Susan is now one of the greatest minds there are in the women’s chess field. Let’s delve deep into her personal life, net worth, family, and other details.
Susan Polgar’s Family, Sisters, Children, and Personal Life
Susan was born in Budapest to a Jewish family.
She has two sisters, Judit and Sofia. Both of them are also in the same field as their elder sister. Judit holds the title of Grandmaster while Sofia holds the title of International Master.
Susan belongs to the long lineage of Jewish who have been the victims of the cruel and devastating Holocaust. Her both grandmothers are even the witness and survivor of the heartbreaking Auschwitz concentration camp.
Though her family spent their early days in Hungary, they later moved to Israel. While her family moved there, Susan moved to the USA after marrying her first husband instead. She has two sons from her first husband.
However, she divorced her first husband in 2006 and married Paul Truong in the same year. The couple now resides in St.Louis, Missouri.
Susan Polgar Husband and Wedding
Susan got married twice in her 52 years of life. She was married to Jacob Shutzman for the first time, who was a computer consultant. However, the marriage did not last forever, and after being married for 12 years, they got a divorce in 2006. In the same year, she got married to her longtime friend and business manager, Paul Truong. The couple has been living a happy life ever since then.
Susan Polgar Net Worth
Susan Polgar has a net worth of 1.5M- 5.5.M. USD. Though being a professional chess player is her career and prime source of income, she has various other side hustles, which adds more to her preexisting income.
She is a well-respected and great coach for the Texas Tech Knight Raiders. She is also the head of SPICE and the chairperson of the U.S. Chess Federation(USCF).
Career
Her journey in the chess world started with her father, who taught her everything there was to know about it.
Her career as a chess player started at the age of four when she won her first-ever chess tournament in an under eleven girls category. It was the first step towards her career. Then she went to win the under sixteen girls chess championship at the age of twelve.
There were even restrictions for her to play in international tournaments, yet she was able to become one of the top-rated female players. She was just fifteen at that time. She was already making her name among the female chess players.
At seventeen, she took part in the zonal competition where she even competed with the men. Later, the FIDE( The international Chess Federation) added a hundred bonus Elo rating points to all the female chess players except Susan. The explanation being that Susan was already playing against men. It made her lose her top rank.
She was playing for Hungary, but in 2002, she shifted her federation and started playing on behalf of the USA. She had the title of Grandmaster given by the FIDE. Yet, again she was declared the Grandmaster of the year in the USA too. She became the first woman to achieve that title.
She also bagged the U.S. open Blitz championship title by defeating seven other grandmasters. She claimed her title again in 2005 and 2006.
Susan not only played herself but also taught others. She formed a team to compete in the Chess Olympiad in 2004. Her team secured second place as a group, but she won gold in her games. She became the player with the highest performance among the women.
During this time, she held the largest simultaneous exhibition in Florida. This event broke the records for the highest number of games played simultaneously, the consecutive number of games played, the highest number of games won, and the highest wins percentage.
She also joined Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov and Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to advocate Chess for peace.
In 2006, she again represented the USA in Germany and won the title by defeating Elisabeth Pähtz. She then went to shift her federation back to Hungary.
During this time, she also started giving chess classes to children in her Polgar chess center in New York. Later it was relocated to Texas Tech Uni, as she joined as the coach for the Tech knight raiders. They won the Final Fours of college ( Presidents cup) chess competition for five straight years from 2013-2017 with her as their coach. Her team has also been able to either win or get tied in the Pan American Intercollegiate championship from 2012-2018.
She was the first female coach to lead a men’s division team to the Final Four.
For being a great coach, she received the Furman Symeon medal. For this same reason, she was also awarded a top coaching medal by the FIDE.
Susan is the Grandmaster and one of the best when it comes to being a coach. She is also the founder of SPICE (Susan Polgar Foundation Institute of Chess Excellence). Through her foundation, she has been sponsoring and organizing various chess tournaments like a national level championship for both genders, tri-state scholastic chess challenge, SPICE cups, etc. She has a very successful and satisfying career.
Awards and Achievements
Susan is living a life full of achievements. She was the Women’s world champion from 1996-1999. Susan was the third woman who got the Grandmaster title by the FIDE. She even won the Grandmaster of the year in the U.S.
She has won 12 Olympiad medals, out of which five are gold, four are silver, and three are bronze. Susan was the winner of the World Blitz and Women’s world rapid championship in 1992.
She later even went to become the chairperson of the FIDE Commission for women from 2008 till the end of 2018.
Susan was the first woman to win the U.S. Open Blitz championship by defeating seven other Grandmasters. She has broken many records and has received great titles and awards for a player and a coach.
She was recognized as the College coach of the year in 2013 and 2014 by Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc, who are the organizers of the Presidents Cup.
She is also the head of SPICE as well as the Chairperson USCF. She is also a successful author of the ‘Queen of the kings game”, which is her autobiography.
Besides this, she has also written several other chess books. Nat Geo even made a documentary titled the “Brilliant mind” featuring Susan.
Education
Though being the genius in the world chess platform, Susan did not attend public or private schools for her studies.
Susan, along with her sister, was homeschooled by her father. Her father is László Polgár, who is a chess teacher and an educational psychologist.
Her studies and upbringing were part of an experiment conducted by her father, where he believed that geniuses were made and not born. It is considered one of the biggest and amazing experiments ever conducted in human education.
Her father taught them everything in their own home.
Later, for her contribution, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Texas Tech University.
Controversies
The first known controversy related to Susan was in 1999. Susan was supposed to defend her title against Xue Jun from China in 1998. But, due to the lack of a suitable sponsor, the game was postponed to early 1999. Susan was pregnant with her first child then, and the game was supposed to be in China. She felt she did not have much time as well as she wanted more prize money. Due to these reasons, FIDE forfeited her title and sent Alosa Gallaimkva to play against Xie. She lost the game, and Xie got the title.
Susan then sued FIDE for restoration of title and monetary damage. The case was settled by FIDE by paying $25,000 to her attorney, but they could not restore her title.
After this, the media dragged her into the Hijab controversy in 2016. Many were accusing her of supporting the rule that international players had to wear Iranian dress during the games. However, she released a statement that the media misinterpreted her words and cleared the controversy.
Quick Bio
- Public-facing name:- Susan Polgar
- Real name:- Polgár Zsuzsanna
- Date of birth:- 1969 April 16
- Age:- 55 years old
- Place of birth:- Budapest, Hungary
- Father:- László Polgár
- Mother:- Klára Polgár
- Siblings:- Two sisters
- Sisters:- Judit Polgár
:- Sofia Polgar
- Status:- Married
- Spouse:- Jacob Shutzman ( 1994-2006)
:- Paul Truong (2006- present)
- Children:- Two sons
- Sons:- Tom Shutzman ( born-1999)
:- Leeam Shutzman ( born-2000)
- Occupation:- Chess player, coach, author
- Net worth:- 1.5M-5.5M USD
- Nationality:- American
- Ethnicity:-Hungarian- American
- Religion:- Jewish
- Zodiac:- Aries
- Height:- Unknown
- Weight:- Unknown
- Measurement- Unknown
- Hair color:- Black
- Eye color:- Dark brown
- Complexion:- Fair
- Youtube:- Susan Polgar
- Instagram id:- susanpolgarchess
- Twitter:- SusanPolgar
- Linkedin:- Susan Polgar
