Judit Polgár
- October 13, 2025
Participant of the FIDE World Championship 2005 and Candidates Tournament 2007
Ranking: highest eighth in the world, world’s top woman continuously 1989-2014
Highest FIDE Elo Rating: 2735
Tournament career: winner of six super-tournaments:
Hastings International Chess Meeting 1993, Madrid 1994, Leon 1996, Malmo 2000, Japfa Classic Bali 2000, Najdorf Memorial 2000
Chess Olympiads: two silver team medals
Why she deserved it:
Similar to the previous article about Sultan Khan, this one is also somewhat special. In Khan’s case, I awarded bonus points for the exceptional circumstances regarding his career and chess growth, allowing him to surpass some players who achieved more in absolute terms. I also awarded bonus points in this case and decided to place Sultan Khan and Judit Polgár around the eightieth position.
In my opinion, Judit Polgár deserves it because she is the only woman in chess history who fully matched her male colleagues, broke into the world’s top ten, played in the Candidates Tournament, and even the FIDE World Championship tournament in 2005. To be clear – not in a separate women’s category. In the Open category. Imagine a woman playing in the next Candidates Tournament in 2026 alongside Caruana, Giri, and others. That’s what Judit Polgár achieved.
Moreover, she is the only woman who managed to surpass the 2700 FIDE rating barrier. Among women, she was clearly the best player in the world for a full twenty-five years from the late eighties until the end of her professional career in 2014. She managed to win super-tournaments against male stars, for example, she won the Madrid tournament in 1994 ahead of Sokolov, Shirov, Kamsky, and Bareev. She also defeated several world champions, such as Kasparov, Karpov, and Anand.
Why she isn’t higher:
If she were a man, her results might not be enough for the top 100. The competition is tough. However, Judit Polgár is someone who simply must appear in this ranking. Hopefully, another strong female player will soon emerge to emulate her. In this context, it is important to appreciate Judit Polgár’s stance on separate women’s categories, which she mostly avoided throughout her career. She didn’t become a women’s world champion because she wasn’t interested in that title. She believes that for more women to reach the world elite, they need to play in the OPEN category.
Best games:
Judit Polgár vs Viswanathan Anand
Dos Hermanas 1999
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.