Anna Rudolf

Anna Rudolf (born 12 November 1987) is a Hungarian chess player, chess commentator, livestreamer, and YouTuber who holds the titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM).

She is a three-time Hungarian women's national chess champion and has represented Hungary at the Chess Olympiad and the European Team Chess Championship.

She has a peak FIDE rating of 2393 and a career-best ranking of No. 71 in the world among women.

Rudolf began playing chess with her younger sister Kata when she was four years old.

Rudolf was born in Miskolc, which was then in the Hungarian People's Republic, on 12 November 1987.

She grew up in Bátaszék and has a younger sister named Kata.

Her father, László Rudolf, is an experienced chess player with a peak FIDE rating of 2185.

He has also been a world champion of hexagonal chess.

Rudolf learned how to play chess at the age of four with her sister through the Battle Chess computer game, which follows the same rules as chess while also animating moves and captures anthropomorphically.

At nine years old, she drew media attention for defeating Hungarian Grandmaster (GM) Lajos Portisch as a participant in a simultaneous exhibition.

While growing up, Rudolf was coached by Béla Molnár.

She won the under-12 girls' division of an international youth chess tournament in Visegrád in 1998, while her sister won the under-10 girls' division.

They had both finished runner-up one age group lower a year earlier.

They had success at a young age, both qualifying for the World Youth Chess Championships, where Rudolf finished in the top 10 of the under-12 girls' division in 1999.

In Hungary, she became a three-time girls' national champion, once each at the under-12 and under-16 youth levels and the under-20 junior level.

Rudolf won the under-12 girls' division of the Hungarian national championship in 1999, the same year her sister won the under-10 girls' division.

With these victories, they both qualified for the European Youth and World Youth Chess Championships.

Rudolf finished in equal ninth place out of 66 competitors in the under-12 girls' division at the 1999 World Youth Chess Championship with a score of 7/11, three points behind the winner Nana Dzagnidze.

She later studied Russian and English at the University of Pécs.

Rudolf's childhood idol was her compatriot Judit Polgár, who is widely acknowledged as the greatest female chess player of all time.

She had the opportunity to play against Polgár at age 11 when she traveled to Budapest to participate in a simultaneous exhibition given by Polgár.

Rudolf first reached a FIDE rating above 2000 in January 2000 at the age of 12, having been rated 2087 on that list.

She rose to a rating of 2100 in the middle of 2002 at age 14 mainly from two second-place finishes at the First Saturday FM B tournament in Budapest and the under-20 Hungarian Junior Girls' Championship in Paks.

She scored 4/8 in Budapest in a field of six competitors.

She scored 6/9 in Paks, only behind Lili Tóth.

Although she only scored 3½/8 against her rated opponents at the Pula Open in Croatia the next month, she also gained 25 rating points there as well.

Rudolf rose another 100 points again the following year, reaching 2200 in July 2003 at age 15.

Her best performance during this span came at the Zalakaros Cup Open in May, where she scored 5½/9 against opponents with a much-higher average rating of 2304 to gain 45 rating points.

In the second half of the year, Rudolf had one of her best results in both national and international competitions.

First, she won the under-16 Hungarian girls' national championship with an unbeaten 5½/6, which was 1½ points ahead of second place.

At the senior level, Rudolf qualified for the Woman Grandmaster title in 2007 when she reached a rating of 2300 and earned three WGM norms, including a double norm at the European Individual Women's Chess Championship, all at age 19.

One of her best tournament results came at the 2007 Vandœuvre Open where she had a career-best performance rating of 2541 and earned both her last WGM norm and first IM norm.

In her career, she has defeated two Grandmasters (GM) rated above 2600, Yaroslav Zherebukh and Christian Bauer, who had ratings of 2642 and 2634 at the time of their games.

Outside of her playing career, Rudolf is a regular chess commentator at high-profile tournaments, having worked with both Chess.com and chess24.

She had started producing instructional videos for chess24 in 2013, and has co-hosted a series with fellow IM Sopiko Guramishvili where they are known respectively as Miss Strategy and Miss Tactics.

Rudolf did not qualify for the International Master title until seven years later in 2014, having earned her three IM norms years apart in 2007, 2010, and 2014, and briefly reaching the rating threshold of 2400 in 2010.

Since 2017, Rudolf has not played any competitive chess tournaments and focused primarily on her broadcasting career.

She was the official commentator for the 2018 World Chess Championship together with her childhood idol Judit Polgár.

She launched her own Twitch channel in 2018 and also runs her own YouTube channel.

She later became good friends with Polgár, helping to promote the annual Global Chess Festival started by Polgár, and the two commentated on the 2018 World Chess Championship together.