on July 23 of 1976. Throughout her childhood, Polgar was homeschooled. She was a successful chess player from a young age, winning her first international chess tournament at just nine years old. Her many other achievements as a competitive chess player include winning the boys’ World Chess Championship in her age group, becoming the youngest international chess master at age 15, beating Bobby Fischer, and being elected Woman Chess Player of the Century. Additionally, she and her sisters (Susan and Sofia) won the Olympic gold medal for the first time in Hungarian chess history. 

In 2014, Judit Polgar announced her retirement from competitive chess after leading the world rankings for 25 years. After retiring, she has had more time to take part in other chess-related activities, including writing, giving simultaneous exhibitions and delivering lectures. She has also made great efforts to teach chess in a way to showcase its educational benefits. In 2012, Polgar started the Judit Polgar Chess Foundation with the intention of using chess as an educational tool in schools across the world. The organization hopes to accomplish this goal by building a special chess curriculum that includes cross curricular links. 

Judit Polgar is now married to Gusztav Font. Dr. Gusztav Font is a veterinarian and an amateur chess player. Together, they have two children: Oliver Font and Hanna Font. In her biography, Judit Polgar mentions how “with them, not only [her] bio but [her] whole life became more complete.”

Simul with Gm Hou Yifan - HerMoveNext.com

Yifan Hou

Chinese chess grandmaster Yifan Hou was born on February 27, 1994. She has gained much success in and out of the chess world. Her accomplishments include being the youngest to win the Women’s World Chess Championship and being the youngest woman to qualify for the title of Grandmaster. In January of 2007, she became a grandmaster. A few months later in June of 2007, she became China’s youngest National Women’s Champion. She won the Women’s World Championship in Turkey at 16 years old. 

Since semi-retiring from chess, Hou has accumulated an impressive academic resume and career. She studied international relations, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford to study public policy, and in 2020 became the youngest professor at Shenzhen University. 

According to theguardian.com, Hou hopes “to use chess to help organize the overall ability of students and cultivate their innovative thinking.” This hope connects to her participation in “Chess and Conversation with Yifan Hou”, an event sponsored by WorldQuant, hosted by UBS, and in affiliation with Her Move Next. In this event, Hou participated in the simul and a question & answer session. She voiced support for Her Move Next and provided encouragement to the girls in attendance with statements like, “We need more young girls like you who are here today.” 

Susan Polgar - ChessDailyNews.com

Susan Polgar

Susan Polgar, older sister to Judit Polgar, was born on April 19, 1969. She became a very successful chess player from a young age. In 1984, when she was just 15 years old, she became the youngest ever to earn the world number 1 ranking. Two years later in 1986, she qualified for the Men’s World Championship. She, unfortunately, was not allowed to participate due to her gender. She was able to break gender barriers again, her website, susanpolgar.com, states, by being the first woman “to earn the Men’s Grandmaster title by norms and rating.” She has made history several times. As written in her biography, Polgar also “is the only player in history, male or female, to capture all 6 of the world’s most prestigious crowns in chess.”

Outside of her personal competitive chess career, Polgar founded the Susan Polgar Foundation. The Susan Polgar Foundation is a nonprofit organization created to promote chess throughout the United States. The organization targets all young people with a focus on girls. Additionally, she has since become the only woman to coach a men’s Division I collegiate chess team. Her teams have been successful the past ten years, as, according to susanpolgar.com, they “have won more world championships, national titles, and Olympiad medals than all other collegiate chess programs in the United States combined, including a record 7 consecutive final four championships, and 9 consecutive years as the #1 ranked team in the nation.” 

Regarding her own accomplishments, she “broke the record for 326 simultaneous games played with 309 wins, and the highest winning percentage (96.93%),” was inducted to the Chess Hall of Fame and was the subject of a National Geographic documentary. The documentary is titled My Brilliant Brain.

Judit Polgar vs Garry Kasparov - TheTimes.co.uk

Breaking Barriers

A similarity I have noticed between these three women is that they have all broken gender and age barriers. In other words, they have been able to compete with and be successful among men as well as those older. This is important because it shows that not only are they successful women but are successful chess players overall. Regarding age, they all broke records by being the youngest. This shows that they have worked hard all their life and continue to do so throughout their chess careers and beyond. Furthermore, I find it admirable that they never found a limit to their success. They kept achieving multiple awards and creating their individual legacies. With their legacies, they have been able to transfer their love for chess onto others around the country or world. Judit Polgar does this with the Judit Polgar Chess Foundation, Yifan Hou accomplishes this as a professor and Susan Polgar achieves this through the Susan Polgar Foundation. These three women have expanded their love for chess and positively impacted the chess world. At the same time, they have branched away from the game of chess in some ways through writing, academics and documentary features. It is important to learn from and be inspired by these women and many more.