Nona Gaprindashvili

Nona Gaprindashvili (ნონა გაფრინდაშვილი; born 3 May 1941) is a Georgian chess Grandmaster.

Nona Gaprindashvili was born in Zugdidi in 1941, the youngest of six children and the only girl.

Her family was highly athletic, and the neighborhood children would often gather at the Gaprindashvili's home to play table tennis, billiards, and football.

They had her play goalkeeper during their football games because she was the girl of the family.

She first learned to play chess from her father while she was five years old and from watching her brother play.

When Gaprindashvili was eleven or twelve, she accompanied her brother to a chess tournament, and when he was unable to play, she played in his stead.

Here she was noticed by chess trainer Vakhtang Karseladzé.

Gaprindashvili began playing chess when she was five years old, and she moved to Tbilisi to train under Grandmasters in 1954.

Her parents had her live with her aunt in Tbilisi, where she could train with chess Grandmasters beginning in 1954.

By 1956, at the age of fourteen, she won the semi-final of the Women's Soviet Union Championship.

Gaprindashvili won the Women's Candidates Tournament in 1961, making her eligible to challenge Elisaveta Bykova, the reigning world champion in women's chess.

Gaprindashvili's favorite football team, FC Dinamo Tbilisi attended the game as spectators to support her.

She was the women's world chess champion from 1962 to 1978, and in 1978 she was the first woman ever to be awarded the FIDE title of Grandmaster.

By 1962, she won the title of women's world chess champion in a landslide victory against the previous champion, Elisaveta Bykova.

This won her widespread acclaim throughout Georgia.

She successfully defended her title four times: three against Alla Kushnir and one against Nana Alexandria.

Gaprindashvili won the 1962 match against Bykova with a large victory of nine points against Bykova's two.

The game was adjourned, to be resumed the following morning, but Bykova conceded by phone later that night.

After her victory, Gaprindashvili was a celebrity in Georgia, and crowds gathered to meet her as she returned from the World Championship match.

Woman Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade described Gaprindashvili as a symbol of Georgian nationalism and merit during the country's time as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.

Her victory marked the beginning of a "women's chess revolution" in Georgia.

Woman Grandmaster Rusudan Goletiani said that this went even further, with her success helping inspire a broader "intellectual revolution" for Georgian women.

Many women took up chess afterward, and Georgia became one of the most prominent countries in women's chess, producing numerous masters during Gaprindashvili's career.

Gaprindashvili went on to defend her title successfully three times against the Soviet player Alla Kushnir.

During her career, Gaprindashvili successfully competed in tournaments that were traditionally played by men, winning amongst others the Hastings Challengers tournament in 1963/4.

In 1975, Gaprindashvili was challenged by the Georgian player Nana Alexandria.

The competition between two Georgians was widely followed in their home country, and Gaprindashvili won with 8.5 points against Alexandria's 3.5.

She tied for second place at Sandomierz in 1976, tied for first place at Lone Pine International in 1977, and tied for second at the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting in 1978.

Her performance at Lone Pine made her the first woman ever to earn a norm for the title of Grandmaster.

Her performances at Sandomierz and Dortmund did not earn grandmaster norms, which would have contributed to her earning a Grandmaster title, as she was one-half point short in each case.

She lost her title to Maia Chiburdanidze after a narrow loss in 1978.

Gaprindashvili participated in men's tournaments during her career, including a performance at Lone Pine International which earned her the title of Grandmaster.

She later competed regularly in the Women's World Senior Championship.

At the meeting of the FIDE Congress in 1978, Gaprindashvili was awarded the title of Grandmaster, although the normal requirement was three norms totaling 24 games.

She considers her Lone Pine performance and her subsequent awarding of Grandmaster to be her greatest achievement in chess.

The same year, Gaprindashvili was challenged for her title by another Georgian player, Maia Chiburdanidze, who was only seventeen years old at the time of the tournament.

Their first three rounds were draws.

Besides her chess career, Gaprindashvili maintained an active presence in Georgian politics: she served as a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgia, as president of the Georgian National Olympic Committee, and as a member of the People's Assembly group that organized the 2011 Georgian protests.

In 2021, Gaprindashvili filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix after it erroneously described her in The Queen's Gambit as never having competed against men; Netflix settled in 2022.

Noted for her aggressive play style, Gaprindashvili has been recognized with entry into the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Presidential Order of Excellence in 2015.