Polgar, Zsuzsa
American chess player
born April 19, 1969, Budapest, Hungary
Hungarian international grandmaster who won the women's world chess championship in 1996 from Xie Jun of China. In 1999 Polgar was stripped of her title by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE; the international chess organization) for failing to agree to match conditions.At four years of age, Polgar won the under-11 chess championship of Budapest with a perfect score of 10–0. She won the world chess championship for girls under 16 at the age of 12 and attained the international master title in 1984.
Along with her younger sisters Sofia and Judit Polgar (Polgar, Judit), she led Hungary to the women's Olympiad gold medal in 1988 and again in 1990. Polgar became an international grandmaster in 1991 and, after her sister Judit, is generally considered the best female player of all time.
Zsuzsa Polgar married Jacob Shutzman in 1994 and moved to New York City, where the two opened a private chess club. FIDE failed to find funding for the women's world championship in 1998, and Polgar proceeded with plans to have a child. Funding was later obtained, and FIDE rescheduled the match to take place in China in 1999. Polgar was denied a deferment for her pregnancy and lost the title when she refused to comply with match conditions.
Additional Reading
Zsuzsa Polgar and Jacob Shutzman, Queen of the Kings Game (1997), is a biography of Zsuzsa Polgar, written with her husband, Jacob, that includes annotations of the games from the 1996 women's championship match with Xie Jun.John Graham, Women in Chess: Players of the Modern Age (1987), contains short biographies of many of the best female chess players of the 20th century.