Humanly Genius Episode 2 Transcript

Chess Was Split By Sex

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There was a family with three girls that changed the world of chess and its competitive aspect. Chess as any sport was divided between the two sexes. There was no bridge arching to connect them. Females could not compete with males. They had different sets of thresholds and competition standards. Men really believed that women hadn't had the mental capacity like men did. And interestingly, it was okay. Nobody complained. A girl and her father broke this divide, followed by her two sisters. So later, girls and women would have equal chances in chess. All three girls were the best in chess at that time. They were the first in many categories, but their ultimate legacy will live on beyond world championships and Olympics. Chess became gender neutral, and now more and more women coaches work with talented girls to increase the number of women in this world of men.

Where To Learn More

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Some self-advertisement first. You can hear more about Laslo Polgar's methodology of raising a genius, the family's struggles and circumstances that ultimately led to success in the last decade of the last millennium at the Let Your Genius Emerge podcast. You can read about them in more detail on the humanlygenious.com website.

Susan’s Childhood And First Chessboard

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In the first five years, she was an only child, and as she remembers, she had an average girl's early childhood. She played with dolls and imitated mom as she was cooking in the kitchen. The one difference was that she started learning other languages very early on. She spoke Hungarian, of course, then Russian. She attended a Russian-speaking daycare for a while. It was very important for Laszlo to teach his children Esperanto, but I will only tell his reason in the methodology episode later on. Other than that, she said she was a hyperactive child, always moving, always looking for something to do. One day when she was about four, as she was playing in the living room, she opened the closet to find something interesting there. And so she did. There was a board and lots of pieces of figures, black and white. She went to her mother and asked her what it was, and what you can do with it. Her mother told her it was a fun game, and put the board on the table, helping Susan to set all the black and white pieces next to it. Susan wanted to know how to play the game, but Clara said she didn't really know, so Susan had to ask her father. So she did. Laszlo sat down with her by the table and started to play with two figures of the same kind, one black and one white. He showed how this piece moved, then he gave Susan a piece and had his piece be chased by Susan's. The girl had to make sure she only stepped the way it was supposed to move. Then they switched, and the chaser became the chaste. After that, Laszlo told the name of another figure, and explained how it was supposed to move, so the race began between black and white again. Laszlo patiently introduced all the pieces, their names and how they moved. They started to chase with two pieces, and then with three. Soon enough it was time to put the pieces to their right places on the board, and one by one they involved more and more figures in the game. Susan said from the time she started to play, she was glued to the chair and couldn't stop. She learned so fast that soon her father took her to a chess club. Just remember she was still four years old and did not reach five

The Smoky Chess Club Upset

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yet. The club was full of smoke. Middle aged and older men sat by the tables, focusing on their games. When they looked stuffed, they saw Laslo with a little girl on his side. So they asked him if he wanted to play with them. He said no, he was there so his daughter could play. They burst out laughing because the girl was barely taller than the table itself. So Laslow placed a cushion on one chair and sat Susan down. The men were puzzled. They really thought it was below them to play with a forty year old, let alone a girl. But Laslo was insistent, so finally one of the men sat across Susan and started to play. It didn't take too long for Susan to win. So another man came and lost. Then another. As Susan later said, when a man lost against a child, again, let alone a girl, they always made stuffed an excuse like they had bad sleep or they had a cold. They could never just admit that the girl was better. Susan was still not five yet when she won with a perfect 1010 score in her first ever Hungarian tournament for children under 11 years old.

Three Sisters Enter The Game

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She too was playing as an average girl, learned Russian and Esperanto, and had to wait until she was four to start playing around the chessboard. Two years later, Judith was born and started following in the steps of her sisters. Sophia was two and Susan was seven. They played with neighborhood kids and relatives. They played sports. Later on, just as a side hustle, they did swimming, played tennis and table tennis, even competitively. They later said that they never felt like they were missing out. They made many lifelong friends through chess. They had a very happy childhood and a very loving home. When Sophia was four years old, she started to play chess, and by that time Susan was practicing five, six hours a day. It really bothered Judith. How come both her sisters could go and play with Dad, but she couldn't? She was told when she was four and learned the chess pieces, she could enter the room where the magic chess boards lived. She learned her languages but was more eager to find out about chess and have a peek into the room from time to time. So finally she was let in, and from that moment on she was unstoppable. According to her sisters, Judith was the most driven, most disciplined, and most aggressive player. Sophia loved chess, but she was lazier. Not that she didn't accomplish all that she could, on the contrary, she was also very successful in competitions. Susan was the pioneer though. She was the girl who had to break down the door of the House of Men's chess. In 1981, when Susan was twelve, she won her first major international world youth title in London. Judith was separated from her older sisters because they were already training for competitions. This, however, just increased her curiosity. She learned fast and her problem solving skills got so good that finally she was invited to join the family chess group. At the age of five, she defeated a family friend without looking at the board. After the game, the friend jokingly said that, you are good at chess, but I am a good cook. What was Judith's answer? Do you cook without looking at the stove? Another time when Susan was studying an endgame with her trainer, an international master, they were unable to find a solution, so they woke stuffed Judith and carried her into the training room. While she was half asleep, Judith showed them how to solve the problem. Then she went back to sleep. She started playing in tournaments at six years of age. All three sisters were members of a chess club in Budapest, where they would gain experience from master level players. When Judith was six, Sophia eight, and Susan 13, they played two games of blindfold chess against two chess masters and one. They even complained that one of their opponents was playing too slowly and suggested a clock should be used. Just a quick note here. I'm going by each year talking about the girls parallel to each other, not separately, because it is very useful to see how the methodology worked for each of them. Another interesting tidbit. A chess master or champion would have memorized around 100,000 different chest opening sequence moves plus any other patterns.

Rankings Rise And Doors Shut

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At age 15, in 1984, Susan reached a number one ranking among women globally. 1986 was a memorable year for all three sisters. Good news or bad news first. Bad news. Susan was 17 and qualified for the World Chess Championship zonal cycle. At that time it was referred to as the men's championship cycle after tying for second place at the Hungarian National Championship in Budapest. Despite that, she was barred and refused participation by the Hungarian Chess Federation and FIDE due to being a female. That was really when the fight for equality started. Sophia finished second at the World Under 14 Championship and was crowned the World Under 14 Girl Champion. In April 1986, when Judith was 9, Sophia 11, and as I said, Susan was 17, Judith played her first rated tournament in the US, finishing first in the unrated section of New York Open. Sophia finished second in her section and Susan competed in the Grandmaster section and won. Again, I have to note that the Polgar's passport to travel to the West, yes, there were two passports, the red one going to socialist countries and the blue one going to Western countries.

Passports, Harassment, Women Coaches

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So for a while, their passports had been revoked for five years, and they could not compete in the West. There was an incident in a hotel in London that shook Susan. She was sexually assaulted, which she said later was not a rare occurrence. Young girls and women were very small in numbers at competitions, so males would hit on them and take advantage of them. She doesn't know his name or what happened to him, but she says it is very risky for young girls to travel with males, even male coaches. This is why she's promoting having more and more female coaches, so preteens and teenagers would not have to be at the mercy of male coaches and other male players.

Sack Of Rome And Record Titles

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In 1989, at just 14, Sophia won at the Magistrale di Roma tournament in Rome. It was famously called the Sack of Rome. She defeated multiple season grandmasters and international masters, and her score was 8.5 out of 9. Susan became the first woman in history to earn full unrestricted men's grandmaster title in 1991 at the age of 22. Later in December 1991, Judith achieved the Grandmaster title by winning the Hungarian National Championship. At the time, she was the youngest ever at the age of 15 years and four months. This way she beat Fisher's record by a month. This made her both the first woman to be the youngest ever Grandmaster and the fourth woman to become a Grandmaster.

Bobby Fischer’s Ugly Betrayal

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In the summer of 1993, Bobby Fisher stayed with the Polgars for a while in Hungary. Due to an arrest warrant issued by the US for violating the UN blockade of Yugoslavia with his 1992 match against Buski, he lived in seclusion in Yugoslavia. During his stay with the family, he played many games there and helped the sisters analyze their games. Susan said that he was friendly on a personal level and recalled mostly pleasant moments with him as their guest, although conflicts arose due to his political views. On the suggestion of a friend of Fisher, a match of blitz chess between Fisher and Judith was arranged and announced to the press. However, problems ensued between Fisher and Laslo Polgard, and Fisher cancelled the match. Telling a friend who asked if the match would take place, he said no, they are Jewish. More specifically, he told his friend he wouldn't play with her because she was Jewish. No, they are Jewish. The Jews are criminal people. They mutilate their children. They are murderous criminals, stealing lying bastards. All that after taking advantage of their hospitality over that summer. Sophia earned her International Master and Woman Grandmaster titles.

Pregnancy Clash With FIDE

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Susan's title defense against Xi Yun of China was scheduled to take place in 1998, but Fi Day had been unable to find a satisfactory sponsor. In early 1999, a match was arranged, but under the conditions, Susan objected. She requested a postponement because she was pregnant and due to give birth to her first child. Tang was born in March 1999. Susan felt that she did not have enough time to recuperate as the match was to be held in China, the home country of the Challenger. She also wanted a larger prize fund matching at least the minimum stipulated by Fide regulations at the time. When Susan refused to play under the set conditions, Fide declared that she had forfeited the title. Susan sued in the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland for monetary damages and the restoration for her title. In 2001, the case was settled with Susan withdrawing her claims, and Fide agreed to pay her attorney's fee and paid her $25,000. Since Xi Yun had already been crowned women's world champion, Fide couldn't restore the title. This way, Susan decided not to participate in later women's world championship cycles. And I almost forgot to tell you, Fide is the International Chess Federation. This incident highlighted the problems women in chess faced. In an all-men-led environment, a natural life event was ignored and discredited instead of taking her natural maternal state into consideration. On top of that, in a women's championship. Sophia ranked as the sixth strongest female player in the world. She played very little between 1996 and 2010. She married the Israeli grandmaster Yonah Kosashwili and moved to Israel. They have two children. Judith took some time off from chess in 2004 to give birth to her first son. After that, she was considered inactive until Susan activated her status. She went on playing competitively for years with various successes. She announced her retirement from chess at the highest level in 2014 through the London's newspaper The Times.

The Legacy That Changed Chess

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They finally not just opened the door, but demolished the wall dividing females and males and made chess gender neutral. Their successes and their tireless work with young girls today helped to increase women in the competing world from under 1% to 15%. All of them are involved in organizing national and international chess festivals and events, and they all have foundations. Judith and Sophia wrote children's chess educational books. Sophia created the illustrations. Judith lives in Budapest, working with children and trying to bring chess into schools. Susan lives in the US, works and travels from there. Sophia lives in Israel, where she is a designer and an artist, a painter. Susan wrote or co-authored over 10 books. Her last book is a memoir titled Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster, released in 2025. Sophia wrote two books and painted many, many pictures. Judith authored and co-authored multiple chess book series and volumes. They are all happily married and have two children each. They fondly remember their childhood when they played with neighborhood kids and relatives and met many friends, even their spouses, through chess. They traveled to more than 80 countries. There may have never been a female US president, but in the third millennium, every healthy girl can become a grandmaster, a world chess champion, competing against women and men, or inherit Judith Polgar's place and become the queen of chess. I hope you enjoyed the story of these one of a kind sisters and became more interested in them, as well as how genius is nurtured. Next time on the Let Your Genius Emerge, I will talk about the Polgar parents, their struggles and their circumstances, and by persisting, they finally help their children to get to the top and achieve the impossible at the time. In the Julia Bright Podcast, I will talk about love, but not as you would expect, let's say on a Valentine's Day. All three of our podcasts' episodes are built on one another.

Final Thoughts And Ways To Support

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So you can subscribe and not miss anything. Did you like this episode? Comment, like us. You can listen to me on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcast. You can support the Humanly Genius Project on Patreon as well. Also, check out my website, humanlygenies.com. Get in touch with me on Facebook or on Instagram. Talk to you later. Bye for now.