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Quote
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Issue 31 (23
Sep. 2009) |
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The
woman who marched to the
I did not hear of Judit Polgar until the early 1990 s when I was in university in England. At that time the famous British bank Lloyds Bank used to sponsor an elite chess event called the Lloyds Bank Masters where wild card players are allowed to play as well. The England chess scene back then was dominated by an eclectic bunch of highly creative and talented players – Dr John Nunn (second youngest ever entrant into Oxford University at age 15, PhD in algebraic topology , the most abstract part of mathematics at age 18) , A J (“Tony”) Miles (famous for his consumption of barrels of milk while playing chess as well as his audacious move 1….a6 versus Karpov) , Dr Jonathan Mestel of Cambridge University, a deadly exponent of the Sicilan Dragon, Murray Chandler , Mark Hebden (runner up in this year’s ultra strong British Open) , a very young Julian Hodgson, famous for his handling of the Trompowsky System and Torre Attack, and on the junior board there was William Watson (aka “The Machine Gunner” ) for his insistence on defending the sharpest lines of the Sicilan Dragon as well as his ruthless attacking play, Michael Adams who needs no introduction but who I believe was 9 years old then and last but not least Jon Speelman who got into the FIDE World Championships match cycle and almost made it to play Kasparov for the World Title. When Judit Polgar was invited to play in the event I am sure there must have been much skepticism from some of the male players, how good could a young child from Hungary be ? And a woman too !!!! In any case Judit justified her selection by sitting on Board 1 in every round and destroying England’s finest with her awesome tactical vision and positional understanding.
By the time Round
4 came John Nunn made the comment to the players – “So who’s turn is it to
be fed to the Polgar ?” Naturally
she took first prize and by a wide margin. The rest is history – world’s
first woman to break into the World Top 10 and possibly the strongest woman in
the history of chess. I would like to take this opportunity to honour Judit by
showing what in my opinion is her “immortal game”. This game has inspired me
as a chess player and made me see
the possibilities of the future of mankind. The game I have selected is her
brilliant tactical effort versus “The pride and sorrow of Latvia”, the one
and only Alexei Shirov, possibly the most imaginative chess player in the
post-Kasparov era and certainly a world champion but for his nerves in key top
level encounters with the likes of Topalov , Kasparov and Anand. Who among us
has not been mesmerised by the magic of Shirov’s tactics, second only to his
predecessor from Latvia, “The Magician from Riga”, Mikhail Tal. Enough words
from me, here is the game !
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 d6 6.g4 a6 7.Be3 Nge7 8.Nb3 b5 9.f4 Bb7 10.Qf3 g5 11.fxg5 Ne5 12.Qg2 b4 13.Ne2 h5 14.gxh5 Nf5 15.Bf2 ......... Judith
(to move) 15 ..... Qxg5 16.Na5? Ne3 17.Qg3 Qxg3 18.Nxg3 Nxc2+ 19.Kd1 Nxa1 20.Nxb7 b3! Judith 21.axb3 Nxb3 22.Kc2 Nc5 23.Nxc5 dxc5 24.Be1 Nf3 25.Bc3 Nd4+ 26.Kd3 Bd6 27.Bg2 Be5 28.Kc4 Ke7 29.Ra1 Nc6 0-1 Last updated 23 September 2009 |
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