The Netflix series Queen's Gambit has enjoyed immense popularity. I viewed all seven episodes and enjoyed them. It is the fictitious story of a young woman who becomes a top chess player, winning a game from the world champion.

I think the film appeals to so many people because it suggests that a woman can be better than all the men in the royal game, which has always been dominated by men. I think it also resonates with many because it shows that an ordinary person might have extraordinary abilities. Many of us (me included) have this fantasy about ourselves. Those who discover their secret talent are fortunate indeed!

Whereas the film is fiction, in reality, there is one extraordinary woman who is clearly the strongest female chess player ever. Her name is Judit Polgar.

Judit Polgar and her two sisters were part of an educational experiment. Their father, Laszlo Polgar, wanted to demonstrate the truth of the dictum that geniuses are made, not born. The three sisters were home-schooled with chess a specialist subject. All three became chess masters. Susan became a grandmaster, being the third woman to receive this honour, and later Women's World Champion.

However, the most brilliant of the three sisters was Judit. At the age of 11 she beat a grandmaster for the first time. Before Judit, no woman had even managed to break into the top 100 players in the world. Judit joined that select list aged just 12, coming in as number 55. No man had entered the list at such a young age. She then broke the record set 33 years earlier by the legendary Bobby Fischer by becoming the youngest grandmaster in history.

Judit has beaten 11 current or former world champions, including Kasparov, Karpov, Anand and Carlsen. She is the only woman who has beaten the reigning world chess champion (Kasparov in a rapid game). In fact, she is the only woman in history to have beaten the number one male in any sport. She reached the stratosphere of the chess world in 2005, by achieving a rating of 2735 and the rank of number 8 in the world. She retired in 2014, after being the top rated woman for a quarter century.

Apparently, her sister Susan was more gifted, but Judit was more diligent. Judit did not become Women's World Champion for the simple reason that she avoided female-only competitions. Hou Yifan is the top rated woman today at #86 in the world rankings.