A real life Queen’s Gambit, this captivating memoir tells the story of one of the most renowned women in chess history, Susan Polgar, taking on a sexist establishment, standing up to an authoritarian empire and rewriting the rules of what women could achieve against the oppressive backdrop of Cold War Eastern Europe.
Born to a poor Jewish family in Cold War Budapest, Susan Polgar would emerge as the one of the greatest female chess players the world had ever seen.
Susan would become the highest rated female chess player on the planet and the first woman to earn the men's Grandmaster title -- chess' highest designation. Still a teenager, in 1986, she became the first woman to qualify for the men's World Chess Championship cycle. Then, she would make history again, by becoming the first chess player, male or female, to achieve the game's "triple crown," holding World Championship titles in all three major chess time formats (blitz, rapid, and classical), and still the only one to earn all 6 of the world's greatest chess crowns (triple crown, world #1 ranking, Individual and Team Olympiad Gold).
Yet, at every turn, she was pitted against a sexist culture, a hostile Communist government, vicious anti-Semitism, and powerful enemies. She endured sabotage and betrayal, state-sponsored intimidation, and violent assault. And she overcame all of it to break the game's long-standing gender barrier and claim her place at the pinnacle of professional chess.
After retiring as a player, she defied the odds again, leaving all she had known in Hungary to start a new life as an American citizen, and becoming the only female Division 1 college coach in the country. Over her 14-year coaching career, she built two separate college chess dynasties from scratch, and led them to more national titles, world championships, major titles, and Olympiad medals than all other college chess teams combined.
Before her improbable rise, it was taken for granted that women were incapable of excellence in the game of chess. More than question those entrenched beliefs, Susan Polgar disproved them single-handedly.
