Anna Muzychuk

Anna Olehivna Muzychuk (Анн́а Оле́гівна Музичу́к; Ana Muzičuk; born 28 February 1990) is a Ukrainian chess player who holds the title of Grandmaster (GM).

She is the fourth woman in chess history to attain a FIDE rating of at least 2600.

She has been ranked as high as No. 197 in the world, and No. 2 among women.

Anna Muzychuk was born on 28 February 1990 in Lviv to Nataliya and Oleh Muzychuk.

She grew up with her sister Mariya, who is two years younger, in the nearby smaller city of Stryi.

Anna and Mariya both learned to play chess at age two from their parents, both of whom are professional chess coaches who studied coaching at the Lviv State Institute of Physical Culture sports school and have since worked and taught at the school.

Their father originally taught them how the pieces move at a park where there was a large human-sized chess board on the ground.

Anna began competing at chess at age five, finishing in second place at both her school chess tournament and the under-10 girls' division of the Lviv regional championship.

By the time she was ten years old, she could defeat both of her parents.

When Muzychuk was about 14 years old, she had been coached by Roman Kozelov for two years.

She was still attending school at Stryi Gymnasium at the time, but later stopped attending regularly.

Around this time, she also briefly worked with Orest Gritsak, a Ukrainian Grandmaster (GM) who had coached top Ukrainian player Vasyl Ivanchuk.

She had not had much opportunity to train with Grandmasters at this point because her family could not afford this level of coaching.

At age 14, Muzychuk switched federations from Ukraine to Slovenia due to conflicts she had with the Ukrainian Chess Federation.

One of the issues she had was not being put on the Ukrainian national team or given the opportunity to compete at the Women's Chess Olympiad despite winning the Ukrainian Women's Chess Championship at age 13.

Around the same time, Boris Kutin, a Slovenian who was the president of the European Chess Union, offered Muzychuk the opportunity to represent Slovenia, which she accepted.

Although she played for Slovenia for the next ten years, she remained based in Ukraine.

Muzychuk had a long stretch of success at the European Youth Chess Championships, medalling in nine consecutive years from 1996 at age six to 2004 at age fourteen, including six gold medals.

She won the under-8 girls' division in 1996, the under-10 girls' division twice in 1998 and 2000, the under-12 girls' division in 2002, and the under-14 girls' division twice in 2003 and 2004.

She won three silver medals at the tournament, two in the under-10 girls' division in 1997 and 1999 behind Nana Dzagnidze and Silvia-Raluca Sgîrcea respectively, and one in the under-12 girls' division in 2001 behind Iozefina Păuleţ.

At the national level, Muzychuk won the Ukrainian girls' national youth and junior championships three times, once each at the under-10 level in 2000, the under-12 level in 2002, and the under-20 level in 2004.

On the global stage, Muzychuk also medalled in the girls' divisions of the World Youth Championships, earning a bronze medal at the under-10 level in 2000 behind Tan Zhongyi and Harika Dronavalli, as well as two silver medals, one at the under-12 level in 2002 behind Tan and another at the under-14 level in 2004 behind Dronavalli.

Muzychuk was awarded the titles of Woman FIDE Master (WFM) in 2001 and Woman International Master (WIM) in 2002.

She earned her first FIDE rating of 2197 in July 2001 at age 11.

She first participated at the European Individual Women's Championship in 2002 at age 12, and finished with at least an even score in her first three appearances through 2004.

In-between those last two medals, she was the overall national women's champion in 2003.

Her performance at the 2003 edition as well as a joint first-place finish at the 17-round Lviv's Hopes tournament later in the year helped Muzychuk reach a rating of 2300 by October 2003.

From 2004 to 2014, Muzychuk represented Slovenia due to conflicts with the Ukrainian Chess Federation.

She also earned a sufficient number of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) norms at these two tournaments, and was formally awarded the WGM title in 2004.

She won an individual gold medal at the European Women's Team Chess Championship for Slovenia in 2011 and later won an individual gold medal at the Women's Chess Olympiad in 2016 after she switched federations back to Ukraine.

At the former event, she had one of the best performances of her career with a score of 8½ out of 9 and a performance rating of 2782, also earning her final GM norm.

Muzychuk is a three-time world champion in fast chess, having won the Women's World Rapid Chess Championship once in 2014 and the Women's World Blitz Chess Championship twice in 2014 and 2016.

Muzychuk grew up in a chess family where her younger sister Mariya (the 2015 Women's World Champion in classical chess) also became a Grandmaster.

Her parents work as chess coaches, having taught her the game from when she was two years old.

She soon established herself as a chess prodigy, first winning the European Youth Chess Championships at age six in the under-8 girls' category and later winning the under-10, under-12, and under-14 girls' divisions as well.

She also won the World Youth Championship in the under-16 girls' category and the World Junior Championship for under-20 girls.

She earned the International Master (IM) title at age 17 and the Grandmaster title at age 21.

Along with Susan Polgar and Magnus Carlsen, she is one of three players to win the World Rapid and World Blitz Championships in the same year, which she achieved in 2016.

In classical chess, she was the 2017 Women's World Championship runner-up.

Muzychuk drew widespread media attention at the end of 2017 for boycotting the World Rapid and Blitz Championships over FIDE's decision to hold the events in Saudi Arabia because of the country's discriminatory policies against women.