Good afternoon everyone,

I've been reading about the Polgar sisters, do you know about them? Basically their parents had a project to make their children the best at chess, and it worked very well! All of the Polgar sisters played chess at an international level, and one of them, Judit, is a top ten of all time. I'm sort of fascinated by hothoused children, and that's kind of the theme for this Fem Fri.

Honestly, if you're even a tiny bit interested in chess, this whole Judit Polgar interview is fascinating. There's a weird bit early on where they clearly ask her a question she doesn't want to answer, and she just says NOPE, but after that you get to the good stuff:

You don’t lose the game because you created a weakness, but you have to understand that it has consequences. You have to take the responsibility for that. You have to commit yourself to this move and live with this possible mistake for the rest of the game. You have to say, “that’s OK, so I blundered something.” You have to play on and live with this. And if I do things right, I can switch strategies and maybe outplay my opponent.

https://032c.com/magazine/chess-grandmaster-judit-polgar

Obviously Serena Williams is a fairly famous hothoused child and top ten of all time as well. What I particularly enjoy is the theme, seen across both of these pullquotes, on how to deal with mistakes. I don't know if that's a being hothoused thing or just that both chess and tennis require very high degrees of mental toughness:

There were so many matches I won because something made me angry or someone counted me out. That drove me. I’ve built a career on channeling anger and negativity and turning it into something good.

https://www.vogue.com/article/serena-williams-retirement-in-her-own-words

Have a nice weekend,

A xxx.