Best Lady Players

A web page added by popular request. I wanted to bring a few of the best female chess players who ever lived. Maybe a picture or two. A brief review of their lives and chess careers. And maybe a few links to web sites that have more information on the player in question. (And other goodies too!)

The greatest female player of all time ... turns thirty. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUDIT!!!)

Arguably the best female player of all time. One of three amazing chess-playing sisters of the Laszlo Polgar family. [Hungarian] ( The other two sisters being Zsuzsa {Susan} and Zsofia. {Sophie} ) Born in 1976, in 1991, she broke Bobby Fischer's record for being the youngest FIDE GM ever. At one time she was firmly in the "Top Ten" players in the world. And for many years now, she has been the highest-rated female in the world. She is a very talented player, who in my mind, has not yet reached the fullest potential of her skill. She may yet become World Champion. She certainly has tons of natural ability!!

I have seen games where she has blown male GM's out of the water. She is extremely dangerous tactically. Her one weak point seems to be positional play.

(A little known fact about Judit is she could have easily become both the Chess Women's World Champion AND The World Junior [Chess] Champion. But she passed over BOTH tournaments, preferring to compete on equal terms with the men in open, adult tournaments.)

A personal favorite of mine, and of my good friend, Stephen Davis. (Every time there was a chess game in the pages of a chess magazine, he would always insist on going over the game. We would do this by the hour.)

She has won many tournaments. In 1988 she was equal first with her sister Susan at Egilsstadhir. In 1990, she won the World Under-14 Championships. She was equal first with Tukmakov at Amsterdam, 1990. (This was a strong Swiss with 24 very good players.) In 1991, she won the Hungarian Super-Championship with a score of 3 wins and six draws. (Ahead of Adorjan and Sax.) She was also first at Hastings, 1992/93; Monaco, 1994; and the U.S. Open, 1998. [Plus many more!]

This is not a complete list, you should see one of the links below for a more complete list of her accomplishments.

(Or click here to go to the "On-Line Chess Encyclopedia's" page [La Mecca] on Judit Polgar.)

Some links with more info on Judit are:

And if you don't think this is enough links, just type in "Judit Polgar" and then hit enter in the search engine of your favorite web browser. You will find literally hundreds of sites and stories on this great lady player. Even the very biggest Judit Polgar fan should be happy.

DEC. 2002: Judit Polgar Wins in Spain

The Hungarian star finished the event with two wins to draw even with FIDE champion Ruslan Ponomariov. Then Polgar outplayed him in the second tiebreak blitz game, sacrificing two pawns and mating Ponomariov's king! "I just trusted my intuition, and it worked very well," she said afterwards.

Alexey Shirov and Anatoly Karpov finished 3-4, and then came the 12-year-old sensation, Sergey Karjakin. The youngster had his first loss in the final round, when a win would have given him a share of first place.
(My emphasis.)

(From "Chess Express," of the London Chess
Center. Vol. # 1; Issue # 22.)

She played great chess too, I went over several of the games from "The Week In Chess."

January, 2003. In one of the highest-rated tournaments of all time, (CORUS / Wijk aan Zee); with just one round left to play - Judit is in clear second place. (I don't think she has lost a game.) This has to be one of her best performances to date.

May, 2005: Judit played in the "M-tel Masters," and did pretty well. While Topalov won this event, Judit performed creditably. She had one win and one loss, and drew some very tough games. In the end, she scored 50% ... and even gained rating points! And while her fans might prefer news of a smaller tournament that she won - this is EXTREMELY significant. (In one of the stronger tournaments of the last 10 or so years, Judit holds her own ... and proves that she BELONGS in this type of tournament.) My congrats to a talented young woman!

Judit Polgar has not been in the news much this past year. But anytime she wins a major tournament, or has any other interesting or outstanding accomplishment, I hope to have it here as soon as possible! (Tuesday; December 30th, 2003.)

I have had literally hundreds of requests to analyze a few of Judit's games. Thus far, I have been too busy with other projects. PLUS - I have never found one game that really stood out.

All that may have changed this past week at the Sunday chess club. (May 29th, 2005.)

I found a game that is truly amazing ... and shows off Judit's abilities ... like few other contests that I have studied. Watch for it right here! This will be the ONLY place that I post the link to it!!!

Note: I have not forgotten about the above game ... I am still analyzing it, its as much fun to analyze as it was to play through.. (I cannot - currently - say when it will be ready.) July 26th, 2005.

I decided - after literally dozens of e-mails, (four in the last few days!) - to bring you this game without further delay.

GM Alexei Shirov (2740) - GM Judit Polgar (2630);
[B54]
Sicilian Theme Tournament
Buenos Aires, Argentina; (R#8) / 10,1994.

A.J.G.

************************************************************************************************

This has to be my favorite Polgar game of all time, Judit showers the board with brilliant moves.

I don't know about anyone else, but this game is as easily as brilliant as any effort of ANY male player!! (A contest of the highest caliber.)

1.e4 c5; 2.Nf3 e6; 3.d4 cxd4; 4.Nxd4 Nc6; 5.Nc3 d6; 6.g4!?,
You can often count on Shirov to play unusual and enterprising chess.
(He plays a form of the Keres Attack, even when there is no Knight on f6 to kick around!)

[ The move of: 6.Be2, transposes into a fairly standard Scheveningen Sicilian. [more] ]

6...a6; 7.Be3 Nge7!; 8.Nb3 b5!; 9.f4 Bb7; 10.Qf3!? g5!!; (TN)
A brilliant positional sacrifice ... designed to gain the e5-square for Black's Knights.

11.fxg5!? Ne5; 12.Qg2 b4!; 13.Ne2 h5!!; 14.gxh5!?,
Shirov - who, to be honest, seems to have a nice plus score against Judit - apparently decides to try and refute Black's plan. However, this is probably a doubtful concept, as Black gets an enormous amount of play. (I used the CB tools to pull up all the games where Shirov was White and the games where Judit Polgar was Black. Out of 21 games, Shirov had 11 wins, Judit had two or three ... and the rest were drawn.)

If White (instead) captures on h6, Black gets an initiative and a strong attack -
... ... ... see the Informant, (Volume 62) for more details.

14...Nf5!!; (I think - '!!!!')
It's not just that this is a nice and unexpected shot that this contest gains my adoration ...
it is the extremely forceful and dynamic method of attack ...
the way in which she continues the assault ...
this is why this particular game has become my favorite 'partie' for this player.

15.Bf2 Qxg5!; 16.Na5 Ne3!!;   {See the diagram - just below.}
"A terrible shock for Shirov," says GM Neil McDonald ...
who also awards this move two exclams.

17.Qg3 Qxg3; 18.Nxg3 Nxc2+; 19.Kd1 Nxa1; 20.Nxb7 b3!;
Judit gives here Knight a method of escape and further degrades White's Pawn structure.

21.axb3 Nxb3; 22.Kc2 Nc5; 23.Nxc5 dxc5;
Black is an exchange ahead, the rest is ... "a matter of technique."

24.Be1 Nf3!; 25.Bc3 Nd4+; 26.Kd3 Bd6!; 27.Bg2 Be5; 28.Kc4 Ke7!!; (Just too cool.)
One last insidious trap by perhaps the greatest lady player of all time.
(If Shirov grabs the Pawn on c5, then Judit plays her QR to b8! Then if Shirov
were to mistakenly grab the Knight on d4, Judit could quietly play ...Rhc8#.)

[ This game is wonderfully annotated in GM Neil McDonald's EXCELLENT book,
<"Chess: the art of logical thinking," (from the first move to the last).>
Published in 2004 by Batsford books. ISBN: # 0-7134-8894-8 ]

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Since posting this game, I have gotten over 20 e-mails, nearly all of them positive. Some would like to see more detail ... and nearly all of you asked that I consider doing more games ... presented like the one above. Thanks - anyone got a list of Judit's best games? (July 04, 2006)

Some links with more info on Judit are:

DEC. 2002: Judit Polgar Wins in Spain

The games of Judit Polgar?

GM Alexei Shirov (2740) - GM Judit Polgar (2630);
[B54]
Sicilian Theme Tournament
Buenos Aires, Argentina; (R#8) / 10,1994.

A.J.G.

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Some links with more info on Judit are:

DEC. 2002: Judit Polgar Wins in Spain

The games of Judit Polgar?

GM Alexei Shirov (2740) - GM Judit Polgar (2630); [B54] Sicilian Theme Tournament Buenos Aires, Argentina; (R#8) / 10,1994.

A.J.G.

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GM Alexei Shirov (2740) - GM Judit Polgar (2630);
[B54]
Sicilian Theme Tournament
Buenos Aires, Argentina; (R#8) / 10,1994.