Born in 1941, Nona Gaprindashvili was the youngest of 6 kids and the only girl. She began playing chess at 5 from watching her brother play. Her first major break came when her brother had to back out of a local Team Championship. Nona stepped in to fill his place and performed very well scoring 5th overall.
There is a really nice interview she gave to Chessbase in 2018 walking through her chess life and accomplishments, I have left those in the show notes.
Vakhtang Karseladze - one of Georgia’s top chess trainers of the time - noticed her play and offered to properly train her starting in 1954.
Two years later in 1956 at the age of 14, Gaprindashvili won the Women’s Soviet Union Championship.
Five years later was the start of Nona’s absolute dominance on the global stage. She won the 1961 Candidates tournament a full 2 points ahead of the 17 person field which qualified her to play in the 1962 Women’s World Championship against Elisaveta Bykova. Gaprindashvili crushed her in a 9 to 2 match score.
Her victory at the World Championship stage was seen as the beginning of a ‘women’s chess revolution’ in Georgia and some go as far as an ‘intellectual revolution’ for Georgian women.
She went on to defend her title:
In 1978, she was finally dethroned by the then 17 year old (and 20 year younger) Maia Chiburdanidze, ending her 16 year reign as the Women’s World Champion. 1978 was busy for Nona. She participated in the Lone Pine International tournament scoring well enough to be the first woman to ever earn a norm for the title of Grandmaster.
At a meeting by the FIDE Congress of 1978, Gaprindashvili was awarded the Grandmaster title. She has said her tournament performance at Lone Pine and earning her Grandmaster title as one of her greatest achievements in chess.
AND she is still playing! She participated in the 2023 European Senior Women’s Chess Championships at the age of 82. She has won the Senior tournament 7 times with her most recent being in 2022 in the 65+ age division.
Gaprindashvili not only was the first woman to earn the Grandmaster title, dominate the Women’s World Championship for 16 years through 5 different cycles, play in 12 Olympiads, and win 7 different Senior Championships - but she has been a role model that many have looked up to by causing women to get into the game, being an active voice in politics, and earning the Presidential Order of Excellence by the Georgian President. There is so much we can learn from players like her.
This week, we are traveling back to 1963 to the 9th Soviet Team Championship.
Nona Gaprindashvili vs Evgenia Guseva.
Now if we’re ready, let’s begin.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Bc4 Bd7 9.Qd2 Nc6 10.O-O-O Rb8 11.h4 Nxd4 12.Bxd4 b5 13.Be2 Qa5 14.h5 b4 15.Nd5 Nxd5 16.Bxg7 Nc3 17.Qh6 Nxe2+ 18.Kd2 b3+ 19.Kxe2 Rfc8 20.hxg6 Rxc2+ 21.Ke3 1-0
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2285813
https://en.chessbase.com/post/nona-gaprindashvili-interview-bled-2018
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nona_Gaprindashvili