Judit Polgar is universally recognised as the strongest female player of all time. In 1991, when she obtained her grandmaster title at the age of 15 years and 4 four months, she broke the record previously established by Bobby Fischer as the youngest player to do so. By then, she was already known to be one of the greatest prodigies in the history of chess. And that was only the beginning of the story.
Now that the Chess Olympiad is about to kick off in Budapest, the Hungarian legend will get a major platform to showcase her work as a chess promoter at the 10th edition of the Global Chess Festival.
A couple of weeks ago, Polgar spoke with Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam on the New in Chess podcast, and mostly discussed the Olympiad and the aforementioned Festival. For example, she referred to who are the favourites and the dark horses in the open section of the event:
This year China is back, which means they absolutely want to get a medal, the only question is how shiny it is. Of course, India is there - but they also play with pressure because, let's face it, by now there are expectations and hopes. So it's a completely different mindset [compared to 2 years ago].
[...] But of course, the Uzbek guys, for sure they want to defend their title. And you never know - if they have an incredible team spirit, work ethic... and of course luck, I'm sorry, luck can't escape you if you want to win.
What grabbed most attention on social media, though, was Polgar's remarks about women's chess. She explained her position, which favours women striving to fight with the very best in the world (she achieved a peak ranking of 8th in the world during her prime), noting:
There are quite a few ladies who are on the top who really worked hard in some period of their life - they worked hard, they dedicated many hours of their days, even though they had families, kids. They really focused on becoming a champion, so you do see quite a few ladies who have this incredible fighting spirit and dedication and love for the game.
But it's interesting for me that I've never spoken with a lady from the top who said, yes, I believe that women can become just as good as guys. Because there is no difference - I mean, there is a difference, but it's not [the kind of] difference that would stop you from becoming a top 10 player.
[...] If there's something, let's say one thing, that we could change - and then the environment and the life of girls and women in chess would change - I thought it would be possible, just a very good try to test it at least, is to delete the women titles.
I mean, why do we have women titles? Isn't it much better to have rating titles and not that it's women or men?
You know, it's very interesting, that sometimes with a very simple thing, very big changes can happen. Because suddenly the mindset of ladies would also say that, ok, it does not matter whether I play in an open tournament or a women's tournament - I'm aiming to get this title, this title belongs to my rating, not to the gender question, it's my strength, it's my knowledge, it's what I can perform.
And this is just a fragment of what turned out to be a fascinating conversation!
