Aleksandra Goryachkina

Alexandra Goryachkina, World Junior Championship 2012 in Athens
Full name	Aleksandra Yuryevna Goryachkina
Country	Russia
Born	September 28, 1998 Orsk, Russia
Title	Woman Grandmaster (2012)
Peak rating	2502 (January 2016)

Aleksandra Yuryevna Goryachkina (Russian: Александра Юрьевна Горячкина; born 28 September 1998 in Orsk) is a Russian chess prodigy holding the title of Woman grandmaster since the age of 13.

She won twice the World Junior Girls Chess Championship, in 2013 and in 2014. She also won the World Under-10 Girls Championship in 2008, the European Under-12 Girls Championship in 2010, both the European and World U14 Girls Championships in 2011 (scoring 9/9 in the latter), both the European and World U18 Girls Championships in 2012.

She was the runner up in the European U12 Girls Championship and bronze medalist in the World U12 Girls Championshiop in 2009.

In 2011, she won the Lyudmila Rudenko Memorial in Saint Petersburg and during that year her rating climbed almost 300 points from 2045 to 2333.

In 2012, she finished equal second (third on tiebreak) in the Russian Junior (Under 20) Girls Championship and won the Women’s Russian Cup knockout competition.

She took part in the Tata Steel C Tournament in Wijk aan Zee in early 2013, scoring 3.5 points out of 13 games (1 win, 5 draws, 7 losses). In April 2013, she came second in the Russian U19 Championship (open section). In June of that year, she placed equal second (third on tiebreak) in the Russian Championship Higher League (women's section). Thanks to this result she qualified for the first time for the Russian Women's Championship Superfinal, in which she scored 4.5/9, placing equal fourth (sixth on tiebreak). In December 2013 she competed in the open section of the World U18 Championship in Al Ain and scored 6.5/11.

In March 2014, she participated for the first time in the European Individual Chess Championship and scored 5/11. In June of the same year, she placed equal third (fifth on tiebreak) in the Women's Higher League with 6/9 and qualified for the Women's Superfinal. In September 2014, she placed equal first (fourth on tiebreak) in the Satka Autumn women's open tournament. In November of that year, she placed third in the Women's Superfinal scoring 5.5/9.

In February 2015, Goryachkina competed in the European Individual Championship scoring 6.5/11 with a rating performance of 2554. In the following month, she finished second in the women's tournament of the Moscow Open with 7/9. In April 2015, Goryachkina took part in the Women's World Chess Championship 2015 and reached the second round, in which she was knocked out by Anna Muzychuk.

In August 2015 she won the Russian Women's Championship Superfinal in Chita with 8/11. Goryachkina won for the second time in her career the Women's Russian Cup in December 2015.

Her father Yuri is a FIDE Master and her first coach, her mother is a Candidate Master.

As of January 2016, her Elo rating is 2502, making her world no. 1 girl player, no. 38 junior player, and no. 15 woman player.

Team competitions

Goryachkina played on top board for Russia in the 2012 European Under-18 Girls Team Championship and scored 3/3, contributing to win team gold.

Goryachkina made her debut in the national women's team playing on reserve board at the 2013 Women's European Team Chess Championship. She scored 2.5/5 and helped the Russian team to win silver.

In December 2014, she helped the Russian team to win silver at the Under-16 Chess Olympiads in Győr, scoring 6/10 on second board. She also won a brillancy prize for her game against Cemil Can Ali Marandi in the seventh round.

In April 2015, she helped Russia to win silver in the 2015 Women's World Team Chess Championship scoring 5/7. Thanks to this effort she also won individual silver on fourth board. In July of the same year, she took part in the 9th China-Russia Match in Ningbo, scoring 5/10 in the blitz games and 1.5/5 in the classical encounter. In the 2015 Women's European Team Championship in Reykjavík she won team gold and also the individual gold on board three.

Goryachkina plays for Yamal team on the third board in the Russian Team Championship (open section): she scored 3/7 in 2013 with a performance rating of 2408, 3/6 in 2014 (performance 2535), 3.5/7 (performance 2638) in 2015.