Born July 23, 1976 · Judit Polgár
Judit Polgár is the strongest female chess player in history and the only woman ever to break into the FIDE world top 10, peaking at world number 8 in 2005. Raised alongside her sisters Susan and Sofia in a famous home-schooling experiment designed to prove that chess talent could be trained, she went on to defeat numerous reigning and former World Champions — including Kasparov, Karpov, Anand, and Spassky — in individual games.
Polgár played with a sharp, uncompromising, attacking style more associated with tactical specialists than with a purely positional approach, regularly outplaying much higher-rated opposition through calculation and initiative rather than caution.
vs. Garry Kasparov — Russia vs. the Rest of the World, Moscow, 2002
Polgár defeated the reigning world number one Kasparov as Black — the only woman ever to beat a reigning World Chess Champion in a competitive game.