Gukesh’s win streak recalls Judit Polgar’s astonishing run of 1988

When D Gukesh won his first eight rounds in the 44th Chess Olympiad, everyone searched the internet to find the longest winning streak in the event. That streak though was halted in the final rounds of the tournament.

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The last three rounds were not to the liking of the 16-year-old from Chennai playing for the high-flying India B side—a defeat sandwiched by two draws. The teenager has still had an exceptional tournament, stamping his class by defeating stars like Alexei Shirov, Gabriel Sargissian and Fabiano Caruana. His performances have only convinced experts that he is a champion in the making.

Mention youth and a remarkable winning run at the Olympiad, and the first name that stands out is that of Hungarian legend Judit Polgar. In the 1988 edition in Thessaloniki, the chess hub of Greece, the young girl notched up an incredible score of 12.5/13. She was just 12, playing in a Hungarian team that included her sisters, Susan and Sofia, besides Ildiko Madl. Susan and Madl were 19 and Sofia was 14.

The event was significant for many reasons. The young Hungarian team won gold to break the monopoly of Soviet Union, which had won 10 of the previous 11 Olympiads. Soviet coach Eduard Gufeld had been patronising before the tournament: “I believe that these girls are going to lose a good part of their quickly acquired image in the 28th Olympiad. Afterwards, we are going to know if the Hungarian sisters are geniuses or just women!”

The Hungarian sisters not just provided Gufeld the answer but established themselves as elite players, especially Judit. She was already on the way up. She had become the youngest International Master (IM) a month before the Olympiad. But Thessaloniki catapulted her to the centre of the chess world.

“It was very special, of course. From round to round, I kept winning. There were only three boards back then. To play with my sisters was very special. I played on the second board. That was of course a milestone in my career, even though I was playing with men after that. We repeated the victory two years later (in 1990),” reminisces Judit, who is at the Olympiad here for media duties.

As a trailblazer determined to end the gender divide in chess, Judit’s performance was integral to challenging the notion of women being inferior players. If she had it her way, she would have perhaps played in the open section right from her first appearance in 1988. Her entry in the Olympiad’s open category began in 1994.

GM Pravin Thipsay, a member of the Indian team at the 1988 Olympiad, remembers the impact Judit made on the chess fraternity. “She was considered a great talent in 1982 itself when she was just six years old. It was around the time of the 1988 Olympiad though that people realised she would be much better than her sisters. It was around that time that she started making an impact even in the open category. That Olympiad was when she received a big recognition from the male fraternity and the chess fraternity,” said Thipsay.

Among her notable wins in the course of that fortnight in Greece was a win in 17 moves over Bulgarian Pavlina Chilingirova in the 10th round. Judit also established her ability to play attacking chess while also going on to win the individual gold.

She scaled many peaks subsequently, but the start was at the Greece Olympiad.

“In hindsight, it was the start of an era. First time in the history of chess, there was a woman player who was going to challenge men and defeat the likes of Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand,” said V Saravanan, an International Master (IM).

“Unfortunately, when we highlight Judit, we only think of her as a woman who played great chess. But she had a unique playing style. She was more imaginative than many of the great male players of her generation. Everything started at that Olympiad. We had all heard about her, but because she did it on the world stage, it immediately threw open all the doors for her.”

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