There exist some downsides to being a female chess player that Kasparov may not be aware of. "There were many times when I felt faint at matches because of menstrual cramps," Susan says. "When I was about 16, I did faint. I fell off the chair." A room filled with older male adversaries is a horrible place for a girl to experience Judy Blume-esque moments. Tournament games are often six hours long, and extra time for trips to the ladies' room is not allotted. In a game where every point is precious, even one minute of discomfort could jeopardize a woman's score, Susan insists. (Mother Nature may have equipped female chess players with a compensatory measure, however: The extra estrogen surging through a woman's body during menstruation aids concentration.)
Of course, women in chess face more public challenges as well. In 1986, at age 17, Susan was the first woman ever to qualify for the Men's World Championship. The world chess federation, FIDE, would not let her go. She was devastated. (The federation eventually changed its policy and renamed the tournament the World Championship.)
The Polgar sisters also had strained relations with the Hungarian chess federation, which wouldn't let them travel abroad for fear of defection. Laszlo ruffled bureaucratic feathers by encouraging his daughters to skip many of the all-women tournaments so they could spar with better-trained male players. But in 1988, when the girls were 19, 14 and 12, the federation allowed the family to go to Greece to compete in the Women's Olympiad. Playing together as a team, Susan, Sophia and Judit brought home the first win against the Soviets in history for Hungary, or as some joked, for "Polgaria." The Independent described the scene after the big victory: "The three girls of various sizes, a plump mother and Laszlo, gnomelike, with a cloth cap covering his balding head, they looked like the happy scene at the end of a fairy story."
"It was one of those few things that permanently changes your life," Susan says. "Until then, we had a lot of doubters and bad-wishers. After that, we became national heroes." Sponsorships poured in. "We could have a summer house and a car. It was almost like winning the lottery." Except, of course, that the Polgars had earned it.
"I wanted to be champion of the world," Susan says. "That won't ever happen now, but I was able to pave the way for Judit, and I'm very proud of that." (The gender divide in chess is such that even as the second-best woman in the world, Susan ranks in the hundreds overall.)
In 1994 Susan married an American computer programmer and left her cushy existence in Hungary to join him in Queens. "It was a downgrade for me," she says, with a hint of disappointment.
"I would not have to work if I were in Hungary. Here, I am not at all set financially." When she was pregnant with her first son, Tommy, FIDE would not allow her to postpone defense of her title. She later sued the organization and won a settlement.
Susan stopped playing professionally for three years after the birth of sons Tommy in 1999 and Leeam in 2000. She considered the average three-week tournament too long to be away from her boys. "Children are a part of life," says Susan. "Because of that, there will always be fewer women playing chess than men. In many professions, it's OK to be good, or very good; there is no need to be the best. But only the very best can make a living at chess. While it's tough for any new mother to go back to work, it's much tougher when you're trying to be world-class."
In 2002 her marriage fell apart, and she now faces the logistical and emotional challenges of single motherhood. She plays chess just a few hours a week with her sons, and is not nearly as methodical with them as Laszlo was with her. "It's hard without the support of both parents—my mother was there taking care of things. I can't always raise my sons the way I'd like... It's a sad situation."
Susan did, however, realize a lifelong wish when she opened up her chess club in 1997. She is now chess's ambassador at large, promoting the game in schools, especially for girls. "Chess teaches children concentration, logic and creativity. It also teaches them to be responsible for their actions," Susan says. "There are no take-backs—just as in life. You must think before you move."
As Laszlo steered his daughters' careers, he kept one simple fact in mind: Most female chess players do not set their sights high enough. In order to achieve parity with their male counterparts, they, too, need a vision of world domination. Susan now wants to raise chess's stature in the United States to that of golf or tennis, and in 2004 led the U.S. women's team to win a silver medal in the Olympiad in Spain. A live television broadcast of the Anna Kournikova and Tiger Woods of the chess circuit facing off as Budweiser banners wave in the background is hard to envision. But 32 years ago, when Laszlo first taught Susan chess, it was just as difficult to imagine a woman posing a legitimate threat to any male chess champion.
This summer, for the first time in 10 years, the sisters will appear together in an exhibition in Las Vegas. Susan, Sophia and Judit will take on 100 opponents simultaneously. In relay style, Susan will make the first move on each board, Sophia will follow with the second, Judit will make the third and so on.
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