- Sofia Polgar
Infobox chess player
playername = Sofia Polgar
caption = Photo by Gennadiy Titkov
birthname = Polgár Zsófia
country = HUN
datebirth = birth date and age|1974|11|2
placebirth =Budapest , Hungary
datedeath =
placedeath =
title =International Master Woman Grandmaster
worldchampion =
rating = 2459
peakrating = 2540 (December 1999) at age 24International Master Sofia Polgar (bornNovember 2 ,1974 as Polgár Zsófia (pronounced|ˈpolgaːr ˈʒoːfiɒ) is a Hungarian-bornInternational Master ofchess and formerchess prodigy . [As she uses the anglicised form of her name on her website we may assume this is the form she now prefers. In Hungarian she is sometimes known by the familiar form Zsófi.] She is anInternational Master andWoman Grandmaster , and is the middle sister of Grandmasters Susan andJudit Polgár . Since 2006, she has lived in Canada, working as a chess teacher and artist.Career
Polgár is
Jew ish, and fromBudapest . She and her two sisters were part of an educational experiment carried out by their fatherLászló Polgár , in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age. "Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klara educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject. [ [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=210390&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=210390 "All the right moves"] – aHaaretz account of the education and accomplishments of the Polgar sisters] They also taught their daughters the international languageEsperanto .In 1989, at the age of 14, she stunned the chess world by her performance in a tournament in
Rome , which became known as the "Sack of Rome". She won the tournament, which included several strong Grandmasters, with a score of 8.5 out of 9. According to theChessmetrics rating system, her performance rating was 2735; [cite web|url=http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/PlayerProfile.asp?Params=199510SSSSS1S102714000000111102267600024610100|title=Chessmetrics Player Profile: Sofia Polgar] one of the strongest performances in history by a 14-year-old.On
February 7 1999 Polgar married Georgian-bornIsrael i GrandmasterYona Kosashvili , and made analiyah to Israel with her parents. They have two children, Alon and Yoav. Later, they emigrated toToronto , Canada. For a time, she ranked as the 6th-strongest female player in the world. She played one FIDE-rated game in July 2005. Prior to that, her last FIDE-rated game was in September 2003. At one point she beatViktor Korchnoi , regarded by some as the strongest player never to be world champion, at a game offast chess . [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9k5oBgaZGI Video of Sofia Polgar defeating Victor Korchnoi]Notes
External links
* [http://sofiapolgar.com/ Official website]
*chessgames player|id=41322|name=Zsofia Polgar
*fide|id=700231|name=Sofia Polgar
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.