







The Most Famous
Chess Players from Poland
This page contains a list of the greatest Polish Chess Players. The pantheon dataset contains 461 Chess Players, 19 of which were born in Poland. This makes Poland the birth place of the 7th most number of Chess Players behind China and India.
Top 10 Polish Chess Players
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Polish Chess Players of all time. This list of famous Polish Chess Players is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Polish Chess Players.
- #1

Emanuel Lasker
1868 - 1941
HPI 75.5370 langsEmanuel Lasker was a German chess player and mathematician who was the world champion for 27 years.
- #2

Adolf Anderssen
1818 - 1879
HPI 70.9552 langsAdolf Anderssen is most famous for his victory over Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851.
- #3

Samuel Reshevsky
1911 - 1992
HPI 68.6638 langsSamuel Reshevsky is most famous for being a chess player. He was the first person to win the world championship in both chess and checkers.
- #4

Siegbert Tarrasch
1862 - 1934
HPI 68.5846 langsSiegbert Tarrasch is most famous for his chess books. He was also a chess player and a chess teacher.
- #5

Akiba Rubinstein
1880 - 1961
HPI 67.1835 langsRussian-Polish chess player
- #6

Johannes Zukertort
1842 - 1888
HPI 67.1036 langsChess master
- #7

Miguel Najdorf
1910 - 1997
HPI 66.4436 langsMiguel Najdorf is most famous for his contribution to the game of chess. He was a Polish-Argentinian chess grandmaster and a chess writer....Read moreShow less
Miguel Najdorf is most famous for his contribution to the game of chess. He was a Polish-Argentinian chess grandmaster and a chess writer. Najdorf was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1910 and died in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1997. He was an International Master from 1951 and a Grandmaster from 1953. Najdorf is known for his contributions to opening theory, especially for the Sicilian Defense. Najdorf also introduced the Najdorf Variation in the Sicilian Defense.
- #8

Szymon Winawer
1838 - 1919
HPI 60.9822 langsPolish chess player (1838–1919)
- #9

Edward Lasker
1885 - 1981
HPI 59.4423 langsGerman-American chess player (1885-1981)
- #10

Grigory Levenfish
1889 - 1961
HPI 57.9719 langsSoviet chess player (1889–1961)
People by Birth Decade
Browse notable Polish Chess Players grouped by birth decade. Each decade shows the top 10 by HPI; expand to see everyone.
2000s(1)
1990s(1)
1980s(2)
1960s(1)
1910s(2)
1860s(2)
1840s(1)
1830s(1)
1820s(1)
1810s(1)
Overlapping Lives
Which Chess Players were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 11 most globally memorable Chess Players since 1700.









