There is something very masculine about Chess. Although the Queen possesses immense power, the game is designed to save The King or invading the opposition King. Even though the Queen destroys the opposition with her ‘moves’, her death, albeit repented sincerely, never brings the kingdom to a halt.Often, players choose to trade each other’s Queen to get calm to the game, reduce hostility & slow down the game. The Show goes on. The strategy alters from offense to defense, but the checkered game progresses to its finale without her.
So, they coined the term ‘Grandmaster’ to glorify the ace of the game. Sounds patriarchic? Why can’t there be Grand-Mistress? Feminists may argue.There is a rebellion brewing everywhere! The torchbearer of feminism took to the streets, abandoning their bra protesting Patriarchy! They are showing their middle finger to the other half of the population, as if, to say, ‘Go fuck yourself! We can use it to orgasm, save your manhood under your pants’. Still, despite all the violent outbreaks, the society moved from bad to worse on cases of atrocities against women, sexual violence, and misconduct.
The word ‘Patriarchy’ has recently been vilified across the spectrum. Still, it inspires debate and attracts opinions ranging from utopian to apocalyptical. But some people did not care about the protests, terminologies, or treatment. They, like Nike catch-phrase, just do it. Judit Polgar was one of those doers.
Call it a stroke of luck, result of relentless practices or firm resolve, Ms. Judit Polgar became the youngest ‘Grandmaster’ at 15 years and 04 months. The age when normal teenagers struggle with their newly found sexuality, pimples, and board exams, Polgar announced her arrival with a bang. She did not wait for the terms to change, nor she wasted her energy on it. Call it whatever you like, Master or Mistress, she started beating her opponents with the regularity of breakfast, lunch, and dinner without bothering about her counterparts’ genital shape.
Polgar is the most brilliant and successful woman chess player in the world. Although shemight not be the most famous one. Polgar was homeschooled. So, no one taught her what she could not do. No system spoilt her with stereotypes and submission; No compliance was enforced upon her for obedience. She could think freely & critically. Her parents insisted on teaching all their three daughters playing Chess.
Polgar once refused to take part in all-women chess championships. She believed Chess should be played unisexual. Categorizing a game that involves cognitive and intellectual ability only, based on gender, did not make any sense to her.
She traveled from one country to another, beating her male opponents in their own game. She never gloated it as a win of feminine gender. She took it as it should be. Polgar propagated equality in a no-nonsense manner, without any air of entitlement or victimhood undertone. Her male opponent was fearful, tentative, and intimidated, thinking a defeat against Polgar will be ridiculed, shamed to their male superiority. Her steely appearance, calmness, and beauty put her opponents in an unease situation. They were habituated seeing a woman as complaining, whining, and favor-seeking. And then comes the Polgar, who refused to take part in the woman-only championship! Staring fixedly on her male opponent’s eyes, reminding them of their inherited biases about the fairer sex.
Aggressive and always going for a kill, she refused to ‘Play like a girl’. Or tried to redefine what ‘Play like a girl’ looks like. She mastered the game’s psychological aspect and harnessed women’s natural ability to intimidate the male ego. Playing against her was not just ‘yet another game’ for the great like Carlsen, Karpov, Topalov, or Anand. She defeated all of them, one by one, one at a time.
Polgar used to lure her opponents with tactics they employed successfully in their previous stints, creating similar chessboard situations while laying a trap silently.
Sometimes, you become drunk of your success. The greater the height you scale, the more you believe in your process that brought home the past trophies. Remember Dhoni? The quintessential cool guy of the game of cricket? He used to take the game to the last while chasing a target, exposing the opposition’s vulnerability and skeleton. At some point, the opposition captain will have to throw the ball to the weakest bowler, albeit unwillingly. The weakest link of the chain will then be devoured by MSD, belligerently. Making the equation easier or winning the game. This success recipe worked for matches after matches. But then, in the final appearance of his career wrapping ODI, he was defeated by his luck by a wafer-thin margin. He ran himself out by margins of a millimeter, breaking a lot of metaphorical hearts in India. The winning formula Rested-In-Peace, since then, forever. Did the matured white-bearded Dhoni ever regret not being the aggressive unruly-haired Dhoni for the last time? We won’t know. But what we know, even the surefire formula, may fail.
You believe the processes that make you successful gave you glory in your past & that saved your day while you were faltering. Those moves and strategies are imprinted in your mind, creating a repository—a bunch of success formulae. Knowingly or unknowingly, those success recipes surface on your mind in similar situations. Even if you are a master of the game, your cognitive bias works in the same way as any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Polgar only tweaked Mr. Dick to act like a dickhead. She used the cognitive bias of human beings to win matches after matches.
Polgar used to entice her opponents to snatch those tested formulae from their brain’s hidden recesses, being assured of their effectiveness. Knowingly or unknowingly, they follow specific patterns based on their previous experiences. The horse sense that comes with years of experiences, putting together. But She had other ideas, an escape route, and a subtle trap, you blink, and there she goes, all out, for the blood. She admitted that she performed poorly against the computers as she can’t tweak them psychologically.
Polgar was scaling heights tournaments after tournaments offering a cold & dry smile to her opponents after defeating them. Until she faced the GIANT, the Giant of Chess in all capital, made his opponent look insignificant by his sheer record….
The name is Gary. Gary Kasparov in his prime. To give a sense of Kasparov’s mindset about women playing Chess and wining it, I will quote him from his autobiography ‘Child of Change’ in which he argued the idea of a female world chess champion—‘Exists only in fiction’. So the onus of writing the ‘fiction’ fall on Judit Polgar when they sat face-to-face with each with a small square table between them, not to debate, not to give sermons to each other but not to have a pleasant cup of coffee either.
They sat facing each other with 64 black & white squares in between them to unravel a knotted equation. One of them to prove himself that it really ‘Exists in fiction’. The other one in ponytail to win a game for her fraternity. The match, dubbed as the most controversial game of Chess of all time. It exposed the two opposite genders with their inherited shortcomings, so much so that the game’s result became insignificant. The men vs. women debate never settled, but that day, it was heavily tilted in favor of Judit Polgar, despite her losing the game.
The 17 year stunning looking beauty with an incredible brain admitted later that she approached the game half-defeated before the first move was made. She revered Kasparov like a God in flesh & blood. It was like playing against your childhood hero—the man who meant his moves, decisively. The stage was too big for her. She was in awe of the man and the occasion.
Despite all the thoughts and distractions, Polgar decided to put forward a decent fight. And the battle she fought! Kasparov had to remove his coat and then his wristwatch to soothe himself in the middle of the game as he was feeling the heat of indecent moves from a decent looking woman. Or, he was overwhelmed with his own infamous ‘Only in fiction’ jibe.
The game was progressing, and Polar was attacking relentlessly, all out. She was determined to make a point; winning was not in her mind. She wanted to unsettle Kasparov. Hit him where it hurts, and she knew the soft spots. Kasparov once dismissed women to win a championship, reasoning that they are not aggressive enough. In his opinion, one needs to carry this fierceness evolutionarily; it cannot be nurtured. Thousands of years of evolution have already put women into a submissive role. Even if it changes in the future, it will take a few more thousands of years ahead to equate with male belligerence.
If not slightly tilted in favor of Polgar, the board looked perfectly balanced when Kasparov committed the cardinal sin. If you remove your finger from the piece in a game of Chess, your move counted as completed, you cannot reverse the action. For the first and last time in his entire career, Kasparov changed his Bishop’s move from attacking to defending the position. A perfect ‘Hand-of-God’ moment of competitive Chess. This, beyond the game’s rules, is considered highly unethical and unbecoming of a professional chess player—the spirit of the game gone to the dust. Polgar tried to look in the eyes of Kasparov, who was looking fixedly on the chessboard. Utterly displeased, she looked expectantly to the Arbiter who was not interested in calling it a foul play. He must have remembered the famous incident in which W.G. Grace ungracefully reprimanded the Umpire for the right LBW decision gone against him, saying “Look at the spectator, they have not come here to watch your good Umpiring, they spent money to watch my batting!.” The Arbiter himself must be drowned in the aura of a successful Grandmaster. It was natural that he wins, and it takes courage, plenty of it, to move a finger against a high & mighty.
If Polgar decided to walk-off at that moment, Like Arjuna Ranatunga did, packing his brat-packs back to the pavilion as a protestagainst unfair calling from an Australian Umpire, she would have identified as an escaping complaining woman. The branding that she cautiously avoided. So, she decided not to push it further, fearing a loss of time. If Kasparov was not allowed to reverse the move, Polgar could have swept the game clean in no time.
As it turned out, the male assertiveness and urge to win at any cost Won the game that day. The women’s psyche of playing along, accommodating, and image consciousness worked against Polgar. Kasparov proved himself right again; it only not in ‘them’. A female must have an appetite for success, a killer instinct to win at any cost.
That day, Kasparov won a match and lost a fangirl. Despite losing a game, Judit Polgar exposed the insecurity of a man, tentativeness of a seemingly resolute macho Grandmaster, and made Kasparov look small, albeit privately, in his toilet mirror while washing his dirt.
08 years later, in the year of 2002, Polgar defeated Kasparov. It was easier than before, as she was not playing against her childhood hero anymore. The hero fell from grace 08 years earlier.
Polgar did not protest much at-the-spur of the moment, She expressed her displeasure, looked expectantly to the who did not register.
Image Courtesy: www.chess24.com
