1. Sopiko Guramishvili is a Georgian and Dutch chess player, author, and commentator who holds the titles of International Master and Woman Grandmaster.
37 Facts About Sopiko Guramishvili
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Sopiko Guramishvili has a peak FIDE rating of 2441 and has been ranked as high as No 42 in the world among women.
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Sopiko Guramishvili won a silver medal in the under-12 girls' division in 2003 and a gold medal in the under-16 girls' division in 2006.
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Sopiko Guramishvili was awarded the WGM title in 2009 at age 18 and the IM title in 2012 at age 21.
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Sopiko Guramishvili earned her last IM norm at the 2011 Nakhchivan Open, during which she defeated Sergey Fedorchuk, a Ukrainian Grandmaster rated 2662.
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Sopiko Guramishvili has routinely performed well at the European Individual Women's Chess Championship, earning a double IM norm in 2010 and twice qualifying for the Women's World Chess Championship 64-player knockout tournament because of her 2013 and 2015 results.
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Sopiko Guramishvili had her two best tournament performance ratings in 2016, with a career-best of 2509 at the Tata Steel Tienkamp.
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Beyond competing at chess, Sopiko Guramishvili has developed online courses and other instructional videos, in particular for chess24.
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Sopiko Guramishvili was one of the official commentators for the 2014 World Chess Championship match.
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Sopiko Guramishvili is married to Anish Giri, a Dutch Grandmaster who has been ranked as high as No 3 in the world.
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Sopiko Guramishvili was born on 1 January 1991 in Tbilisi, the capital of the Georgian SSR and the modern-day capital of Georgia.
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Sopiko Guramishvili was first introduced to chess inadvertently at age five while her grandmother was teaching her how to play draughts.
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Sopiko Guramishvili finished in equal ninth out of 70 competitors in the under-10 girls' division with a score of 7 points in 11 games, three points behind the winner Tan Zhongyi.
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Sopiko Guramishvili first earned a FIDE rating through the International Chess Federation in October 2002, starting at 2142 at age eleven.
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Sopiko Guramishvili fared better at the latter tournament in Kallithea in Greece, earning a silver medal.
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Sopiko Guramishvili moved up to the under-14 girls' division the following year, but had less success.
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Sopiko Guramishvili finished the year with a redeeming performance at the World Youth Chess Championships, which were hosted by her home country in Batumi.
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Sopiko Guramishvili reached a rating of 2200 for the first time.
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Sopiko Guramishvili consolidated her 2006 World Championship gold medal with another strong year in 2007, gaining about another 100 rating points and earning her first norm for the Woman Grandmaster title.
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Sopiko Guramishvili earned her first two IM norms as a double norm at the 2010 European Individual Women's Chess Championship.
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Sopiko Guramishvili won the former tournament, a ten-player women's round robin, ahead of higher-rated players Alina l'Ami and her compatriot Ana Matnadze.
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Sopiko Guramishvili ended 2012 by winning the Torneo Internacional Femenino Gran Hotel Bali for a second time.
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Sopiko Guramishvili continued to steadily increase her rating through most of 2013, reaching her career-best rating of 2441 that November.
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Sopiko Guramishvili reached a career-best women's ranking of No 42 in the world a month earlier.
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Since 2014, Sopiko Guramishvili has largely maintained a steady rating just below 2400 while generally playing fewer tournaments.
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In 2017, Sopiko Guramishvili had a much better result, winning two rounds and advancing to the round of 16.
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Sopiko Guramishvili was eliminated in the following round by 4th-seed Dronavalli Harika, a GM rated 2539.
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In-between competing at the two Women's World Championships, Sopiko Guramishvili had the two best tournaments of her career by performance rating in 2016.
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Sopiko Guramishvili was one of the participants in the Tata Steel Tienkamp, a ten-player round robin played alongside the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands.
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Sopiko Guramishvili had the opportunity to participate in the more prestigious Tata Steel Challengers in 2017, an event where the winner is invited to compete in the Tata Steel Masters the following year.
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Sopiko Guramishvili did not have a good result finishing in last place.
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Sopiko Guramishvili began representing the Netherlands in 2019, but has thus far not played many games since the switch.
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Sopiko Guramishvili graduated from Ilia State University in Georgia in 2013, where she studied English and Spanish.
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Sopiko Guramishvili married fellow chess player Anish Giri in July 2015.
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Sopiko Guramishvili switched federations from Georgia to the Netherlands in 2019.
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Together with fellow International Master Anna Rudolf, she has been making videos for the Miss Strategy and Miss Tactics series since 2014, in which Rudolf plays the role of Miss Strategy and Sopiko Guramishvili plays the role of Miss Tactics.
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Sopiko Guramishvili has authored a chess24 series on how to play with the black pieces in the Sicilian Najdorf variation, and has two Chessable courses on how to play with the black pieces in the Queen's Gambit Accepted.