But don’t be put off this documentary, thinking that it’s about chess – that’s just the medium in which her ‘genius’ is pursued. At just 16, Susan had beaten her first grandmaster.
Then she became the top female player in the world by the age of 15. From an early age Polgar taught his daughter the complexities of chess, and by the age of five she was taking on adults, and beating them. Make Me A Genius looks at Susan and her life, and the most amazing thing about her is that she appears to be a normal person despite her somewhat different upbringing.
Some 38 years later, Susan Polgar is a grandmaster at chess. He pointed out that Mozart received tutelage from his father at a very early age and thought that anyone, with the correct application, could turn their offspring into a genius.Ī nice theory, but then he had a daughter of his own (Susan) and was able to test out his hypotheses. And furthermore, it was something that any parent could do. He wrote a book called Bringing Up Geniuses! that hypothesised it was possible to nurture a genius. Her father, Hungarian psychologist László Polgar, pondered this nature versus- nurture conundrum and decided that genius was ‘not born, but made’. You’d think one of them would know.īut the one question that is pertinent is this: is it really natural? After all, nobody is born with the ability to play the piano or explain astrophysics or, in the case of Susan Polgar, play chess. I say loose because a) the definition is from Wikipedia and b) nobody is really that sure, even the people who are supposed to be geniuses themselves. The loose definition of a genius is a person of great intelligence, who shows an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work. With a grandmaster title to her name it’s hard to disagree with him. Is a genius born or are they made? Make Me A Genius looks at the incredible life of Susan Polgar – the living test subject for her psychologist father who believed he could make his baby daughter a chess genius.
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