GIRL, 15, TOPPLES CHESS STEREOTYPES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 6, 1992                   TAG: 9202060226
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: C6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short
GIRL, 15, TOPPLES CHESS STEREOTYPES
In the rarefied competition of world-class chess, where ego is king and the stress of international tournament play is often crushing, the dominant players have always been men, usually men of some maturity. Of the world's approximately 350 top-ranked grandmasters, only a few are women.
Moreover, it has long seemed unlikely that anyone would ever surpass the achievement of the great American chess prodigy, Bobby Fischer, who joined the ranks of the grandmasters in 1958 at the age of 15.
But these notions have been shattered by a teen-age Hungarian girl, Judit Polgar, the youngest of three fabulous chess-playing sisters.
Some call her modest and soft-spoken, but many opponents know her as a ferocious tiger over the board - who after years of steady progress has broken the barrier of one of the world's most exclusive clubs: She has earned the rank of grandmaster at 15 years, 5 months, one month younger than Fischer.
While the present world champion, Gary Kasparov of Russia, has repeatedly belittled women as incompetent in top-flight chess and has predicted that no woman would ever be world champion, others are not so sure.
"I think it's possible that she will play for the world championship," Joel Benjamin, a grandmaster who lives in New York, said.
"Women who set their sights on the women's championship have no chance to win the overall championship because they play weaker competition and set their sights too low. If she sets her sights high enough, then it's going to be possible."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB