Susan Polgar

Who is Susan Polgar?

Susan Polgar is a Hungarian-born American chess Grandmaster. She is famous for having been a child prodigy at chess, for being a pioneer for women in chess, and for being an advocate for chess in education. She is an Olympic and World chess champion, a chess teacher, coach, writer and promoter and the head of the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence at Webster University as well as the head coach for the 2011 and 2012 National Championship college chess teams at Texas Tech University and the 2013 and 2014 National Championship teams at Webster University. She is the oldest of the famous "Polgár sisters": Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit. She was the first female to earn the grandmaster title through tournament play, and is credited with breaking a number of gender barriers in chess.

On the July 1984 FIDE Rating List, at the age of 15, she became the top-ranked woman player in the world, and remained ranked in the top three for the next 23 years. She was also the first woman in history to break the gender barrier by qualifying for the 1986 "Men's" World Championship. She was the Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 to 1999. She won the World Blitz and Rapid Championships in 1992. In October 2005, Polgar had an Elo rating of 2577, making her the second-ranked woman in the world at the time, after her sister Judit. Polgar went on to win ten Olympic medals and four Women's World Championships. She has not played in official competition since 2006.