Range by David J. Epstein EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Author:David J. Epstein
- Language: English
- Genre: Sports Psychology
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The Cult of the Head Start
ONE YEAR AND FOUR DAYS after World War II in Europe ended in
unconditional surrender, Laszlo Polgar was born in a small town in
Hungary—the seed of a new family. He had no grandmothers, no
grandfathers, and no cousins; all had been wiped out in the
Holocaust, along with his father’s first wife and five children. Laszlo
grew up determined to have a family, and a special one.
He prepped for fatherhood in college by poring over biographies
of legendary thinkers, from Socrates to Einstein. He decided that
traditional education was broken, and that he could make his own
children into geniuses, if he just gave them the right head start. By
doing so, he would prove something far greater: that any child can be
molded for eminence in any discipline. He just needed a wife who
would go along with the plan.
Laszlo’s mother had a friend, and the friend had a daughter,
Klara. In 1965, Klara traveled to Budapest, where she met Laszlo in
person. Laszlo didn’t play hard to get; he spent the first visit telling
Klara that he planned to have six children and that he would nurture
them to brilliance. Klara returned home to her parents with a
lukewarm review: she had “met a very interesting person,” but could
not imagine marrying him.
They continued to exchange letters. They were both teachers and
agreed that the school system was frustratingly one-size-fits-all,
made for producing “the gray average mass,” as Laszlo put it. A year
and a half of letters later, Klara realized she had a very special pen
pal. Laszlo finally wrote a love letter, and proposed at the end. They
married, moved to Budapest, and got to work. Susan was born in
early 1969, and the experiment was on.
For his first genius, Laszlo picked chess. In 1972, the year before
Susan started training, American Bobby Fischer defeated Russian
Boris Spassky in the “Match of the Century.” It was considered a
Cold War proxy in both hemispheres, and chess was suddenly pop
culture. Plus, according to Klara, the game had a distinct benefit:
“Chess is very objective and easy to measure.” Win, lose, or draw,
and a point system measures skill against the rest of the chess world.
His daughter, Laszlo decided, would become a chess champion.
Laszlo was patient, and meticulous. He started Susan with “pawn
wars.” Pawns only, and the first person to advance to the back row
wins. Soon, Susan was studying endgames and opening traps. She
enjoyed the game and caught on quickly. After eight months of study,
Laszlo took her to a smoky chess club in Budapest and challenged
grown men to play his four-year-old daughter, whose legs dangled
from her chair.
Susan won her first game, and the man she beat
stormed off. She entered the Budapest girls’ championship and won
the under-eleven title. At age four she had not lost a game.
By six, Susan could read and write and was years ahead of her
grade peers in math. Laszlo and Klara decided they would educate
her at home and keep the day open for chess.
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