Nona Gaprindashvili

Nona Gaprindashvili ნონა გაფრინდაშვილი
Gaprindashvili in 1963
Country	Soviet Union → Georgia
Born	(1941-05-03) 3 May 1941 (age 83) Zugdidi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Title	Grandmaster (1978)
Women's World Champion	1962–1978
Peak rating	2495 (July 1987)

Nona Gaprindashvili (Georgian: ნონა გაფრინდაშვილი; born 3 May 1941) is a Georgian chess Grandmaster. Noted for her aggressive style of play, she was the women's world chess champion from 1962 to 1978, and in 1978 was the first woman ever to be awarded the FIDE title of Grandmaster. She was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Presidential Order of Excellence in 2015.

Gaprindashvili began playing chess when she was five years old; in 1954, she moved to Tbilisi to train under Grandmasters. In 1962, she became women's world chess champion by a sweeping victory in a match against the incumbent, Elisaveta Bykova. This won her widespread acclaim throughout Georgia. She successfully defended her title on four occasions: three times against Alla Kushnir and once against Nana Alexandria. She narrowly lost her title to Maia Chiburdanidze in 1978. Gaprindashvili participated in men's tournaments during her career, including a performance at Lone Pine International which earned her the title of Grandmaster. She later competed regularly in the Women's World Senior Championship.

Besides her chess career, Gaprindashvili maintained an active presence in Georgian politics: she served as a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR, as president of the Georgian National Olympic Committee, and as a member of the People's Assembly group that organized the 2011 Georgian protests. In 2021, Gaprindashvili filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix after it erroneously described her in The Queen's Gambit as never having competed against men; Netflix settled in 2022.