Written by: Emadeldin Teama

Who is Judit Polgar and how much did she earn from chess?

Judit Polgar is a Hungarian chess grandmaster that is generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. In this article we are going to explore her chess career, her achievements and how much did she earn from chess.

Judit Polgar as a young prodigy

Judit Polgar was raised in a family that plays chess on a professional level. She and her sisters started playing chess from a very young age around 4 years old. She showed an outstanding skill at that young age and was able to achieve her grandmaster title at the age of 15 years old in 1991 , at the time she was the youngest to have done so far breaking the the former world champion Bobby Fischer record.

She was also the youngest player ever to break it into the top 100 players in the world in the rating list ranking No 55 in 1989 at the age of only 12!

In 2005, she was the only woman to be a serious candidate for the world chess championship in which she participated in. and she is also the only woman to have surpassed the 2700 ELO rating in 2004 , reaching her peak rating of 2735 in 2005 where she broke into the top 10 chess players in the world achieving a ranking number 8th!

She was the No.1 rated woman in the world from January 1989 until her retirement from professional chess play on 13 August 2014. Judit Polgar is an aggressive chess player who is extremely talented and she did prove that she is a legend as she destroyed many chess top players of the world including the former world champion and legend Garry Kasparov in 2002.

Judit Polgar career and historical achievements

Polgar is the only woman to have won a game against a reigning world number one player, and has defeated eleven current or former world champions in either rapid or classical chess: Magnus Carlsen, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov, Alexander Khalifman, and Rustam Kasimdzhanov

She recorded her name in history by showing the world her absolutely amazing talent in chess and her outstanding performance over the years against top players. She never feared any match and always went all in in every single game!

Judit Polgar rarely played in women-specific tournaments or divisions and has never competed for the Women’s World Championship: “I always say that women should have the self-confidence that they are as good as male players, but only if they are willing to work and take it seriously as much as male players.”

Her mission over the years is to show women that they can achieve anything a man does as long as they are willing to work as hard as men!

On 13 August 2014, she announced her retirement from competitive chess. In June 2015, Polgár was elected as the new captain and head coach of the Hungarian national men’s team. On 20 August 2015, she received Hungary’s highest decoration, the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary for her achievement as an athlete, for promoting the game of chess and for her efforts to promote the educational benefits of chess.

Despite being the highest-rated woman for twenty-five years, Polgar never competed for the women’s world championship. In a 2011 interview she was asked about this possibility. Polgar said that in the past she has never been interested in competing for it, but in recent years “the mentality of a couple of the women players has changed”. Polgar said that for her to consider competing it would have to be a challenge and “if I get an extremely nice offer just to play for the title

Judit made a chess foundation under her name to revolutionize children’s education through chess! The Judit Polgar chess foundation is helping a lot of kids to improve their skills from a very young age and at the same time ensure that Polgar personal experience of being a chess female legend to be passed on to the next generation .The foundation helps disadvantaged children to get equal opportunities in life as well.

Now let us discuss how much did she earn from chess and how did she earn from that lovely sport exactly?

Judit Polgar net worth

No one knows exactly how much did Judit earn over the years. Polgar always like to keep her numbers private and not share with anyone. However, it is estimated that her wealth is between 3 and 5 million dollars. She is known to be one of the richest chess players in the world as well.

Judit earned her money by being a professional chess players. She earned decent money winning international chess tournaments and achieving outstanding titles. She also earned from writing chess books. Her famous books “How I Beat Fischer’s Record” and “From GM to Top Ten” were translated into many languages and are fun to read for any chess lover.

Judit also earned very well being the coach of the Hungarian chess team after she retired from professional chess play.

We don’t know much about her possessions but we know that she owns a house in Hungary. She didn’t immigrate to USA with some of her family members as she is doing very well in her own country.

What is the current activities of Judit Polgar?

Judit Polgar currently focused on two main tasks. The first one is training the Hungary chess team to become stronger players. She is officially the chess trainer of the Hungary team since 2015.

The other task is The Judit Polgar chess foundation. She developed two educational programs. One is Chess Palace for primary school children (grades 1–4) and the other one is Chess Playground for pre-school children. The aim is to improve various skills (problem solving, strategic thinking, etc.) with the help of chess.

The systematic rules of chess are used to process the knowledge of general subjects as well (math, language, etc.). The program is very successful in Hungary and it is part of the Hungarian National Curriculum. At the 2015 Frankfurt Book Fair the Chess Palace book series received the special prize of the Best European Learning Materials Awards (BELMA).

Judit Polgar most notable game

It is hard to pick a single game as the best one. Judit Polgar played an outstanding chess over the years. However, we are going to choose her game against the legendary Garry Kasparov when she defeated him in a beautiful endgame play!

Here is a link to the game

We would like to end this article by saying that Judit Polgar is a genius who were made by hard work and dedication. Her father and mother wanted to prove that anyone can be great in anything as long as they work hard on it and be consistent. Chess was a male dominant sport till Judit came to surface!

Judit is now trying to pass on her knowledge and help kids all over her country to unleash their potential and have a better life.