Go, Nona!
Before the Polgars, the Chinese and the rest of the stars in contemporary women's chess, and even before Maia Chiburdanidze, there was Nona Gaprindashvili. Born in 1941, she was women's world champion from 1962 until 1978, when she lost her crown but received the full grandmaster title.
[N.B. Some readers familiar with Susan Polgar might be confused, as she is often introduced in her writings as the first woman to earn the (full/male/unqualified) grandmaster title. (See here for an example (one which also seems to suggest that she achieved the title at the age of 12 rather than at 21.)) This claim has a substantial basis in fact – see here – but it’s doubly misleading. First, the natural way to read the claim is that she was the first woman to become a GM, but she wasn’t – Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze were first and second. Second, they did earn the title; they just didn’t earn it in the traditional 3 norms + 2500 manner. They received the title for winning the Women’s World Championship, analogous to World Junior champions automatically receiving the title, or players (e.g. Fischer) gaining the title by qualifying for the Candidates. One might complain that G & C's means of earning the title was not on a par with the norms + 2500 requirement, and I’d be inclined to agree. But I do reject the claim that G & C didn’t earn the title.]
Back to Gaprindashvili, who has been in the (chess) news lately for two reasons. First, happily, she won the BDO Haarlem Masters in the Netherlands - an impressive achievement given her age and having one of the lower ratings in the event. (Click here for the crosstable.) Second, perhaps affiliated with that event, there was an endgame study competition in her honor - and you can see one of the winning entrants here. [Hat tip: Chess Today.]
I wish her continued success and honors, and hope as always to encourage my readers to remember the great players of the past (or present-day players whose peaks are past [try saying that five times fast!]) - male and female - who have contributed so much to this game we love.
[N.B. Some readers familiar with Susan Polgar might be confused, as she is often introduced in her writings as the first woman to earn the (full/male/unqualified) grandmaster title. (See here for an example (one which also seems to suggest that she achieved the title at the age of 12 rather than at 21.)) This claim has a substantial basis in fact – see here – but it’s doubly misleading. First, the natural way to read the claim is that she was the first woman to become a GM, but she wasn’t – Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze were first and second. Second, they did earn the title; they just didn’t earn it in the traditional 3 norms + 2500 manner. They received the title for winning the Women’s World Championship, analogous to World Junior champions automatically receiving the title, or players (e.g. Fischer) gaining the title by qualifying for the Candidates. One might complain that G & C's means of earning the title was not on a par with the norms + 2500 requirement, and I’d be inclined to agree. But I do reject the claim that G & C didn’t earn the title.]
Back to Gaprindashvili, who has been in the (chess) news lately for two reasons. First, happily, she won the BDO Haarlem Masters in the Netherlands - an impressive achievement given her age and having one of the lower ratings in the event. (Click here for the crosstable.) Second, perhaps affiliated with that event, there was an endgame study competition in her honor - and you can see one of the winning entrants here. [Hat tip: Chess Today.]
I wish her continued success and honors, and hope as always to encourage my readers to remember the great players of the past (or present-day players whose peaks are past [try saying that five times fast!]) - male and female - who have contributed so much to this game we love.
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Monday September 5, 2005 at 11:37pm
I read the same thing you did. It is obvious to me that it came from the publisher and not Susan herself. At no time Susan has ever claimed she became a GM at age 12. It is obvious that you're bias.
I disagree with you completely. Nona and Maia received their GM titles from FIDE. They were great players but they did not earn it with 3 norms and 2500+ rating. If you are telling me that Women's World Champions get automatic GM titles then why not previous Women's World Champions? That is only fair. Why start with Nona then block Zsuzsa Polgar from competing in the Men's World Championship in 1986? Why give every woman player 100 free points and not Zsuzsa Polgar?
Most of us in Europe know this. These were all dirty Soviet techniques. The Soviet lobbied and went back to give Nona her GM after she had lost the World Championship. And do you know that the Soviet / Georgian do not like Maia only because she beat Nona? Maia went through hell with the same pro-Nona people.
We are not taking anything away from Nona but please be fair to what the Polgar sisters have accomplished. Nona was and never will be in the same playing class as the Polgar sisters. They were the first to clearly break through the gender barrier and compete on the same level as men on a consistent basis and not just a few events.
Jozef
However, she was no where near the bar that was set by Zsuzsa Polgar then followed by Judit Polgar. These girls are unique and there may never be another family like this ever.
Let's be fair to both sides. Zsuzsa was correct in saying that Nona and Maia were the first two women to receive the GM title but she was the first to earn it through the norm and rating system.
Best,
Petr Garai
She's the best ambassador this game has ever seen.
Sincerely,
Miguel Antonio Jesus Martin
The question wasn't "Are Nona and Maia as popular as representatives of the game as Susan and Judit Polgar?" - the answer to that is clearly no. Whether Susan Polgar is the best ambassador the game has ever seen is unclear, and although a case could be made, and I'm sure it's stronger than the case for Gaprindashvili or Chiburdanidze, it's completely irrelevant to my post.
Likewise the claim that the eldest and youngest Polgar sisters are much stronger than Chiburdanidze and especially Gaprindashvili. Two GMs have been over 2800, and others of the standard 3 norms variety hit 2500 for a millisecond and sink back into 2400dom. To acknowledge that both are GMs isn't to say they're equally strong, and I made no such claim. A GM of the latter variety doesn't lose the legitimacy of his title, however, just because there's a GM like Kasparov who might be 350-400 points higher-rated. As for the last sentence of Petr Garai's comment, I explicitly state the distinction in my post! My worry is just that the ambiguous "first to earn" line is rarely explained, and for those of us not around the chess scene in 1991 or who missed the one place Susan Polgar elaborates the point will receive the wrong impression.
Re GM at 12. Yes, publishers can write all sorts of silly things. (And God help those of us who get interviewed by the press! I remember getting interviewed as a kid and saying that I had graduated high school and had no "idols" in the game, but admired Fischer's chess. Naturally, the paper went on to say that I was in high school and idolized Fischer, among others. Needless to say, that experience and others like it gave me a rather jaded idea of "journalistic integrity.") But even if it's a publisher's goof, why not change it? When my bio facts change, or when some sort of error arises in my blurb (or in the front-page blurb intro, which they write), I request that the ChessBase website editors make the corrections, and they always have.
In any case, that was a one-time thing I haven't seen anywhere else, unlike the "first to earn" line. Horvath goes on to outline a list of ways in which Gaprindashvili was benefited, sometimes at the expense of the Polgars. Most of them I know about too, and the ones I hadn't I see no a priori reason to deny. And once again, I'll happily grant that Susan (and especially Judit) are far stronger than Nona.
But again, so what? My complaint, which wasn't even a complaint but an explanation for readers who might have found my initial claim about Gaprindashvili puzzling, was that Polgar's oft-given statement is misleading. And it is, even despite FIDE and Soviet Georgian tricks and despite the gap in strength between N.G. and Polgar.
The one and only issue here is whether the phrase "first woman to earn the GM title" is ambiguous, and it seems obvious to me that it is. It's not "who is stronger?" (obviously Susan Polgar), "who has done more for the game or women's chess?" (Polgar), or "whose way of achieving the title was more impressive?" (again, Polgar, as I explicitly stated in my post).
love your lectures. i have to agree with the others. susan was the first to earn the GM title. nona and maia were the first and second to be awarded the title.
arnold denker was a great player in his days. but he did not earn the gm title. he was awarded his gm title. so were some other gms. there is nothing wrong with that.
many presidents were awarded doctorate degrees in various universities. they did not earn the ph.d. they were awarded the ph.d.
it does not mean that we disrespect nona or maia. it is just a historical fact and i am content with the way it is. nona was the first woman ever to be awarded the gm title and susan was the first to earn the gm title with norms and rating.
keep up your great work. sorry to have to disagree with you.
jan carlsson
Bravo Polgar Zsuzsa!
Rodriguez Alejandro
1. Getting a GM title by (approximately) achieving 3 norms and a 2500 rating, and
2. Earning the GM title.
There are other ways to earn the GM title: winning the world junior championship (at least for some stretch of time) and qualifying for the Candidates - as Fischer did. Both count as earning the title (there's nothing "honorary" or lifetime achievement awardish about titles earned in that way), but neither fulfills 1.
FIDE decided at a certain point to make the women's world championship title one which automatically conferred the GM title with it as well. Perhaps they shouldn't have done so, and perhaps - at least in the time of Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze - this constituted a less impressive achievement than the 3 norms + 2500 approach. I granted that in my original post, but that doesn't imply that NG and MC didn't earn their GM titles. (Person X might work harder for her wages than person Y, but person Y might have earned her wages as well.)
One other comment. Yes, Susan Polgar opened doors for women. But so did her predecessors - the two above, and Vera Menchik as well, whose eponymous "club" even included former world champion Max Euwe. It doesn't diminish Polgar to give others credit as well.
If FIDE wants to be fair, they should have awarded the GM title to ALL women's world champion and not to the one the Soviet politicians endorse.
It is also absurd to ask a person to confront each publisher or editor to make corrections. Even ChessBase has stated that Zsuzsa Polgar has done more for chess than all other Women's World Champions combine ("former world champion Susan Polgar, who is probably doing more for women's chess than all her predecessors put together". I happen to agree.
In the case of Nona, she definitely did not earn it. She lost her World Champion crown and then she was awarded the GM title after she lost it. FIDE went back to award the title while they did not do so for other Women's World Champions. It's the same like FIDE decided to give Nona, Maia and other women players 100 points except Zsuzsa. Nona and Maia endorsed this despicable behavior.
Dennis, you do an injustice to Nona by dragging on this point. Let's just leave it as 2 separate records. Nona was the first to receive GM title while Zsuzsa was the first to earn it through norms and rating.
And by the way, the reason why they awarded Nona the GM title was they were afraid that Maia would be the first to get the title. Let's not further publicize the wrong behavior of FIDE. Nona was a great champion but she was not the first person to earn the GM title. She was the first to be awarded the title GM.
No one else seems to be making a big deal out of this but you Dennis. Nona was never strong enough to acquire a 2500 rating. She also didn't get 3 norms. That doesn't mean that she wasn't a great women's world champion. It just means that she didn't earn her GM title.
Zhukova of the Ukraine earned 3 GM norms but she could not be a GM because her ELO is only 2480. She cannot receive her GM title until she earns it.
Susan, Judit, Pia, Antoaneta, Zhu Chen and Humpy earned the GM title. Nona, Maia, Xie Jun, Alexandra, Peng were awarded the GM title.
Fritz brought up a good point which I never thought about. Why didn't Nona object when FIDE decided to award her and all other women players 100 free points? She went along with it just as she was more than happy to be awarded the GM title.
Don't you think that it's wrong of her to accept the 100 free point instead of fighting against the injustice for her fellow female player? Why didn't Nona speak out when FIDE refused to allow Susan Polgar to compete in the Men's World Championship because she is a woman? She simply agreed and went along with the same federation that conveniently changed the rule to give her the GM title.
You can't change the facts. It's the way it is. I think Susan is one of the classiest world champions and she spoke highly about Nona, Maia, Xie, Vera and other champions.
At no place I saw Susan said she was the first woman to be awarded the GM title. I took this from the link you posted above:
1. Becoming the first woman ever to break the gender barrier, earning the Grandmaster title
When I was growing up, Vera Menchik, Lyudmila Rudenko, Yelizavyeta Bykova, Olga Rubtsova, Nona Gaprindashvili, and Maia Chiburdanidze were the names of Women’s World Champions. They were at the top of Women’s Chess in their respective eras. But none of them was able to earn
the grandmaster title the traditional way with norm qualifications as their male counterparts had done. Both Gaprindashvili (2 GM norms) and Chiburdanidze (1 GM norm) had some wonderful results against men in their careers; they simply were not able to surpass that threshold.
Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze were awarded the grandmaster title for winning the Women’s World Championship although they had never actually fulfilled the qualifications to become grandmasters. I find it
interesting that FIDE never went back and awarded the title to the previous four women’s world champions, Vera Menchik, Lyudmila Rudenko, Yelizavyeta Bykova, and Olga Rubtsova.
She clearly stated that she was the first woman to earn the GM title through norms and 2500 rating. She also clearly stated that Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze were the first two to be awarded the GM title. This is very clear. Where did she say that she was the first to receive the GM title? You're picking on a point that doesn't exist.
I have great respect for you but I must say that you're totally wrong here.
Sincerely,
Dmitry
Sam
All of (a)-(d) are extraneous to what I've been kicking around, and even if Polgar wears a halo and choirs of angels sing in her presence, and even if one puts pointy horns and a red union suit on G. and C., it still doesn't address the question of whether G. and C. earned the title, albeit by different means than P.
The question is, did they earn it, and one clear way to answer it is to determine whether they fulfilled the requirements made by the appropriate governing body. And they did! One might further argue that the second requirement (the one G. and C. fulfilled, as opposed to the 3 norm approach) was ad hoc, inappopriate, politically motivated, unduly easy compared to the normal requirement, and so on, and I think there's a good case to be made here. (And did before the love letters started pouring in!) But they did fulfill the actual FIDE requirements, and thus earned the title.
P.S. for Dmitry: I never wrote that Polgar claimed to be awarded the GM title. I claimed she (or her publicist, or publisher) referred to herself as the first woman to earn the GM title, which I suggested is a bit misleading, as readers who don't know the background of our discussion - which is most readers, I think - will interpret that as the claim that she's the first female GM.
P.P.S. on the 100 points. Most westerners believed that the free 100 points given to all female players not named Polgar was a bit of Soviet chicanery designed to prop up the prestige of their players, especially world champion Chiburdanidze. Three comments:
1. Let's grant that and bemoan G. and C.'s not protesting. How would that address my worries about the GM title? A second event's being an injustice doesn't mean the first isn't as well.
2. It's easy to say that G. (and C.) should have protested the freebies; another thing to do it in the chilly political climate of the USSR.
3. There was at least a rationale for the action, and I'd be curious to learn from someone like Jeff Sonas if it was actually justified and vindicated after the fact. The thought (excuse, rationalization) was that the Polgars played almost exclusively in open events, while the vast majority of women played almost exclusively in gender-segregated events. This led to women's ratings becoming artificially deflated relative to men's, and the 100 point "gift" attempted to remedy that. If G. and C. accepted that argument, then they wouldn't be culpable for accepting the points. Whether they did or not is not something I know, however, but if any of my readers know them personally, by all means ask them!
P.P.P.S. on earlier Menchik et al: First, it's again irrelevant to the question of whether G. and C. earned it before P., though not morally irrelevant nor irrelevant to the "Who's first?" question. I don't know what story FIDE told such that the just-deposed G. got the title but her predecessors didn't. Maybe the women's world champion also had to be an IM or a WGM? Maybe there was a rating requirement? I don't know, but would certainly like to find out.
Some requests, before we continue:
(1) Stick to the two claims I made, not presumed claims about Polgar's place in the grand scheme of things or other historic injustices. (Was it fair, for example, that G. had relatively few chances to play in "male" events where she could earn the GM title?)
(2) Think about the world championship title. Who is the world champ? Kasimdzhanov? Kramnik? Fischer? Deep Blue? Kasparov? No one? I think one's answers here will have parallels to one's answers in the P vs. G &C case.
That said, disagree away, and if my facts are wrong anywhere, please correct me! Just keep it polite - especially if you want to win me from the error of my ways.
Johan
Having said that, even Russians would agree that Zsuzsa Polgar was the first to earn the Grandmaster title and Nona Gaprindashvili was the first to be awarded the Grandmaster title. We have no problem with this historical facts.
This is just a matter of translation. No one believes that Zsuzsa ever claimed that she was the first to be awarded the Grandmaster title. She has always said that Nona was the first to be awarded. She has always been fair with that.
Respecfully yours,
Boruvich Mikhail
Not fluffy
Mary
- GM Nona Gaprindashvili was the first woman to be awarded the GM title.
- GM Susan Polgar was the first woman to earn the GM title.
I see nothing wrong with it. It's also correct in my humble opinion.
Fluffy, your remark is out of line and disrespectful.
Despite the few male events Gaprindashvili competed in she did quite well. For example, 1st in the strong Lone Pine tournament of 1977 and 2nd in Dortmund 1978 behind Super GM Andersson.
In Bilbao 1987 Susan competed for the first time in a tournament with Chiburdanidze and finished a full point below Chiburdanidze who scored 5.5. Enough to tie for 3rd with Super GM Ljubojevic. Later in the year at Brussels a female vs. male tournament was organized. Gaprindashvili won the tournament outright with 5/8 and Chiburdanidze scored 4.5/8. Susan finished at -1.
Since then Susan has had a more impressive career than the other two but this is not the point. The point is was it fair that Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze were awarded the GM title (i.e. did they earn it ?). In my opinion, DEFINITLY and more so if you go by today’s watered down standards. Many GMs in the past, starting with Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, Marshall and Tarrasch, were awarded their titles. This does not mean that they are lesser Grandmasters than those who fulfilled it in the traditional manner.
In 1972 I played in the Men's Olympiad in Skopje, while Nona played in the Women's tournament there. I know she would have loved to change places with me. She would have had a much better showing than I did. But, she had to follow the rules of her federation - the Soviet federation. She had no choice. A lot of wonderful chess players suffered because they belonged to that federation and did what they were told. One who I think sufferred the most was Viktor Kortchnoi.
Nona did earn her (men's) Grandmaster title. She earned it under the rules she was forced to play by, and did not have a chance to earn it any other way.
Susan was lucky enough to be the first woman who was able to earn the GM title under the same conditions as the men. She is a fine player and an honest, hard working and delightful woman who has done a lot to interest young people - especially girls - in the game of chess. Nona became my hero after I started playing chess. Susan has become a hero to young girls and then they take up the game to be like her.
Both women are to be admired. One is not "better" then the other. They are from different generations and had much diffrent lives as children and young adults (Susan is still young). When you try to compare them like this, it is like comparing apples and oranges. I happen to love both.