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 24

International Master Sofia Polgar (born November 2, 1974 as Polgár Zsófia (pronounced|ˈpolgaːr ˈʒoːfiɒ) is a Hungarian-born International Master of chess and former chess 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 an International Master and Woman Grandmaster, and is the middle sister of Grandmasters Susan and Judit Polgár. Since 2006, she has lived in Canada, working as a chess teacher and artist.

Career

Polgár is Jewish, and from Budapest. She and her two sisters were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László 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"] – a Haaretz account of the education and accomplishments of the Polgar sisters] They also taught their daughters the international language Esperanto.

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 the Chessmetrics 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-born Israeli Grandmaster Yona Kosashvili, and made an aliyah to Israel with her parents. They have two children, Alon and Yoav. Later, they emigrated to Toronto, 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 beat Viktor Korchnoi, regarded by some as the strongest player never to be world champion, at a game of fast 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