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[dramatic music playing]
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[reporter 1] Garry Kasparov, superstar, the Napoleon of chess.
[reporter 2] Anything but the bookish type.
- [reporter 3] Charismatic. - [reporter 2] Flamboyant, outspoken.
[reporter 3] He's caused more controversy
and more upset than any other champion in history.
[reporter 4] No man or machine can beat him.
- You're so confident, aren't you? - I must be confident.
And I'm world champion.
Chess is psychological warfare. It's my will against your will.
It's the toughest kind of competition in its purest form.
If you win a chess game, you're better.
- Better person? - Yep, person and everything.
You're better. I need new challenges. That's why I played against computer.
I'm taking any new challenge in the world.
[reporter] 12-year-old Hungarian schoolgirl, Judit Polgár,
has won a major international chess tournament
and just made history.
[Judit] In the beginning, everybody underestimated me.
I heard, "You're a girl. You're little. What do you want here?"
But chess, it's a mental sport.
And you have to believe in yourself.
[reporter 1] Judit is the best player of her age, regardless of gender,
in the whole of chess history.
[reporter 2] Judit is the youngest international chess master ever.
She achieved the rank three years earlier than world champions
like Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov.
In 1994, Judit Polgár was going to play Garry Kasparov
for the first time in her life.
It was the first time in chess history
that the number one female chess player in the world
was going to play against the very top male player in the world.
It's something that people are excited about,
but people are also worried.
Is she going to be killed?
["Pot Kettle Black" by Tilly and the Wall playing]
♪ I bet you think we didn't know ♪
♪ Didn't even see the tides change ♪
♪ The shit gets thicker It's toxic, get it out of my face ♪
♪ And don't be surprised If they don't buy your lies ♪
♪ Some of us can see through Your stained-glass eyes ♪
♪ Pot kettle, pot kettle black ♪
♪ Watch, watch, watch your back ♪
[exciting rock music fades]
[reflective instrumental music playing]
[Judit] Chess is infinite possibility.
You have to be very prepared to make a bad move,
but then calm down and come back.
You always have new chances, new opportunities.
As in life, you just have to be extremely resilient.
The game is never finished until it's really finished.
When I was a kid, my dream was to play with the best players in the world
in the best tournaments in the world.
But those dreams seemed impossible.
Because of who I was… and where I came from.
[reporter 1] Today, Hungary has a communist government.
[reporter 2] A modern totalitarian state.
Freedom of speech was abolished.
[reporter 3] Crippled economy, rampant inflation, unemployment.
[reporter 4] Millions of Hungarians do several jobs to make ends meet.
The highest suicide rate in Europe.
[man in Hungarian] When my three daughters were born,
we were very poor.
We lived in a run-down house in a workers' district.
The walls were wet from ceiling to floor.
I wanted a better life for my daughters.
I started to study the biographies of geniuses.
[in English] I think he read over 400 books
of the world's most influential figures to study patterns.
He realized that geniuses are made, not born,
if they are educated in the right way.
[László in Hungarian] All of them started at the age of 5 and studied one field
for eight to nine hours every day.
[Anna in English] And László Polgár together with his wife, Klára,
decided that they were going to be raising geniuses
with this experiment.
[man] A lot of people felt like this was almost child abuse,
that he was doing something that would affect them negatively later in life.
[in Hungarian] I never doubted that this experiment would lead to success.
[Klára in English] In the beginning, I didn't know if he's right.
I'm telling you the truth.
But I liked my husband, his idea.
So why not?
[woman] Why chess?
[Klára] Very simple. The chessboard, it's easy to have it.
And very cheap.
[Judit] My sister Susan, she's seven years older than I am.
And Sofia is a year and a half older.
So they were playing chess already quite a bit.
And when I was 5 years old, I started my chess training.
The foundations of chess, it's very important.
First of all, you have to learn how the pieces are moving.
You have six characters.
The knight, the bishop, the rook, the pawn…
New opening strategies.
Sicilian Defense, Berlin Defense.
When you lose touch with the piece, it cannot be moved anywhere else.
[Susan] My parents felt it would be a waste of time,
at least from the academic perspective, to go to school.
So we were homeschooled.
My dad made a card system, like in libraries.
On each card, there was strategies and tactics.
And we had to remember hundreds of thousands of cards.
And my father created this very special wall
where we had 30 chessboards.
Chess puzzles.
And we had to write down what is the solution.
[Susan] We were quite poor.
Whatever money we had, we invested in our chess coaching, training.
[Judit] One trainer came from 10:00 to 1:00.
Another trainer came from 2:00 to 5:00.
Even another one from 5:00 to 9:00.
Basically, all day was around chess.
And you don't have Saturdays, Sundays, birthdays, celebrations.
[László in Hungarian] Every day was a working day.
Still, the girls had a great time.
[Judit in English] When I was 6, I played my first tournament
with the block where we lived.
[bright music playing]
And I remember very vividly, there was a little magnetic chess set,
as a first prize,
that I wanted to win very much.
Normally, I was a very shy kid.
But when playing chess, that was my world.
I was a killer, attacker, aggressive.
Everything was black or white.
I wanted to kill my opponent. I wanted to attack.
I wanted to sacrifice everything in order to get checkmate.
I won my first tournament.
And the little magnetic chess set.
The feelings I gained from winning games,
it was exceptionally powerful.
After this, it was so obvious for me that I'm going to be a chess player.
Nothing else I could be.
And if you want to become the best, it's very important to have challenges.
[Susan] In order to prove his experiment,
my father wanted us to play
as strong of a competition as we could, which meant men.
But when we went to play against men,
they looked at us like we were planning to go to the moon.
Chess was a male-dominated sport.
It really was a men's club.
[Dirk Jan] They had strict segregation.
Women were not allowed to play in male tournaments.
Women chess players were not respected, to say the least.
- [man] Do women make bad chess players? - Oh, they're terrible chess players.
I guess they're just not so smart. [chuckles]
[man] Does this apply to all women, do you think?
[Bobby] I guess so.
They have never turned out a good woman chess player.
[man] There is the pure mental ability needed to understand chess
and to have deep, meaningful thoughts about the game.
On the other hand, there's the personality required to become good at the game.
The evidence is that women don't have either of these sides.
[Judit] This crazy idea,
me and my sisters wanted to change it in some way or another.
If we could travel to tournaments,
it would show to the world that we can do it.
[Jovanka] In Hungary, as a communist country,
you had to get permission to travel to another country
just to play in tournaments.
You had to be in their good books.
If you had creative ideas and you wanted to be different,
choosing for your kid to be homeschooled, being a girl playing with men,
this was not supported at all by the communist government.
[Susan] Unlike other girl players,
we were often restricted to leave the Eastern Bloc.
In the communist regime, when you don't do what you're being told,
you'll pay, and potentially your whole family pays for it.
[László in Hungarian] Sometimes the police came out
with machine guns and got us out of bed in the morning.
[Klára in English] It happened that they were coming
to put us to mental house
or to the jail.
And even, they said, that they could take away the children from us.
They take away the children from us. You can imagine.
[Judit] My father was always trying to prove his experiment.
And he was ready to fight for living the way he dreamt of.
He was saying, "Go back to the chessboard."
The only response can be that you work harder and you show results.
["Pleasure" by Girls at Our Best playing]
Generally, we were only allowed to play in Hungary and in Eastern Europe.
I was playing with adults and winning one game after another.
I needed a new challenge.
♪ Pleasure City Avenue… ♪
[Judit] I played a lot of blind chess.
[in Hungarian] Pawn to E4.
Knight to C3.
Knight to F7.
[woman] Checkmate.
[Judit in English] My goal was to win every game.
And of course, my real dream was to enter into the top ten of the world
and then be one of the best.
At the time, the best player in the world was Garry Kasparov from the Soviet Union.
He was someone I was following from a very young age.
[bright music playing]
[reporter 1] And now a new chess champion has been crowned. He's Garry Kasparov,
the youngest chess champion in the world, ever.
We would gather on the carpet,
watch his games, and we would learn so much.
[reporter 2] Playing Kasparov is like playing Larry Bird or Michael Jordan.
[reporter 3] Unrelenting ambition, unrelenting effort and strain on himself.
[reporter 4] Clearly the best at any speed.
I don't see anyone who could take the title from me
unless, you know, I'm destroying myself.
[Judit] I was following very closely the ideas,
the openings, what he was playing.
I was also copying that.
He was aggressive.
I was also aggressive.
I was a big fan of him.
I was already dreaming to play against him.
[crowd applauds]
[Garry] According to the family legend,
I discovered chess when I was probably 5 and a half.
It was one of the winter evenings in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan,
in the deep south of the USSR, the city where I was born and raised.
I watched my parents trying to solve a chess puzzle from the local newspaper.
And I was mesmerized by the secrets of the game.
Just 64 squares, 32 pieces.
I got immediately swallowed by the game.
So I… It was a passion.
Match made in heaven.
In the Soviet Union, chess was viewed as a political weapon.
In order to demonstrate the intellectual superiority
of the communist regime over the decadent West.
There was a very broad network
that could identify talented players
and help develop these talents.
It helped me to rise very quickly,
because my talent was discovered instantly.
Soviet chess was chess, period.
They dominated chess up and down.
And they were producing men and women champions year after year after year.
If you wanted to learn chess from the big ones,
it was really the Soviet chess school.
They were controlling the top of the world in chess.
At the time, Susan was already playing well in very serious competitions.
And then in 1984, in the women's ranking, Susan was number one in the world.
So she started to have internationally recognized results.
In news of the world tonight…
Susan Polgár from Hungary…
Susan Polgár is the best female…
- [reporter 1] The best female… - [reporter 2] Highest-rated in the world.
That was very satisfying that even though they tried to push me down,
they didn't succeed.
[reporter 3] One expert called her chess's version of Mozart.
[reporter 4] Her two prodigy sisters also had success.
Journalists came to Hungary and asked for interviews.
They couldn't understand how is it possible
that the world number one female player was not allowed to leave the Eastern Bloc.
[László in Hungarian] The journalists said if the authorities
didn't stop discrimination against the Polgár family,
they would start a worldwide fight against Hungary
for human rights violations.
[Susan in English] At some point, the Hungarian government
felt the pressure was getting too much, too much bad press.
Eventually, they had to release our passports
and we could travel to the West.
We were so excited.
[Judit] I was dreaming to be able to show our strength to the world.
Now we can do it.
[Susan] The Chess Olympiad in 1988 had over 100 countries participating.
Each country sends their best representatives.
The Hungarian captain decided that it's going to be the three of us, sisters,
and the fourth player, Ildikó Mádl, who goes to the Olympiad.
It was strange to play in the Women's Olympiad
and play only against women.
But we made an exception.
[Susan] Finally, we can showcase our skills.
[Sofia] It really was us against the world.
Tonight, on behalf of FIDE, I welcome you to the 28th Chess Olympiad.
The Chess Olympiad is the Olympics of chess,
and it's the biggest team competition, the most prestigious event.
Literally everyone comes there.
To play a team event, to establish the greatest chess country on Earth.
[Dirk Jan] There's two sections. The men's competition,
and there's the Women's Olympiad.
[Anna] Every day for two weeks, a country is facing another country.
Then the next day, another country.
And the most you can win each match is three points.
The highest points wins an Olympic gold.
[Sofia] Just getting into the tournament hall
was, like, quite something.
We were little girls.
It was the first time that we saw the top of the top, the cream of the chess world.
[In Hungarian] Kasparov is there.
[Judit in English] I saw that Susan was chatting with Garry Kasparov.
And Sofia and myself, we were like, giggling and smiling.
That, "Wow, wow. Kasparov is talking with us." [chuckles]
[Jovanka] There was so much controversy about choosing the Polgárs.
They're such a young team.
A team of teenage girls competing against the very best players in the world.
They were great novelties, but most people laughed at them and said,
"Okay, there's the Soviet team."
They dominated the chess world.
They hadn't lost an Olympiad for over 30 years.
Nobody's gonna touch them.
[announcer] Please, all the players, take your seats.
I get into the playing hall.
I sit down.
[Susan] I played on board one.
Judit played board two, right next to me.
And on the third board, Ildikó Mádl and I would alternate.
[Judit] I adjust the pieces.
I'm shaking my leg because of my nervousness,
and wondering if I'm mentally prepared
to play with some of the best players in the world.
Tension is increasing.
- [dramatic music rises] - [announcer speaking indistinctly on PA]
[silence falls]
[Judit] But when the game starts, it's a completely different mindset.
I'm excluding everything that's going on outside of the chessboard
and focusing on the game.
[clock ticking]
["Fire" by Lizzy Mercier Descloux playing]
♪ Fire, I'll take you to burn ♪
♪ Fire, I'll take you to learn ♪
♪ You're gonna burn ♪
♪ You've been living like a little girl… ♪
[Judit] I got into the flow during the match.
And I won my game, one after another.
♪ You've been so blind… ♪
Oh yeah, she was an absolute sensation. [laughs]
[Susan] After Judit won the first several games,
people started fearing her.
We knew that when she sat down,
we have a very good chance that we will win.
[Dirk Jan] We were definitely not used to very young girls playing chess so well.
It was so unusual.
There she's sitting, this 12-year-old girl with the open ponytail,
and she is just dominating.
She turned opponents into pitiful victims.
♪ Fire… ♪
[Dirk Jan] The effect was such that suddenly,
hundreds of people came to visit that tournament.
There was some sort of a Polgár mania.
[reporter] The Polgárs are an authentic chess phenomenon.
They have a tremendous amount of talent.
[reporter] Judit, only 12, is the best player of her age.
Judit is the most talented.
[man] I wish I was so strong when I was the same age.
She has many chances to become… First, to become a women's world champion.
I have no doubt about it.
[Garry] The chess she played, the energy behind every move was
unseen in female chess.
[Judit] I played very well.
But, of course, the Soviets were playing extremely well also.
[song ends]
[reporter] The Polgár sisters need a miracle to deprive the Russian women
of the medal which they regard as their own private property.
[Susan] I remember our teammate, Ildikó Mádl, said,
"If they give us the silver right now, I'm ready to sign."
Judit all along believed that the purpose we're going there is to go for the gold.
It rubbed off on everybody.
[somber music playing]
[Sofia] Judit just kept winning her games.
And Susan, Ildikó, and myself were holding our own.
[Judit] It was the last round,
and it was a huge tension because everything was dependent on this
if we are winning the gold medal or not.
Most people did not believe that the Soviets can be dethroned.
I won very fast.
Ildikó Mádl made a draw.
[Anna] It all came down to this game
where Susan had to fight against Pia Cramling,
one of the greatest female players ever.
It was intimidating, but I just tried to make the best moves I can.
[Sofia] Until the very last moment,
it was not clear whether we can get the gold medal.
The last round finished, and then we knew that it's gold.
[triumphant music playing]
[excited chatter]
We were extremely happy. [laughs]
[reporter] With a winning total of 33 points,
the Hungarian team has set a new all-time record.
Judit came in and just wiped the floor with everybody.
She didn't lose a game.
It was absolutely remarkable.
Well, it proved to the world who the Polgárs were.
[announcer] Gold medal goes to the team of Hungary.
[Susan] We felt that the whole world is supporting us.
It was a very uplifting feeling that we experienced very little of back home.
[triumphant music fades]
[Judit] When we arrived back from Thessaloniki to the Budapest airport,
it was kind of an unexpected situation suddenly.
People were waiting for us.
- [excited chatter] - ["Dreaming" by Blondie playing]
[Susan] The Chess Olympiad was life changing.
We left as black sheep and arrived home as the golden girls.
[Klára] Hungarian nation acknowledged Polgár family
for the first time, really.
♪ When I met you in the restaurant… ♪
[Klára] We were invited to Parliament.
The president was celebrating with us.
[man in Hungarian] Does László Polgár feel any satisfaction now?
I'd be lying if I said no.
[in English] The government and the chess federation,
everybody changed their tunes.
We couldn't do anything wrong.
[Judit] The political landscape was changing.
The Berlin Wall was soon falling.
Between that and our win at the Olympiad, it was much easier for us to travel.
[Susan] Judit won a whole bunch of tournaments that year,
and there was no sibling rivalry.
We all believed that sky is the limit for her.
[interviewer] When will there be a woman world champion?
Well, maybe she's sitting next to me.
I don't know. [laughs]
[William] The world's never seen anything like this.
She's getting better with every tournament.
It's frightening.
[Judit] I shifted 200 rating points only half a year, which was enormous.
[Dirk Jan] In chess, we have a rating system.
It is quite simple.
Two people play against each other, and they both have a rating.
If you beat me, you gain points and I lose points.
So when I was 12 years old, I became number one woman player in the world.
But I wasn't stopping.
I want to be a grandmaster, and then my rating higher and higher.
In order to become a grandmaster, you need to reach 2500 or above
and you also need to perform at a high level
in three really competitive tournaments.
[Jovanka] Judit was just breaking those records down.
So the world had really gone crazy
about the possibility that she could break Bobby Fischer's 33-year-old record
of becoming the youngest person to ever get a grandmaster title.
Every month, her picture was on the magazine.
Everyone was tracking her progress.
And then in 1991, I went to the Hungarian Super Championship.
It was, uh, when I was 15 and 4 months.
This was my last opportunity to break Bobby Fischer's record.
[Jovanka] It was the strongest ever Hungarian championship.
All of the Hungarian greats were there.
Obviously, nobody had in mind that I am a contender.
I was playing pretty good.
It was a shock to people.
It was the last round.
I was playing with the black pieces
against the Hungarian grandmaster Tibor Tolnai.
And she just needed a draw against Tibor Tolnai to become a grandmaster.
But in order to win the tournament and become the Hungarian champion,
she needed a win. So she was in a bit of a dilemma.
[Susan] She had to choose whether to settle for a draw
and become a grandmaster,
or go all out and try to win the championship as well.
[Anna] Most chess players will settle for a draw,
lose the national championship,
but achieve the grandmaster title, and then you make history.
[Susan] If she loses, she would not get either.
[Bobby] Oh, they're terrible chess players.
I guess they're just not so smart. [chuckles]
[Judit] I wanted to beat Bobby Fischer's record,
but I also wanted to win the event.
She chose the riskier version.
I was so nervous for her.
[Judit] I was playing very tactical, very sharp positions.
I was breaking up the center.
Then at one point, I made a very unexpected move for my opponent.
From the side, I jumped to C4 with my knight.
Now I'm threatening to capture this pawn.
White cannot capture my knight because I would be capturing it back,
and then I could double attack the queen and the bishop,
and everything falls apart for white.
Sometimes only one move in a game can make a difference.
And then a few moves later…
I won.
[triumphant music playing]
[crowd applauds]
I became a grandmaster when I was 15 years old and 4 months,
breaking Bobby Fischer's record.
[Jovanka] You can't overstate the significance of this achievement.
Judit was the youngest person ever, male or female,
to become a grandmaster.
[Susan] That a 15-year-old would win the national championship
and at the same time become a grandmaster,
it was like a fairy tale story.
[Judit] Becoming a grandmaster is very important.
I gained more self-confidence that I can beat such a caliber of player…
but now, I was thinking about, "What's next?"
[announcer in Spanish] Linares tournament, the most important in the world.
[in English] Linares is the Wimbledon of chess.
Once every year, we get together in Linares and we determine who is who.
[man in Spanish] It's the first time in chess history
that a girl is among the best male players in the world.
[Judit in English] It was my first elite tournament.
The very best players were competing.
Including Garry Kasparov.
Preparation for such a tournament is very challenging,
but we know it in advance, so I had months to study.
[László in Hungarian] It was very important for her
to be well-prepared for the competition.
The opening variations that Kasparov played had to be examined
and work out a counter to that.
[Judit in English] I was a little bit nervous
and curious how I will manage to play
where every player is considered better than I am.
[interviewer] Kasparov told me in an interview
that "It's very nice that Judit will play in Linares tournament."
And he said, "And that way, we shall know her real strength."
Well, actually, I don't know what he means, "real strength."
I'll try my best.
[interviewer] Do you think you would beat him?
[Garry] I was always dominant in Linares.
I won Linares '92, '93 with… with big scores.
And in '94, I felt confident
because I was still the strongest player in the world of chess.
[Jovanka] It was an incredibly significant moment
because for the first time,
we had the world champion, Garry Kasparov,
facing off against the world's best female player.
[Anna] It was, at the time, unheard of that a female player
would face the top male player
because they wouldn't play in the same competitions.
This was a historic moment.
[Garry] It was her first tournament of that level.
She was a top player, but… [inhales sharply]
Yeah, but still a… a female player. So she had to prove.
[Judit] Kasparov arrived 30 seconds before the start of the game…
and all the photographers were standing in front of him with the flash.
He gives this incredible self-confidence
that "I know what I'm doing. I'm prepared. I beat you up."
You have the feeling that he wants to eat you up alive.
The first encounter between him and myself…
anything can happen.
[dramatic piano music playing]
I was playing with the white pieces.
I always played the same first move,
1. e4.
The King's Pawn opening.
I knew very well that when I played against Kasparov
that it's going to be a Sicilian Defense, as he's an expert in that.
[Jovanka] The Sicilian Defense is combative.
The players come out fighting for control of the center of the board,
and this leads to a very dynamic style of play.
[Maurice] And the game really opens up pretty quickly.
Judit has decided that she wants to be ultra-aggressive
and bring her queen near Kasparov's king.
The queen is on the same line as the black king,
but you can't just throw stuff at the king.
Strong players will never let you just knock them out.
So you have to be a bit subtle about it.
Judit was never that subtle when she was a young player, however.
She wanted to just come straight after you and blow your head off.
Against Kasparov, a tricky deal, to be sure.
Judit starts making moves where she doesn't quite have a plan
because she cannot find a path to attack,
and she just loses control.
[Judit] From the very beginning, Kasparov outplayed me.
He played excellent moves.
I was thinking quite a lot.
I was using a lot of my time.
It got worse and worse and worse.
You could feel it was not very interesting for the audience.
People were going in and out.
But of course, you never give up.
Then we reached move 36,
and something very strange happened.
Kasparov moved his knight to C5.
[dramatic music swells]
It was a huge blunder.
Now I could move my bishop
and I could make a double attack where I attack his queen and the rook
and you cannot make a move which defends both attacks.
Before this move, I knew that I'm going to be losing the game.
But at this point, I realized… there is an option that I can draw.
I can't even believe it that I'm playing against the best player in the world
and this is what I'm having.
But after he released his hand, he quickly picked the piece up
and put it back to the initial square to make a different move.
This was a huge shock.
My opponent played an illegal move.
[Dirk Jan] The touch-move rule is very important in chess.
If you let go of a piece, then that's the move.
[Susan] If you make another move, that's a clear breach of fair play.
It's cheating.
[Dirk Jan] But the only one who sees it is Judit.
I was like, you know, looking around that, "Come on, what's going on?"
Nobody said anything, and I was not sure how to handle this.
So I thought if nobody says anything,
then well, maybe… maybe I shouldn't say anything.
Maybe it's only from my angle that I see it.
And, you know, a 17-year-old newcomer against the world champion…
Maybe in the future, I will not get invitations if I do this.
And how can I prove it?
My saying against his saying.
[Dirk Jan] If she accuses him of doing this
and Kasparov denies it,
then it's this spoiled young brat
who's losing the game and cannot bear the idea
and then she starts accusing him of something terrible.
[Susan] The TV crews of the Spanish television
happened to be there filming,
but there was no cameraman behind the camera.
So it's not on film.
She continued the game.
And the rule is, once the game continued, it's too late to complain and protest.
[Judit] After that, he played good moves.
His winning position was converted into victory…
and, uh, it was over.
I was very upset.
[dramatic music fades]
After the game, I went to the restaurant to eat.
This was something that we did during the tournament.
Suddenly, the arbiter came to that table
and he asked me, "Is there anything I can help?"
And I said, "Well, if you're asking already,
I would be very much interested
whether the camera which was standing there 15 meters away,
if they recorded anything."
[Dirk Jan] Suddenly, the story starts growing,
and Garry Kasparov understands what's going on,
and he's… he's getting very upset about this.
He's going around, he's telling people, "Something should be done about this."
He says, "You have to write about this," that "It's a disgrace."
No one doubted Kasparov. He's an extremely respected chess player.
But still I asked him, "What do you think? Did you let go of the piece?"
And he says, "I don't know, I don't know. I don't think so, but I don't know."
[Judit] The organizer of the event gave out a press release…
which says Kasparov is the most honest player.
[Dirk Jan] And then at some point, there's news
the film crew is on their way back to Linares.
[suspenseful music playing]
What happened was after the camera crew returned to Madrid,
they realized that they accidentally forgot to turn off the camera…
and the film was rolling.
So his television crew showed their footage.
[music swells]
[Dirk Jan] And it's clear he has let go of the piece
and then touches it again and withdraws it.
I remember the shock. The shock of the image on the video.
Judit couldn't believe it's happening either.
[Judit] I was happy that the video proved what I felt.
At the same time, it was not real consolation for me,
because once you sign the scoresheet after the game,
you cannot change anything.
Nobody expects the world champion to break the rule like this
because he thinks that it's… it's much more embarrassing
to lose against a girl.
And the problem was, I trusted my opponent. [chuckles]
And I shouldn't.
Yeah, there was a… Yes, there was a little controversy there, so I just, I…
I believe that I didn't feel that my hand actually left the piece.
I wouldn't have done that. It's about one-point… It's…
If you look at the video, it's about one-tenth of a second.
I didn't feel that I made something wrong.
Unless you do it in a very, very slow motion, you cannot feel.
So try to see it as one-tenth of a second whether you feel it or not.
It was actually not losing the game, the game would end as a draw, but still,
it would be very unpleasant to miss a win.
[tense music playing]
This moment basically ruined my tournament
because I was under pressure for the rest of the tournament by people to remind me.
The scandal started, and it took off.
[in Spanish] The champions are cheating.
At least you can't tell otherwise
from the images we are about to see in a moment.
You can see how the champion did something that is totally forbidden.
[Dirk Jan in English] It became a pretty big drama.
It's one of the most famous incidents in chess, that's for sure.
Judit was, of course, very upset.
But what she does is…
is quite admirable for a girl of her age, especially in her position.
On the final day, she walks up to Kasparov in the lobby of the hotel,
and she says, "How could you do this to me?"
If you've never seen Garry Kasparov in person,
you may not fully appreciate how brave that is,
because he's a… he's a force.
[Judit] I wanted an explanation by Garry.
And then he got insulted
that I was kind of humiliating him in front of other people.
[Dirk Jan] I asked him in an interview about this,
and he says, "Well, she should learn some manners."
He was so upset, that they didn't speak for three years.
[Judit] After the game, there were talks and questions
from journalists and family.
It was, uh, more of a headache to talk about it.
Even though he blundered,
I was outplayed, I understood.
It was a very bad feeling.
[László in Hungarian] I never scolded them
for not winning a game.
Still, losing is a very bad thing.
[Judit] My father was never hiding it that he wanted success
to prove his experiment,
to show that he can do something big with his children.
[somber music playing]
[Judit] After this, he said that we should be competing again
in the Women's Chess Olympiad.
I thought that it's pretty obvious that we were the best in women's competitions.
I wanted to prove myself with men.
And from then on, I started to make some, uh, decisions on my own.
Sometimes it is so important for you that parents say whatever they say,
you go on your own way.
["Mind Your Own Business" by Delta 5 playing]
[Dirk Jan] That same year, I saw Judit play at the Madrid tournament,
and she played absolutely brilliant chess.
♪ Can I have a taste of your ice cream… ♪
[Dirk Jan] She beat very strong players,
and what I will never forget
is the way the male players reacted to her victory.
♪ No, mind your own business ♪
[Dirk Jan] There were four games where the opponent didn't resign,
didn't shake hands.
♪ Can I have a taste of your ice cream? ♪
♪ Can I lick the crumbs from your table… ♪
[Dirk Jan] I mean, all those things are sacrosanct in chess.
That's what you do, and they just stormed off.
- ♪ Why don't you mind your own business? ♪ - ♪ Business, business, business ♪
[Dirk Jan] It was embarrassing.
[interviewer 1] How do male chess players respond when you defeat them?
[laughs, sighs]
I was fighting a lot to gain respect from the elite,
and world champions.
Some of them were very skeptical that I belong there.
[interviewer 2] What will it take for her to become an absolute world top player?
I think it will be very difficult.
She must be lucky all the time.
[Judit] One of the great grandmasters, Viktor Korchnoi,
said that I'm a coffeehouse player.
He didn't take me seriously.
I had to prove it like ten times more than if I would have been born as a boy.
Have we ever had a world champion who was a woman?
- Women's world champions. - Why not?
We'd think that this would be a perfect sport for women to dominate.
Uh, we have facts that say the contrary.
But Judit Polgár from Hungary.
[Garry] Judit is an exception,
but even she has some problems of catching this fighting spirit for the whole match.
In 1996, there was an invitational event in Dos Hermanas.
[lively music playing]
Before the games, I was with my mother. We were pressing the elevator.
The elevator stops, the doors open,
and suddenly, Kasparov is there with his coach.
It was a funny scene, as we had a little tension between each other
for years after the incident.
And my mom says, "Okay, go into the elevator."
[elevator bell dings]
[music ends]
I went to the game thinking I have to give him a great fight.
I was playing with the white pieces again.
I have an advantage already.
First move, 1. e4.
[Maurice] And it's another Sicilian.
But from there, this game was absolutely wild.
[dramatic string music playing]
Judit starts to attack right away. She attacks the queen first.
Then she checks the king. The king had to move.
Then the bishop lands on the board to attack.
[Garry] I knew that she would play very aggressive chess,
but I was very surprised.
Judit had more, it was like an energy ball,
you know, like a thunderbolt that could actually explode.
Judit really went for it in the opening. She played in an aggressive way.
She took space.
Then she'd entered the middle game.
The middle game is the deep ideas stage
where you're constantly trying to outwit your opponent.
This is the stage where the drama, the action happens.
[Maurice] Kasparov decides to up the ante,
and he just boldly puts his rook right in the middle of the board,
attacking her queen and her bishop at the same time.
This is a dogfight.
She was a little bit shaky at this point, and Garry just kept wearing her down.
[Maurice] Part of the intensity is based on how long it was taking.
[Judit] It was a little bit cat and mouse.
He created the winning position, then somehow I sneaked away,
and then again, he got the winning position.
I started to play inaccuracies.
Garry played very well and took over the game.
I was calculating, like, eight or ten moves
to figure out how I can save it.
[Maurice] But it's Kasparov's move, and he just boldly puts his rook
right on the same line as her king.
It looks like she might be losing material here.
Maybe she has to resign.
[Garry] One of the typical weaknesses for many female players
is that they are panicking if there's a threat.
You see the threat, and there's a panic, defensive reaction.
[Judit] Right now, you have to decide what to do.
And the time is ticking.
[Garry] Judit ignored the threat.
[Maurice] She counters. She takes a pawn.
She is now ahead by a full pawn.
[Garry] My aggression is met not by panic, but just extra aggression on her side.
[Maurice] She played with such great defense.
She's just making it very difficult for him to win the game.
This is a game that goes on for hours.
And then I found a very unexpected idea.
She gives a check to the black king, and then she sacrifices a rook.
This was like thunder in a blue sky.
Completely unexpected for Garry.
And suddenly, his position isn't so easily winning anymore.
Judit just relies on those tricks to keep alive in the game.
And then, after six hours of play, they reach an endgame.
[Judit] In the endgame, we don't have queens.
We don't have attacking pieces so much.
It's the final part of the game.
She ended up in an endgame what we say is theoretically drawn.
Kasparov has a knight and a rook.
She only has a rook. And that's a draw.
It is dead drawn.
It is so drawn that you can draw it with your eyes closed.
But she had to be a bit accurate,
and I have to say that endgame was never her strongest suit.
Kasparov wanted to play a few more moves, just checking my knowledge.
He did not play all the moves 100% accurately, but he never let it go.
I realized that he knew much more than me in this theoretical endgame.
[Jovanka] After a few more moves,
Judit finally cracks.
[Judit] And my king could not escape.
[dramatic string music fades]
[Dirk Jan] The tragedy here was that she put up a good fight
and she reaches this ending which should have been safe,
and she misplayed it.
Imagine that you survive a Mike Tyson barrage
for eight rounds, ten rounds.
Chess is a game that goes on for hours, and after many hours,
you just collapse under the pressure.
And that's what strong players do to you.
This endgame was an exam which, in fact, wasn't that difficult,
and she failed it under pressure.
[Judit] It was a bad loss.
I made a very serious strategic mistake.
So I didn't feel good, especially after the game.
["Connection" by Elastica playing]
[Judit] After my game with Kasparov in '96,
we played several games against each other.
I liked playing her because she was a player with a style that…
that made me feel comfortable.
♪ Riding on any wave That is the luck you crave… ♪
[Garry] Judit was over-aggressive. It's a very powerful attacking style.
I was also an attacking player, but more experienced.
So that's why her attacks, her aggression, actually worked against her.
[Anna] You have to understand that Garry Kasparov is widely considered to be
the greatest chess player in all of history.
So Judit was not just playing the current world champion,
she was going blow for blow
with the greatest chess player of all time.
[Judit] I felt that when I played with Kasparov that just by sitting there,
before making any move,
he was superior.
I even felt it's a formality… [chuckles]
…but we still have to play the game, but eventually he wins.
♪ Forget it, I don't understand… ♪
[Garry] I was at my peak of my performance, so,
she was one of the players that because of her playing style,
and some kind of maybe psychological, um, discomfort facing me,
uh, didn't do well, but she was one of… many.
The way she played chess was not compatible
with the best way to handle Garry Kasparov in my… my… my best years.
You have difficulties playing Kasparov?
Yeah, I don't have too good scoring. [chuckles]
Would it mean that you have too much respect for him to play at full strength?
- [rock music ends] - I don't know, maybe unconsciously I do.
[bright music playing]
[Judit] Not winning, it's not all the time that you feel the same.
Sometimes when you lose and your opponent played extremely well
and made great solutions, fantastic play,
you don't feel so bad.
Against Kasparov, the frustration came
from the fact that I couldn't give a good fight.
Somehow to me, he seemed unbeatable, superhuman.
I have to give him a great fight, but how is it possible?
In chess, you can see that many players, they are so absorbed by the game,
so obsessed with it,
that it takes on an importance that is way beyond the game.
It's of life importance.
I think my father wanted success so much to prove that he's right,
that his beliefs are… "Surely it's going to be a success."
[gentle music playing]
[Judit] He was saying that the next two years
is going to be the breakthrough of everything.
And he always wanted me to go further,
focus on getting into the top ten, and to invest more energy.
[Dirk Jan] For many years, with this project that he started,
people, they wondered whether he was a good guy.
[Maurice] A lot of people felt like he was doing it
because of his own personal pride and not for the good of his children.
[Judit] For many people, there was a question,
"What is going on with the kids?"
"Is it something that the parents are ruining their life?"
[Susan] I understood my lifestyle is different from my peers
because I spent so much time studying chess.
Of course, I felt that it would be sometimes easier
just to watch movies or spending more time with friends.
For many years, focusing on preparing, on competing, it took my whole life up.
It didn't feel like enough.
After all, it's 64 squares of a chessboard.
There's much more to life than that.
[Judit] I was happy, but at some point after I was 20,
he still wouldn't mind if my life would be only about chess.
But I wanted to have a little bit more, expand a little bit my life, uh,
not only on the chessboard.
[tender music playing]
[man in Hungarian] It is mostly small coincidences that make reality.
I was working as a veterinarian, after university,
and a red-haired girl came in who looked exactly like Judit Polgár.
[in English] One day, when I was almost 23 years old,
I took the family dog to the vet.
The doctor was, uh, very friendly, very smiley
and, uh… talkative.
Somehow, the examination took quite a long time.
[in Hungarian] Right at this moment,
I deviated from protocol, and I suggested to her,
"Listen, why don't we go play tennis?"
What makes a man fall for a woman?
For thousands of years, there has been no easy answer to this question.
With her smiling eyes and red hair,
she had a fire about her, an energy, and
from the very first moment, she said what she meant.
I found that to be a very sexy thing.
[Judit in English] We started to date, pretty frequently,
and then I was going to an event,
and I won the tournament, uh, being in love very much.
And, uh, after that, we moved together.
- [glass shatters] - [guests cheer]
[László in Hungarian] When Judit got married,
my role as a manager basically stopped.
[pensive music playing]
[Judit in English] Well, for my father,
I felt that a little bit, he was sorry for that.
[in Hungarian] I have to be honest,
I'm reluctant to give an opinion on this matter.
I had very little influence on my daughters once they were grown up.
Because their husbands basically took them in a different direction.
And so when my role as manager ended,
I was a little hurt. I found it a bit strange.
But I said that it was up to Judit
to decide how she wanted to continue her life.
[crowd applauds]
[excited chatter]
[Gusztáv] My sweetheart wanted strawberries
and ordered this for herself.
Yes, and I'll eat yours too.
[in English] When we got married,
I was nearly getting to the 2700 magical rating points,
which was considered, at the time, getting into the top ten.
But somehow I could never go and cross that.
There were several events where I played well, I won some points,
and then I played one tournament where I lost it all.
[energetic music playing]
And with Gusztáv, I learned that I can make a different strategy.
[Gusztáv in Hungarian] When I became a part of her life,
I told her a big secret.
In chess, there is winning, there is losing,
and there is a third outcome,
a draw.
[in English] He was on the side that a draw is better than a loss.
If you lose against an opponent
with the same rating, you lose rating points.
If you draw, you don't lose them.
There were games where previously I would make a different decision.
I would be fighting, and I want to win.
And at that point already I said,
"Okay, if I don't have ideas that I think can work,
the draw is also an accepted result."
[Gusztáv in Hungarian] So she stayed
one of the best offensive players in the world,
but she started to lose less,
and her rating started to rise.
- [energetic music fades] - [crowd applauds]
After this change in approach, in 2001 Linares,
there is, of course, a big rematch between Judit and Kasparov.
[light music playing]
[Anna] This is the tournament where the touch-move controversy happened
and years later, now here they are again.
[Garry] At that time, my playing style, some say it was a little bit primitive,
but it worked.
But I was still the number one rated player,
and I was still doing well.
Especially in 2001, I did really well.
I have to reiterate that the expectations for Judit were not low, but not very high.
[Judit] I had a very clear strategy in this game.
A strategy where he's going to be nervous, worried.
Even it crosses his mind that he can lose the game.
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
[Maurice] The game starts,
Judit with the white pieces and Garry with the black pieces.
[Judit] I knew one thing, that Kasparov did not like at all
when his king is attacked.
I said, "No matter what it takes, I'm going to be attacking his king."
[Anna] Judit has chose to castle on the left side of the board
while Garry Kasparov castles on the opposite side of the board.
The nature of positions like this in chess
means that both of them are going to be launching aggressive attacks.
This is a race between who gets to the king first.
Already at the early stage of the game, I sacrificed a pawn.
[Anna] Kasparov accepts the pawn sacrifice,
but it means that Judit's bishop is now a very powerful piece.
So she's down on material, but she's the one who has the initiative.
Kasparov was kind of surprised, but he understood the point.
[Maurice] Kasparov breaks open in the middle of the board with a pawn.
[Judit] He was attacking my bishop,
and it would be very natural to move it away.
[Maurice] But she decides to sacrifice a whole bishop.
[Judit] There is a big material loss,
but still I said, "I'm going to be attacking his king."
"I'm going to keep attacking his king."
At this point, I was looking around.
The tournament hall was fully packed because the game was so exciting.
I think Kasparov had the feeling that probably he has an advantage.
The game was very intense, but I felt comfortable.
[Judit] Kasparov used a lot of his time.
After these few minutes, he played the most logical move.
And suddenly, without thinking more than three seconds, I pushed my pawn.
Psychologically, it was such a shock.
[Anna] She's sacrificing everything for the sake of the attack.
[Judit] And after that, he had to realize that things are not so simple.
I thought I was winning, but she just launched a massive attack.
And then he took off his jacket, he went around, put it on the chair.
Then he took off his watch, he put it on the side.
It was so nice to see Garry getting worried.
I won so many games against Judit, but in this tournament,
I just had to survive.
[Maurice] Garry had to pull a rabbit out of a hat
in order to save himself in this game.
Kasparov sacrifices material back in order to get to Judit's king.
His king is so wide open,
all he can do is to keep giving checks to the white king.
[Maurice] And here, Garry decides it's enough.
And this amazing, crazy,
wild attacking game ends in perpetual check.
Judit forces a draw.
[Dirk Jan] In Linares,
Judit was the only one not to lose against Kasparov.
She was the only one in the field held her own against
the number one in the world.
[Judit] At the end of the tournament,
we were talking, and it was clear that he had respected my play,
even though he is… he was the greatest at the time, for sure.
[Garry] Now, clearly, she was one of us.
She was a top player.
[Judit] It was a fantastic feeling to play that game in Linares.
It was an incredible fight. I gave him a hard time.
But… somehow, I still couldn't beat him.
Something was still missing.
I think the only way to beat someone like Garry Kasparov
is if you manage to believe
that you can take down your idol at his own game.
If you don't believe that you are on the same level as him,
you have no chance at winning the game.
[Gusztáv in Hungarian] Here we are at the training camp,
with the Adriatic in the background.
How is the Adriatic?
Beautiful to look at because I'd love to jump in.
- [laughs] - [Gusztáv chuckles]
[Judit in English] Next year, in 2002, I saw Kasparov at a tournament.
He asked me, maybe do I want to visit him for a training session in Croatia.
Many players, they had some kind of… collisions.
So, with Judit, it was always just… respectful.
And… and that's why I suggested that we would work together.
She was one of the top players. She could offer some new perspectives.
[Gusztáv] Judit.
[Judit] Of course, I was extremely happy for the invitation.
I went with my husband to their villa.
And it was a wonderful week.
[in Hungarian] It was a great experience. Kasparov was in amazing form.
[Judit] I learned a lot, the way he was approaching a chess position.
What kind of ideas he's considering seriously,
or some of the moves which I would consider to analyze,
he just ignores because it's not important.
It's irrelevant.
Also, I was surprised that Kasparov was not working all day.
We had an afternoon session of chess.
And in the morning, we were doing other things.
For example, we were going to the sea to have banana boat.
It was like a rule.
So, everybody who joined me there had to do the banana ride. [laughs]
[group laughing]
[Judit] I won that competition
because I was the only one who did not fall into the water.
Many times, it happens that when you have the distance,
you think something of the champion.
About his character.
And when you get into an environment which is very loose, very friendly,
and you spend every day from morning to evening around him,
it… it gets a completely different picture.
We saw more of the human side.
[Gusztáv in Hungarian] The kind of feeling
that there is a god sitting on the other side is gone.
A flesh-and-blood person was in front of her.
[indistinct chatter]
[dramatic string music playing]
[Jovanka] At this point, they had played each other 14 times.
Garry Kasparov hadn't lost a single game.
[Maurice] Playing against Garry Kasparov was rough.
I mean, it's like playing against Federer in his prime.
Everybody lost to Garry.
[announcer] Garry Kasparov.
[Garry] I was probably the only player who never suffered a defeat against her.
She beat Kramnik, Anand, every other player.
So, I was the only one who just kept, you know, just my… my fortress intact.
[music fades]
[announcer] Silence, please. I'd like to start the round.
Please, arbiters, start the clocks.
[Judit] The next time we met over the board,
I was playing with the white pieces.
I played my first move, 1. e4, front of the king, two ahead.
[tense music playing]
[Judit] This was not a surprise to Kasparov
because this is what I've been playing from a very young age.
And then the way he reacted, it was a shock.
[Maurice] Garry surprised everyone by playing pawn to e5.
Just about every game they played was Sicilians.
Those games are normally crazy.
But here, Garry decided to play the Berlin Defense.
[Garry] We all had our strengths and weaknesses.
Judit is a very aggressive player.
And the choice of the opening was more defensive.
[Dirk Jan] Garry Kasparov was forcing a different kind of game,
a slower, more nuanced match.
[Judit] It was absolutely not in my style.
What happens with this opening?
The queens get off from the board at the very early stage of the game.
In one hand, I cannot attack, but he cannot attack either.
[Maurice] Garry pushes a pawn on the kingside. So does Judit.
[Judit] It was not aggressive.
It was very strategic.
I started to build up my position.
And I made my move with the knight.
It makes Kasparov go a little bit defensive.
[Maurice] Judit starts to turn the screws a little bit,
getting a little bit of extra pressure in the middle of the board.
I saw Kasparov realizing that there can be a big problem.
[Maurice] Garry wanted to fight her in an endgame.
But it starts to get a bit uncomfortable for black.
[Judit] From move to move, I was putting more and more pressure on him.
I felt that I have simply such a beautiful position.
I mean, I should be winning this.
How is it possible?
But of course, when you have a great advantage,
and you play such an essential game,
you start to be a little bit nervous.
[music fades]
[soft music plays]
Since I was very young,
I was dreaming to win against him.
But I never did it.
And I was sitting there and sitting there, and I told myself,
"You don't go for the draw."
"You go all the way until the very end."
[dramatic string music playing]
[Judit] I was taking more and more space away from him.
And then I made a rook move into the center line,
and his king started to get in trouble.
[Maurice] Those rooks, powerfully placed, just start gobbling pawns.
[Judit] I was continuously working on my endgame knowledge.
Some patterns actually coming from my childhood,
what I was learning when I was 8 or 9.
I felt that there is less and less saving opportunity for him.
[Maurice] This is one of the greatest chess players in history,
if not the greatest chess player.
You would think that he would figure out a way to wriggle out of this one.
But Judit showed master class.
[Judit] It became kind of quiet.
Suddenly, I realized that within one or two moves,
there will be no way that Kasparov will be fighting on,
because it's hopeless.
And then the moment came.
- [crowd applauds] - [dramatic music peaks, fades]
[Judit] He gave his hand.
[Maurice] Judit Polgár, the great attacking genius,
ends up finally defeating Kasparov in a nuanced, subtle endgame.
[Anna] This is the one and only moment in history when a female player beats
the strongest, the greatest player of all time.
[Jovanka] And not only does she beat him, but she crushes him.
She doesn't give him a single chance.
[Dirk Jan] At that point, the 12-year-old girl with the ponytail
was long forgotten.
I mean, it was just one of the best players in the world.
[Jovanka] I cannot stress enough
how important this moment was to us women.
Because we thought, "Okay, hang on a second. We can do that."
As a young girl, this was such a huge inspiration to me.
It proved that impossible is possible.
[Garry] Obviously, it was not my ideal game scenario.
She just…
She just delivered, and that's how I lost the game.
[gentle music playing]
[Gusztáv in Hungarian] Here is the hero of the day, the Kasparov slayer.
So what is your professional opinion? Were you satisfied?
- Yes. - Yes, but go on!
- No comment. - Don't be silly!
I've never heard such a thing before.
[in English] I was dreaming for a long time that one day,
I will win against Garry Kasparov.
It was like a great satisfaction.
Well, Judit beat Kasparov.
My sisters and family was not there,
but immediately I called them to share this moment.
[Sofia] It was such a joy.
It's something we waited for our whole lives, and she managed to do it.
[Susan] What I dreamt when I was 4, I accomplished a good part of it,
but she took it to the next level.
I was very, very proud of her.
My father was extremely happy.
I think he was jumping up and down from happiness.
[László in Hungarian] It was a fabulous achievement for her,
and that's why I felt that
our experiment worked.
But you can only say that Judit was one of the best players in the world.
To be the number one among the world's top players,
she would have had to work three or four hours a day more.
I am just glad to see Judit happy.
[Judit in English] That moment, it finally gave me the feeling that
in one game, in an event…
I can beat anybody.
- ♪ Who took the bomp? ♪ - ["Deceptacon" by Le Tigre playing]
[Dirk Jan] Judit was the greatest female chess player in history.
There's no doubt about that.
She transformed chess.
♪ Every day and night… ♪
She's also a phenomenon in that sense that she was a guinea pig
of her father and mother's ideas.
And I think the fact that she achieved all these things that he dreamt of,
and that she still remained a very normal and pleasant person,
that's some sort of a miracle.
Without any flattery, we could say that she did something revolutionary.
She proved that a female player could be a top competitor.
That was something that many of us,
frankly speaking, myself included, would not think was possible.
♪ Who took the bomp From the bompalompalomp?♪
♪ Who took the ram From the ramalamading-dong? ♪
[energetic pop song ends abruptly]
[interviewer] Looking back all these years,
and being the subject of that experiment,
how do you feel about it?
[takes a deep breath]
[laughs]
[melancholy piano music playing]
[Judit] Of course, in one hand,
it is not a nice way of being part of an experiment.
I never felt myself being a genius.
I know that the things I could reach,
that was definitely, like, 95% of my work and dedication.
And this came from my parents.
My father, of course, was the one who showed me the beauty of chess.
But also, what I could do.
That I could be great.
People have to believe in you.
And you have to believe in yourself.
I think the most important thing is that from today,
you have to be better than yesterday.
And tomorrow, you try to get better.
[crowd cheering]
Never give up.
And always fight until the very end.
[soaring orchestral music playing]