43 Facts About Zhansaya Abdumalik

Zhansaya Abdumalik is a Kazakhstani chess player who holds the title of Grandmaster since 2021.

Zhansaya Abdumalik is the first Kazakhstani woman and the first woman from Central Asia, and the 39th woman overall, to earn the GM title.

Zhansaya Abdumalik has been a two-time girls' World Youth Champion as well as a girls' World Junior Champion.

Zhansaya Abdumalik is a two-time Kazakhstani women's national champion, and has represented Kazakhstan in women's events at the Chess Olympiad, World Team Chess Championship, and the Asian Nations Chess Cup.

Zhansaya Abdumalik emerged as a chess prodigy, first qualifying for the girls' World Youth Championships at age seven and winning gold medals at the under-8 level at age eight and the under-12 level at age eleven.

Zhansaya Abdumalik earned the Woman Grandmaster title at 14 years old in 2014 and the International Master title at 16 years old in 2016.

Zhansaya Abdumalik had a career-best performance rating of 2699 at the tournament.

Zhansaya Abdumalik was born on 12 January 2000 to Alma and Daniyar Ashirov in Almaty.

Zhansaya Abdumalik's parents made her last name the same as the first name of her paternal grandfather at his request in large part because he told her parents that she would become famous if they gave her that name.

Zhansaya Abdumalik was taught how to play chess by her father at age five and joined a chess school with her older brother Sanzhar at age six.

Zhansaya Abdumalik entered her first tournament, Almaty's city championships, the same year she started training at a chess school.

When Zhansaya Abdumalik was around 18 years old, she was working with Zahar Efimenko, a Ukrainian GM who was a second to world champion Vladimir Kramnik.

Zhansaya Abdumalik earned her first FIDE rating in April 2009, starting out at 1854 at age nine.

Zhansaya Abdumalik was directly awarded the Woman FIDE Master title at age 10 as a result of her silver medal in the under-10 girls' division at the 2010 World Youth Championship in Greece.

Zhansaya Abdumalik finished in joint first place at both tournaments, but ended up in second because of the tiebreak criteria.

Zhansaya Abdumalik came close to defending her under-12 World Championship the following year in 2012, but finished in joint second place.

Zhansaya Abdumalik entered the open section of the under-20 junior national championship and won both the rapid and blitz events.

Later in the year, Zhansaya Abdumalik had a breakthrough at the World Junior Championships in Turkey.

Zhansaya Abdumalik began 2014 by achieving her final WGM norm at the Gibraltar Chess Festival in February.

Zhansaya Abdumalik had another successful result in speed chess later in the year, winning the bronze medal in 2014 Asian Women's Blitz Championship behind gold medallist Tan Zhongyi and silver medallist Dronavalli Harika.

Zhansaya Abdumalik completed her two remaining requirements for the IM title in 2016.

Zhansaya Abdumalik followed this up by winning her first Kazakhstani women's national championship towards the middle of the year.

Back in speed chess, Zhansaya Abdumalik played the Women's World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, finishing in sixth place in the World Rapid event.

Zhansaya Abdumalik maintained a rating in the low 2400s throughout nearly all of 2017.

Zhansaya Abdumalik faced six GMs and defeated three of them, including Yaroslav Zherebukh, who was rated 2642 and remains the highest-rated player she has ever defeated.

Zhansaya Abdumalik closed out the year by winning the World Junior Championship in Italy.

At the Women's World Rapid and Blitz Championships at the very end of the year, Zhansaya Abdumalik had another top ten finish, coming in eighth place in the World Blitz event out of 100 participants behind only GMs.

Zhansaya Abdumalik came close to reaching 2500 at her next tournament, the Open Internacional Llucmajor in Spain.

Later in 2018, Zhansaya Abdumalik entered her first Women's World Chess Championship, which was played as a 64-player knockout tournament at the time.

Zhansaya Abdumalik won the first three matches against 50th seed Padmini Rout, 18th seed Zhao Xue, and 31st seed Jolanta Zawadzka in the first set of tiebreaks, played in a 25+10 rapid format.

Zhansaya Abdumalik then was eliminated by 7th seed Mariya Muzychuk.

Zhansaya Abdumalik continued to maintain a rating in the high 2400s through 2019 and 2020.

Zhansaya Abdumalik was the youngest player invited to participate in the inaugural Cairns Cup, a round-robin tournament for ten of the world's leading women's players.

Zhansaya Abdumalik entered her next tournament, the fourth leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix in Gibraltar, needing 28 rating points to meet the threshold for the Grandmaster title.

Zhansaya Abdumalik gained 33 points, and first reached a rating of 2500 after her ninth round win against Valentina Gunina, a game that lasted 133 moves and over six hours in which Gunina continued to play on in spite of the position being dead-drawn for a long period of time.

Zhansaya Abdumalik reached a career-best women's ranking of No 11 in the world.

On May 30,2022, Zhansaya Abdumalik became the champion of the Women's Bundesliga in chess, having won an early victory with the OSG Baden-Baden team.

Zhansaya Abdumalik played on the second board behind Saduakassova and ahead of Nakhbayeva, Dauletova, and Assel Serikbay.

Zhansaya Abdumalik has been a member of two of Kazakhstan's Women's World Team Chess Championship teams and three Women's Asian Nations Cup teams.

Zhansaya Abdumalik has had better results at the Women's Asian Nations Cup.

Zhansaya Abdumalik's team won the bronze medal behind China and Uzbekistan, and she individually won a silver medal on the second board.

Zhansaya Abdumalik has been a student at the Innovative Technical College in Almaty, where she has studied computer programming.

Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov attended the opening of the academy, where he and Zhansaya Abdumalik played a four-game speed chess match.