1.She won Hungary under 12 girls with perfect score (10-0)...at the age of four! Yeap no typo here F.O.U.R. Wonder whether she is still wearing diaper when executing checkmate after checkmate! :)
2.She composed (and it got published!) her first chess problems (see below) also at the age of 4. Amazing! While most of the four years old could only come up with the trick to get candies, she already could compose below chess problem which required some form of chess mastery and creativity to create it.
White to play and mate in 2 moves
1. Kd1 Kf1
2. Qe1 mate!
3.She won World Under 16 (Girls) at the age of 12.
4.She was World's highest rated player (female) at the age of 15.
5.She got her ’male’ GM title in 1991 (age 22). First female to do it.
6.She could speak 7 languages (Hungarian, English, German, Russian, Spanish, Hebrew and Esperanto). Esperanto ?! Esperanto is the language created in 1870s with the idea to foster harmony between people from different countries, races and to be world’s second language.
7.She is also world record holder for most consecutive games played (1131 games:1112 wins, 14 draws and 3 losses). This world record still unbroken until now.
8.She went undefeated at Olympiads (56 games in total:31 wins and 25 draws)
9.She once create a world record by playing simultaneously games against 326 players (309 wins, 14 draws and 3 losses). GM Kiril Georgiev later broke her record by playing against 360 opponents. GM Morteza renewed this record further by playing against 500 opponents!
Like Gary Kasparov, she is now no longer active participating in chess tournaments but very active in chess development especially in Texas.
It is of no surprise that National Geographic chose her as subject for a documentary titled My Brilliant Mind.
Well, for me... now i know for sure GM Susan Polgar is definitely not an ordinary GM as what i initially thought!
Hi mate,
ReplyDeleteJust to share with you that GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, 9-time Iran national champion, set a new world record of 604 boards for Simultaneous Chess Exhibition by an individual.
The simultaneous exhibition took 25 hours from 8th to 9th February 2011 at the sports stadium of the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran.
Read the full news at http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/4-tournaments/5055-world-record-604-board-simultaneous-chess-exhibition-by-gm-ehsan-ghaem-maghami-iri.html
Israel GM broke that record if I am not mistaken.
ReplyDeleteActually one of Israel GM broke Morteza Mahjoob world record for simultaneous exhibition, which hthe Iranian set on August 13, 2009.
ReplyDeleteGM Ehsan broke the Israel GM record so Ehsan is the current record holder.
Hi Hairul,
ReplyDeleteThanks for highlighting the simultaneous chess record info. The question here is what's next? 1000 opponent simul?
Hi Arshad,
Don't forget about our little bet! :)
Polgar was the third woman to become an IGM, and the second to do it through norms (after Gaprindashvili).
ReplyDeleteWhere was the problem she composed at age 4 published?
ReplyDeleteHi Ian,
ReplyDeleteIt is disputable...but Nona and Maya got their GM NOT by playing at male tournament but more as a recognizant from FIDE. First female to get GM title the way man do is Susan Polgar.
Hi Jon,
Not sure...got that info from wikipedia :)