Laszlo Polgar performed an experiment to raise a child as a genius and proved to the world that geniuses are not born but made.
Somewhere
in the 1960s, Laszlo Polgar presented a theory that great performers
are made and not born. He believed that he could raise a genius himself.
When he tried to present his intentions, the local government asked him
to see a psychiatrist. But Laszlo remained undeterred, stood by his opinion and made it his lifetime goal to confirm his theory.
To
start, he needed a wife. In 1965, he started approaching women,
explaining his intent. A Ukranian lady named Klara found his concept
intriguing and agreed to be a part of the experiment. Soon after, in
1969, Klara Polgar gave birth to a child whom the couple named Susan
Polgar.
The experiment began in 1970 where Laszlo Polgar decided to homeschool Susan and teach her chess. The reason for choosing Chess was because it had a clear objective and ranking. In
other fields like writing or acting, people can debate if a person is
truly world-class or not. However, the chess ranking system determines
if a person is the best player in the world or not.
Laszlo
himself was a mediocre chess player at best, but he left no stone
unturned to help his daughter develop expertise in the game. Susan was
hooked by the game and practiced intensively every day.
By the age of 5
years, she had amassed tons of practice already. Her father decided to
have Susan participate in a local chess competition where most of the
participants were more than twice her age.
At age 5, Susan decimated all her opponents by winning the tournament with a 10-0 score.
In another tournament, where the participants were adults, people joked
about Susan participating by saying she could barely reach the table.
Susan beat several adult participants in the event making the naysayers
take their words back.
As
the years went by, Susan turned into an expert chess player. By 1984,
she had become the top-ranked female chess player in the world at a
tender age of 15. She was the first woman to qualify for the Men’s World
Championship in 1986. She went on to achieve the coveted title of a
grandmaster in 1991. She became the first woman in history to win the
Chess triple crown.
Now,
you might assume that Susan was born as a genius due to some stroke of
luck. But it was not only the first daughter of Laszlo and Klara Polgar
who dominated chess. Their second daughter, Sofia and the third, Judit Polgar achieved extraordinary success too.
Sofia
Polgar, went on to become the sixth top female chess player in the
world. She won several tournaments and medals like her elder sister,
Susan. Among her other achievements, Sofia is well known for the “Sack
of Rome”.
During a
tournament in Rome held in 1989, she won the event with a score of 8.5
out of 10 which had several other grandmasters. Sofia was only 14 at
that time. The experts rate Sofia’s performance in the tournament as the fifth-best ever in the history of chess. Her
chess skills would have put any normal chess player to shame, but
unfortunately, the other two sisters overshadowed her achievements.
Judit Polgar, the best female chess player in history
Finally
came Judit Polgar, born in 1976, who achieved the highest results among
the three sisters. Born after two sisters already proficient in chess,
Judit naturally found herself in the atmosphere of the game. Judit is
considered the strongest female chess player of all time.
Judit
was the fastest to achieve the title of a grandmaster, men and women
included, at the age of 15 years and 4 months, a record earlier held by
the well known Bobby Fischer. She was the youngest player to break into
the top 100 players at the age of only 12.
When
Judit showed exceptional chess prowess at a young age, Garry Kasparov
had commented saying, “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.”
However,
in 2002, Judit beat Kasparov, after which he walked out of the table
with angst apparent on his face. The incident made him change his
opinion about the effect of gender on chess. Until then, many male
players believed that gender-based limitations exist in chess and some
continue to believe that today.
Judit
has also defeated various other world champions such as Vladimir
Kramnik, Vishwanathan Anand, Anatoly Karpov and many more.
Judit
Polgar’s trophies and victories in chess are too many to list. Some of
her records remain intact till date today. She is the only woman to win
against a reigning world number 1. No other woman except Judit has
qualified for a World Championship event. She is the only woman to have
crossed a score of 2700 Elo points.
Laszlo Polgar managed to prove his theory right after many decades of effort, both his own and that of his daughters’. His effort is called as one of the most amazing experiments in the history of human education.
He believes that when a child is born healthy, it is a potential
genius. Whether that happens or not depends on the upbringing and the
effort put in.
-Maxim Dsouza
