We study residual polynomials, R (e) x0,n , e ⊂ R, x 0 ∈ R\e, which are the degree at most n polynomials with R(x 0 ) = 1 that minimize the sup norm on e. New are upper bounds on their norms (that are optimal in some cases) and Szegő-Widom asymptotics under fairly general circumstances. We also discuss several illuminating examples and some results in the complex case.