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Maia Chiburdanidze
Maia Chiburdanidze (Georgian: მაია ჩიბურდანიძე; born 17
January 1961) is a Georgian chess player. She is the seventh Maia Chiburdanidze
Women's World Chess Champion, a title she held from 1978 to 1991, მაია ჩიბურდანიძე
and was the youngest one until 2010, when this record was broken
by Hou Yifan. Chiburdanidze has won nine Women's Chess
Olympiads.[1]

Contents
Early life and career
Women's World Champion (1978–91)
Losing the title
Other chess achievements Maia Chiburdanidze, Thessaloniki
Other 1984

References Country Soviet Union →

Georgia
Further reading
Born 17 January 1961
External links
Kutaisi, Georgian SSR,
Soviet Union
Early life and career Title Grandmaster (1984)
Women's 1978–1991
Maia Chiburdanidze was born in Kutaisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist World
Republic, USSR and started playing chess around the age of eight. Champion
She became the USSR girls' champion in 1976 and a year later she
won the women's title. In 1977 she was awarded the title of Woman FIDE 2500 (https://ratings.fid
Grandmaster by FIDE. rating e.com/card.phtml?even
t=13600036) (April
She won outright on her debut at the Braşov women's international 2020) [inactive]
tournament of 1974 when she was only 13 years old and went on to
Peak 2560 (January 1988)
win another tournament in Tbilisi in 1975 before entering the
women's world championship cycle of 1976/77. rating

Her style of play is solid, but aggressive and well grounded in classical principles; it was influenced by
Eduard Gufeld, a top Soviet trainer, who was her coach early in her career.

Women's World Champion (1978–91)

Chiburdanidze finished 2nd in the Tbilisi Women's Interzonal (1976), thereby qualifying for the 1977
candidates matches. She advanced through to the Candidates Final, where she beat Alla Kushnir by 7½–
6½ to set up a world title match in Pitsunda, Georgia, against Nona Gaprindashvili, the reigning

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women's world champion. Chiburdanidze defeated Gaprindashvili by 8½–6½.

She successfully defended her title four times. In 1981 she retained her title by drawing 8–8 with Nana
Alexandria, in Borjomi/Tbilisi. Three years later she played Irina Levitina in Volgograd, Russia, and won
8½–5½. The next defense came against Elena Akhmilovskaya in Sofia in 1986, which Chiburdanidze
won 8½–5½. In 1988 she beat Nana Ioseliani in Telavi, Georgia, by 8½–7½.

FIDE awarded her the title of Grandmaster in 1984.[2] She is the second woman, after Gaprindashvili, to
be awarded the title.

Losing the title

Xie Jun of China won the right to challenge for the world
championship in February 1991. Chiburdanidze lost her crown to the
young Chinese player in Manila by 8½–6½. Her reign was the third
longest, at 14 years, behind only that of the first women's champion,
Vera Menchik, who reigned for 17 years from 1927 until her death in
1944, and that of Gaprindashvili's 16 years.

She has attempted to regain the world title but, with the rise of the
Chinese women and the formidable Polgár sisters, this has proved
difficult and her best performance since 1991 has been 1st in the Chiburdanidze, Heraklion 2007
Tilburg Candidates tournament of 1994, losing the playoff to Zsuzsa
Polgár by 5½–1½. Subsequently, despite not approving of the
knockout format, she has entered the world championships of recent years. She reached the semi-finals
in 2001, only to be knocked out by Zhu Chen of China, who went on to win the title. In 2004, she again
reached the semi-finals where she lost to Antoaneta Stefanova who went on to win the title.

Other chess achievements

Chiburdanidze, like Hou Yifan, is unimpressed with 'women's chess' and prefers to play with men.[3] She
has played extensively in men's tournaments around the world and her best form was seen in the 1980s
and early 1990s. She was 1st in tournaments in New Delhi (1984) and Banja Luka (1985) and in the next
decade she finished 1st in Belgrade (1992), Vienna (1993) and in Lippstadt (1995).

She was a key member of the USSR team that dominated the women's Olympiads of the 1980s and,
when Georgia achieved independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, she played board 1 for the new
Georgian national team that won four gold medals, in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 2008.

She also played in the European Team Championships of 1997 when Georgia won the gold medal and in
the 1st Europe v Asia Intercontinental rapidplay match which was held in Batumi (Georgia) in
September 2001. Asia won the women's section by 21½–10½ with Maia contributing 3½. In 2008
Dresden Olympiad, she played on board 1, for Georgia, that won the gold medal (1st place), and she also
won gold medal for best performance (2715 pt).

Other
She has been honoured many times by her country and several postage stamps have even been designed
to celebrate her chess achievements. Mongolia issued a commemorative stamp in 1986 which illustrates
a position in one of her games from the 1984 world championship match against Irina Levitina.
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Maia Chiburdanidze is one of several women from the country who have
excelled at the highest levels of chess. She has helped to further boost the
standing of the game in her country, where she, and the other top Georgian
women, are fêted like movie stars.

References
1. Only her compatriot Nona Gaprindashvili won more: 11 Chess
Olympiads. See OlimpBase Overall Statistics (http://www.olimpbase.or
g/statisticsw/all_id12.html)
2. Gaige, Jeremy (1987), Chess Personalia, A Biobibliography, McFarland
& Company, p. 70, ISBN 0-7864-2353-6
Maia Chiburdanidze on a
3. Chiburdanidze's visit to the U.S. during Perestroika (http://www.chessdr 2001 stamp of Yugoslavia
yad.com/articles/rankfile/art_03.htm), by Wendy Starbuck at
chessdryad.com

Further reading
"Maia Chiburdanidze", New In Chess, no. #7, pp. 66–68, 1986

External links
Maia Chiburdanidze (http://www.365chess.com/players/Maia_Chiburdanidze) chess games at
365Chess.com
Maia Chiburdanidze (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=16894) player profile and
games at Chessgames.com

Preceded by Women's World Chess Champion Succeeded by

Nona Gaprindashvili 1978–1991 Xie Jun

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