Five Numbers to Get Excited For Judit Polgars Visit

Our model player this winter is Judit Polgar, who's as close to Beth Harmon from Queen's Gambit as any real person.  She's a chess legend, and we're lucky enough to have her visiting on Monday, February 15th at 2pm EST.  She visited last summer, and for this visit, she's going to teach a lesson on her final round in one of her best tournaments, a game she needed to win in order to win the tournament!

The lesson is included with our online club, and for anyone who joins our camp that day.  You can get a special discount on the camp by using that link!

10: the number of World Champions Judit has beaten in competition

1. Smyslov (1957-1958)
2. Spassky (1969-1972)
3. Karpov (1975-1985)
4. Kasparov (1985-2000)
5. Khalifman (1999-2000)
6. Anand (2000-2002, 2007-2013)
7. Ponomariov (2002-2004)
8. Kasimdzhanov (2004-2005)
9. Topalov (2005-2006)
10. Carlsen (2013-present)

If you include blitz games, you can add two more (Kramnik and Fischer) to the list, which means that she's beaten everyone who's been the world champion in the last 50 years.

The games range from complicated struggles to punishing tactical errors to converting endgames to everything in between!

15 years and 4 months: her age when she became the youngest Grandmaster ever

In 1991, Judit broke Bobby Fischer's record to become the youngest grandmaster ever, when she was fifteen years old.  He set his record in 1958, and it lasted more than thirty years.

55: her ranking in the world as twelve year old

When Judit was 12 years old in 1989, after a series of strong tournaments, her FIDE rating jumped to 2555.  This made her the 55th highest rated player in the world, something which no one has done before or since.  The youngest player currently in the top hundred is 17 years old, and there's only one other teenager on the list.

31: the number of years Judit has been the highest rated woman in the world

That same year, Judit became the highest rated woman in the world.  She is still the highest rated woman in the world... though from March-July of 2015, she briefly dropped to number two, behind Hou Yifan.

8: her peak in the world rankings

Judit peaked at 8th in the world in January of 2004, and she bounced around between 8th and 11th in the world from April of 2003 through January of 2006.