‘Queen of Chess’ celebrates Judit Polgár’s status as a living legend

Judit Polgár was the No.1 ranked woman chess player in the world for over 25 years—from the age of 13 in 1989 till 2014 when she retired. She also became the youngest chess grandmaster (GM) at the age of 15 years and four months in 1991 when she beat American Bobby Fischer’s record by a month (her record has since been beaten many times over).

But Hungarian Polgár’s greatest achievement, beyond the numbers and the statistics, was that she competed against men in a sport that was, till then, deeply misogynistic. Not only did she shake the world order in the sport through the 1990s and 2000s but she also inspired a generation of women players to look beyond false narratives of gender superiority.

A new documentary on Netflix, Queen of Chess, highlights Polgár’s achievements, focusing especially on her battles with Garry Kasparov, then world champion and once considered the greatest player ever (a mantle that’s since passed on to Magnus Carlsen). Queen of Chess follows the fictional Netflix mini-series The Queen’s Gambit from five years ago, whose female protagonist takes on a male-dominated sport sparking suggestions that it may have been inspired by Polgár’s life.

“Women are terrible at chess,” says former world champion Fischer, in an archived, black-and-white clip shown on Queen of Chess. “Guess they are not so smart.”

Polgár’s story is remarkable also from the standpoint of her life being part of an experiment that her father conducted. László Polgár believed that geniuses are made not born, that all geniuses start at around age 5 and practise that one, single activity they want to excel in for 8-9 hours in a day.

He decided that his three daughters Susan, Sofia and Judit would play chess—also because it’s cheap, says his wife Klara in the documentary. In communist Hungary in the 1970s, the girls were home-schooled amid much criticism of László’s obsession with raising geniuses. The existing political situation did not allow them much freedom to travel abroad till much later, despite which Susan became the world No.1 in 1984 while Sofia was an International Master (IM).

This house of chess geniuses had a wall with 30 chess boards and puzzles. Multiple trainers would work with the girls during the course of a day. There were no weekend breaks, which showed in the results as Judit won her first, a local tournament, at age 6.

In the 1988 Chess Olympiad team competition in Greece, where the sisters represented Hungary, the intriguing trio created a “Polgár mania”, which drew the attention of the chess world. Judit did not lose a single game in the tournament as Hungary ended the Soviet Union/Russian hegemony in the sport by winning the gold medal.

As Judit started competing against men—which chess allows for in the open category—she faced much resistance from the old order. Defeated men on occasion stormed off without the customary handshake. Others saw her as subversive, as a relentlessly aggressive player.

In her first match against Kasparov, in Linares in 1994, Judit was in a weak position when Kasparov committed a blunder. After moving a piece, he took his fingers off—which in chess indicates a completed move and therefore irreversible. However, he quickly, within fractions of seconds, grabbed the piece again and moved it to another square, an infraction according to the rule books. However, the error was noticed only by Judit, who was too intimidated to raise an objection and Kasparov, in an interview for the documentary, defends himself even years later by saying that it was only for a tenth of a second that his fingers disconnected from the piece.

When she confronted him after that match, he felt disrespected and complained about it, insulted that a young, woman player should question the world champion. It’s only much later that the truth came to light—an unmanned camera had inadvertently recorded the action, which then became big news, “one of the most famous incidents in chess”, though the match result remained.

Relations between the two remained frosty for some years before Kasparov invited Judit to train with him, which allowed her to see the human side of the chess champion and made him less intimidating. After having never beaten him in 14 encounters, she finally defeated Kasparov in 2002 playing a “subtle, nuanced game” dissimilar to her usual all-out attacking ones.

“That moment gave me the feeling that in one game in an event I can beat anybody,” Judit, now 49, says in Queen of Chess. Kasparov too—seemingly reluctantly—admits that Polgár belongs in that elite field of top chess players occupied only by men.

The following year, she broke into the top 10 (open) rankings—the only woman to do so, as the win over Kasparov gave her an extra edge.

Director Rory Kennedy, who has an Academy Award nomination for a 2014 documentary Last Days in Vietnam, makes Judit Polgár’s battles with Kasparov the centrepiece of her one hour, 34-minute-long film. This film is not the story of how a family of fairly humble means created three chess champions and only briefly touches upon the psychological impact of László’s experimentation. Did he push them too hard? Did he deny them a childhood?

The documentary’s rousing soundtrack, which includes the funky Pot Kettle Black by Tilly and the Wall in the opening credits, sets the mood for a film that holds back on the punches. Polgár’s story is more than her contests with the world champion. It’s about breaking stereotypes, challenging gender norms and the courage it takes for a teenage girl to sit across the board from grim, seasoned pros, believing that she could win.

Arun Janardhan (@iArunJ) is a Mumbai-based journalist who covers sports, business leaders and lifestyle.