Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess grandmaster. Born in Budapest in 1976, she became the strongest female chess player in history. Polgár, who retired from competitive play in 2014, is generally considered the greatest woman player of all time.
Polgár and her two older sisters were part of an educational experiment conducted by their father, László Polgár, who sought to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if they specialized in a particular field from a young age. He chose chess as the field. The experiment was a resounding success, with all three sisters achieving major success in the world of chess.
Polgár had significant success in competitive play against the world's top-ranked players. She defeated nine current or former world champions in either rapid or classical chess: Anatoli Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov, Alexander Khalifman, and Magnus Carlsen.
Polgár was ranked the world number one woman player from 1989 (when she was just 12 years old) until her retirement. Additionally, she has written books and articles on chess, and was part of the team that managed the 2012 World Chess Championship between Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand in Moscow.
After her retirement, Polgár has continued her alliance to chess. She launched the Judit Polgar Chess Foundation to use chess as an educational tool for children in schools. She was also appointed as the head coach of the Hungarian national men's team. Polgár was given the honour of being the ceremonial starter of the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2021.
Her honours and awards include the Chess Oscar, Sportswoman of the Year in Hungary, and International Ambassador of Chess by the International Chess Federation.