List of female chess players

This article lists female chess players that received official FIDE titles or are otherwise renowned.

"A Game of Chess" (Henry Siddons Mowbray, 1890)

History of women playing chess

From the Middle Ages through the 18th century, chess was a popular social pastime for both men and women of the upper classes. Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I played, and Thomas Jefferson wrote several times about Benjamin Franklin's playing chess in Paris with socially important women, including the Duchess of Bourbon Bathilde d'Orléans, who was "a chess player of about his force".[1] Chess games between men and women were a common theme of European art[2][3] and literature in the fourteenth through 18th centuries.[4]

By the 19th century, however, the chess world had become dominated by male chess players. During the 20th century, female players made significant progress in breaking male dominance on the game, and a few female players (such as Vera Menchik) could compete successfully with men.

By the mid-1980s a number of women were competing regularly in events with men. The country of Georgia produced some of the best women chess players of the later 20th century, including the first female International Grandmaster, Nona Gaprindashvili, who was awarded the title in 1978.

Judit Polgar was the first female player to compete in a World Chess Championship, in the 2005 edition. She is also the only female player to have defeated the reigning world number one in a game, when she beat Garry Kasparov in 2002.[5][6] More recently, Hou Yifan has been the leading female player, winning the Biel GM tournament[7] and being rated among the world's top hundred players for several years.

Grandmasters

There are currently 37 female players who hold the title of Grandmaster:[8][9]

Name Country Birth Date Date Age Women's World Champion Notes
Nona Gaprindashvili  Georgia 1941-05-03 1978 37 1962–1978 First female grandmaster
Maia Chiburdanidze  Georgia 1961-01-17 1984 23 1978–1991
Susan Polgár  Hungary
 United States		 1969-04-19 1991 22 1996–1999
Judit Polgár  Hungary 1976-07-23 1991 15 – Youngest grandmaster ever at the time
Pia Cramling  Sweden 1963-04-23 1992 29 –
Xie Jun  China 1970-10-30 1994 23 1991–1996, 1999–2001
Zhu Chen  China
 Qatar		 1976-03-16 2001 25 2001–2004
Humpy Koneru  India 1987-03-31 2002 15 –
Antoaneta Stefanova  Bulgaria 1979-04-19 2002 23 2004–2006
Alexandra Kosteniuk  Russia 1984-03-23 2004 20 2008–2010 direct award after EWC
Peng Zhaoqin  China
 Netherlands		 1968-05-08 2004 36 direct award after EWC
Hoang Thanh Trang  Vietnam
 Hungary		 1980-04-25 2007 27 –
Kateryna Lahno  Ukraine
 Russia		 1989-12-27 2007 17 –
Xu Yuhua  China 1976-10-29 2007 30 2006–2008 direct award after WWC
Marie Sebag  France 1986-10-15 2008 21 –
Zhao Xue  China 1985-04-06 2008 23 –
Hou Yifan  China 1994-02-27 2008 14 2010–2012, 2013–2015, 2016–2017 Youngest ever female grandmaster
Nana Dzagnidze  Georgia 1987-01-01 2008 21 –
Monika Soćko  Poland 1978-03-24 2008 30 –
Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant  Georgia
 Scotland		 1968-07-19 2009 40 –
Tatiana Kosintseva  Russia 1986-04-11 2009 23 –
Natalia Zhukova  Ukraine 1979-06-05 2010 30 –
Elina Danielian  Armenia 1978-08-16 2010 32 –
Viktorija Čmilytė  Lithuania 1983-08-06 2010 26 –
Nadezhda Kosintseva  Russia 1985-01-14 2011 26 –
Harika Dronavalli  India 1991-01-12 2011 20 –
Anna Muzychuk  Ukraine
 Slovenia		 1990-02-28 2012 22 –
Anna Ushenina  Ukraine 1985-08-30 2012 27 2012–2013 direct award after WWC
Valentina Gunina  Russia 1989-02-04 2013 24 –
Irina Krush  United States 1983-12-24 2013 29 –
Bela Khotenashvili  Georgia 1988-06-01 2013 25 –
Ju Wenjun  China 1991-01-31 2014 23 2018–
Mariya Muzychuk  Ukraine 1992-09-21 2015 22 2015–2016 direct award after WWC
Lei Tingjie  China 1997-03-13 2017 19 –
Tan Zhongyi  China 1991-05-29 2017 25 2017–2018 direct award after WWC
Nino Batsiashvili  Georgia 1987-01-01 2018 31 –
Aleksandra Goryachkina  Russia 1998-09-28 2018 19 –

There is also the title Woman Grandmaster (WGM), but the requirements for achieving it are lower. As of 2020, no woman has ever been the world champion. In September 2005, Judit Polgár of Hungary, then rated #8 in the world by the international chess organization FIDE, became the first woman to play for the World Championship title.[10]

International Masters

Current

As of March 2020, the FIDE database lists 119 living women who hold the International Master title.[11]

Deceased

Alphabetical list

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X
  • Xie Jun (1970) People's Republic of China - Women's World champion, GM 1994
  • Xu Yuanyuan (1981) China - WGM
  • Xu Yuhua (1976) People's Republic of China - Women's World champion, GM 2007

Y

Z

See also

Notes

    References
    1. "Chess « Thomas Jefferson's Monticello". Monticello.org. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
    2. "Paris, France: Musée national du Moyen Age: stained glass". Cambridge2000.com. 2004-04-04. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
    3. http://www.wga.hu/art/m/man/chess_pl.jpg
    4. Archived September 18, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
    5. "Sweet revenge for Kasparov's opponent". The Guardian. 11 September 2002. Retrieved 8 June 2017.
    6. For the game score, see chessgames
    7. Sam Copeland (August 3, 2017), "Hou Yifan Scores Historic Victory in Biel"", chess.com, retrieved August 12, 2019
    8. List of female GMs at fide.com
    9. Bluejay, Michael (November 2006). "Women Grandmasters in Chess (GM's, not WGM's)". michaelbluejay.com. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
    10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2005-08-31.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
    11. List of female IMs on FIDE.com
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