Chess

JUDIT Polgar, former prodigy and now an old lady of 16, will be the main attraction at the Hastings International tournament which began yesterday. The youngest grandmaster in history, she still has a long way to go to become a world title contender, but a good result at Hastings could push her rating among the top 50 in the world.

Judit's sister Zsuzsa, eldest of the Polgar trio, recently took a detour from her main career by joining in the hunt for the women's world championship. Since the Polgar paradigm for chess excellence is essentially unisex, this might seem a climb-down from higher ambitions; but she proved her point by winning the women's Candidates tournament a few weeks ago by a margin of 3 1/2 points.

The following game, played in Vienna a year ago, was important in securing Judit a norm for her grandmaster title. In calmly bamboozling a player ranked in the world's top 20 she showed an emotional maturity and determination astonishing in one so young.

The final moves display all the signs of time-pressure, with 34 . . . d5] and 38 . . . Qb3] producing the sort of dynamic change that is so hard to cope with when time is short.

Vladimir Epishin played White against Judit Polgar:

----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 d4 Nf6 22 Re1 Qd7 2 c4 g6 23 Nf3 Bxc1 3 Nc3 Bg7 24 Rxc1 Nf4 4 e4 d6 25 Ng5 Nxe2+ 5 Nf3 0-0 26 Qxe2 Bg4 6 Be2 e5 27 Qc4 Ne8 7 0-0 Nc6 28 Rf1 Rxf1+ 8 d5 Ne7 29 Qxf1 Kg8 9 Nd2 a5 30 h3 h6 10 Rb1 Nd7 31 c6 bxc6 11 a3 f5 32 dxc6 Qe7 12 b4 Kh8 33 hxg4 hxg5 13 f3 axb4 34 Rf3 d5 14 axb4 Ng8 35 exd5 Qxb4 15 Qc2 Ngf6 36 d6 Nxd6 16 Nb5 Nh5 37 Nxd6 cxd6 17 g3 Ndf6 38 Rf6 Qb3 18 c5 Bd7 39 Kh2 Kg7 19 Rb3 Bh6 40 Rxd6 Rh8+ 20 Rc3 fxe4 White resigns 21 fxe4 Bh3 -----------------------------------------------------------------