This week, we are looking at the Hungarian chess player, commentator, and streamer - Anna Rudolf.
She began playing chess at the age of 4 with her sister, Kata. The two of them had Laszlo Rudolf as a father who played competitive chess as well, reaching a peak rating of 2185 FIDE. Laszlo was also a world champion of Hexagonal Chess. At the age of 9, Anna drew media attention by beating Grandmaster Lajos Portisch in a simul.
In 1999, Anna won the girls Under 12 division of the International youth tournament and the under 12, Hungarian National Championship while her sister won the Under 10 division of both tournaments.
That victory qualified her for the World Youth Championship where Anna finished 9th out of 66.
In 2003, Anna won the Hungarian National Championship in the Under 16 division finishing 1.5 points ahead of second place.
That victory qualified her for the World Youth Championship where she finished 4th, 1 point behind the winners.
2007 was a busy year for Anna - she won the Under 20 Hungarian Junior Girls’ Championship crossing the 2300 rating barrier with an 8 out of 9 score. She earned her first two Women’s Grandmaster Norms at the European Individual Women’s Chess Championship. Then in December, she had her best tournament performance at the Vandoeuver Open where she beat a Grandmaster and an International Master. Midway through the tournament, 3 Latvian players accused her of hiding a chess computer in her lip balm - the allegations were untrue and Anna finished with a performance rating of 2541 earning her her final WGM norm and her first International Master norm.
Now in the Adult division, Anna won the Hungarian National Championship 3 times in 2008, 2010, and 2011. She reached her peak rating in 2010 with a published rating of 2393, but for one tournament she had an unpublished rating above 2400 (she picked up her final international master norm in 2015).
At her peak, she was number 71 in the top 100 women players in the world. She has also represented Hungary on the Chess Olympiad in 2008 and 2012 as well as the European Team Championship from 2009 to 2015.
In 2016, Anna made a pivot and began focusing her efforts on streaming and broadcasting. She started her Youtube Channel in 2016 and Twitch in 2018. She hasn’t played in any tournaments since 2017, but she was named the “Outstanding Athlete of the City” in 2017 in her hometown of Bátaszék and she was an official commentator of the 2018 World Championship (Carlsen versus Caruana) with her idol Judit Polgar.
Her online following has only grown, currently she has over 200,000 subscribers on Youtube and over 275,000 on Twitch that tune in to her variety of content that she streams.
This week, we are going to 2001 at the Girls Under 14 European Championships.
Anna Rudolf versus Marta Nestorow.
Now if we’re ready, let’s begin.
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. g3 a6 5. Bg2 Qc7 6. O-O Nf6 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Bc5 10. Qd1 h6 11. Kh1 d6 12. f4 O-O 13. g4 e5 14. f5 b5 15. g5 hxg5 16. Bxg5 Nh7 17. Nd5 Qd7 18. Ne7+ Kh8 19. Qh5 Bb7 20. Rf3 Bxe4 21. Qxh7+ 1-0
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1194324
https://www.twitch.tv/anna_chess
https://blindfoldchesspodcast.com/