Chapter XIV
An Unconventional Education
Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in
and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I
might select—doctor, lawyer, artist,
merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief.
—Psychologist John
Watson
J
udit Polgár is widely considered to be the best female chess player of all
time. At age seven, she won her first game against a chess master while
blindfolded. At twelve, she was ranked fifty-fifth of all chess players in the
world by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) (World Chess
Federation). By fifteen, she had become the youngest-ever grand master,
beating the illustrious Bobby Fischer’s previous record by one month. At her
peak, Polgár was ranked eighth in the world and competed in the World
Chess Championship, the only woman ever to have done so.
Chess is a game dominated by adult men. Thus a young girl competing
was bound to arouse both the curiosity and the prejudice of her competitors.
Grand master Edmar Mednis, facing off against the young Polgár, noted that
he was very careful to play his best against the young prodigy, noting that
“Grandmasters don’t like to lose to 10-year-old girls, because then we make
the front page of all the papers.”
1
Some of her competitors celebrated the
obvious genius of Polgár’s play. Grand master Nigel Short said Polgár might
be one of the “three or four great chess prodigies in history.”
2
Mikhail Tal, a
former world champion, suggested when Polgár was still twelve that she
might eventually be a contender for world champion.
Garry Kasparov was less convinced. The former world champion has been
considered by many to be the best chess player of all time. He is most famous
for his matches against IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer, winning against
the machine in 1996 and losing in 1997, marking the transition to machine
dominance in a game that had historically been considered one of the highest
expressions of human creativity and intelligence. Kasparov was less than
enthusiastic about the young Polgár’s chances. “She has fantastic chess
talent, but she is, after all, a woman. It all comes down to the imperfections of
the feminine psyche. No woman can sustain a prolonged battle.”
3
That casual prejudice erupted into a full-blown controversy during their
first match. Polgár, then only seventeen, sat across from the chess legend and
former world champion, playing in a tournament in Linares, Spain. Although
chess is often viewed as being coldly rational, as both players calculate
moves with precision to reach their final outcome, the psychological effect of
sitting opposite the dominant Russian can’t be understated. Given that
incredible tension, it was almost unbelievable when Kasparov, on move
thirty-four, placed his knight and, after briefly lifting his fingers from the
piece, changed his mind and moved it to a better square. Polgár was stunned.
According to chess rules, once a player stops touching a piece, the move is
done; no changes are allowed. Half in disbelief, she glanced at the referee,
expecting him to indicate that Kasparov had cheated. Yet the referee didn’t
challenge the grand master.
Reeling from the move, Polgár lost the game.
Asked why she hadn’t challenged the illegal move herself, Polgár
explained, “I was playing the World Champion and didn’t want to cause
unpleasantness during my first invitation to such an important event. I was
also afraid that if my complaint was overruled I would be penalized on the
clock when we were in time pressure.”
4
Still, after the game had concluded,
she was incensed. She confronted Kasparov later in the hotel bar, demanding
“How could you do this to me?”
5
“She publicly accused me of cheating,”
Kasparov said when defending himself against the accusation. “I think a girl
of her age should be taught some good manners.”
6
It would be years before
the two spoke again, but whereas Kasparov was already well established in
the chess world, Polgár was just getting started.
Polgár is singular, not only for her prowess in the male-dominated game
but also for how she learned to play. Unlike other famous players, such as
Bobby Fischer, who spontaneously developed an obsession for the game,
Polgár’s chess genius was no accident. Instead, it started with one man’s
mission to raise genius children.
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