Chess tournaments Chess strategy Computer chess Chess players FIDE Chess variants Chess rules and history

Nana Dzagnidze

2013
Full name Nana Dzagnidze
Country Georgia
Born 1 January 1987
Kutaisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Title Grandmaster
Woman Grandmaster
Peak rating 2573 (June 2015)
Peak ranking 3 (September 2015)

Nana Dzagnidze (Georgian: ნანა ძაგნიძე; born 1 January 1987) is a chess player from Georgia, who achieved the title of International Grandmaster in 2008. She was the best individual female player during the 41st Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, ahead of Hou Yifan.

Youth success

As a junior player, she showed early promise by winning the World Girls Under-12 Championship in 1999. The momentum was maintained throughout her teenage years and she also claimed the gold medal at the World Girls Under 20 Championship in 2003, 2 points ahead of the field.

In September 2005 she took part in the sixth Lausanne Young Masters tournament, finishing seventh. Andrei Volokitin won the tournament.

Team performances

She has been a regular board two for Georgia's Women's Olympiad team and helped them reclaim the gold medal at Dresden in 2008, scoring a very useful 7/10. This was also the year that she was awarded her full GM title.

Dzagnidze's record at the European Team Chess Championship has been no less impressive, taking a team silver medal at the 2005 women's event and an individual board four gold medal in 2007.

Further progress

At the Dresden Olympiad

Despite some leveling off of her tournament performances in the period 2003-2007, she made a significant leap in the last quarter of 2008 and playing more chess than ever, continued the upsurge into 2009, registering her highest Elo rating and rising to eighth on FIDE's list of 'Top 100 Women', higher than Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk.

At Gibraltar Chess Festival 2009, she started the tournament in great style, her 3 points from the first three rounds earning her an appearance on the top table, after defeating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Elo: 2696). She crowned her moment of glory by drawing with Bartosz Soćko (Elo: 2631) in round 4. She was leading female in Gibraltar Chess Festival 2011 again.

In July 2010 she won the women's Grand Prix tournament, the fourth of six such tournaments as part of the Women's World Chess Championship cycle for 2011. She won seven games and drew four, in the eleven-round round-robin tournament. She finished 1½ points ahead of second-place finisher Tatiana Kosintseva.

Read more:

COMMENTS