Antoaneta Stefanova ( bg, Антоанета Стефанова; born 19 April 1979) is a

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

grandmaster and Women's World Champion from 2004 to 2006. She has represented Bulgaria in the

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and ...

in 2000 and the Women's Chess Olympiad since 1992.

Early life and career

Stefanova was born in

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. ...

, the capital of Bulgaria. When she was four years old, she received chess lessons from her father, Andon Stefanov, a designing artist. In 1989, Stefanova won the Girls U10 section at the World Youth Chess Festival in Aguadilla,

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

. In 1992, she played, at the age of 13, in her first Chess Olympiad in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. In the same year she became European under-14 girls' champion at the

European Youth Chess Championship The European Youth Chess Championship is organized by the European Chess Union (ECU) in groups under 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 years old. The first tournament was held in 1991, and the under 8 category was introduced in 2007. Until 2002 there was al ...

in Rimavská Sobota. Stefanova won the Bulgarian women's championship in 1995. She tied for fourth place in the 4th

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...

International Chess Tournament in 1997 scoring 7 points out of 10 games. Thanks to this result Stefanova achieved her first norm for the title Grandmaster. In January 1998, her

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

rating broke into the top ten of women worldwide. She played in the open section at the 2000 Chess Olympiad. In 2001, Stefanova tied for first place (finishing second on countback) in the 19th

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Open. In June 2002, she won the 3rd European Individual Women's Championship in Varna. Stefanova was awarded the title of Grandmaster at the

Presidential Board meeting in

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the c ...

in July 2002 as the ninth woman to ever have reached that rank. At the end of July 2002, she won the Wismilak International Chess Tournament, a category 8 (average rating 2446)

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & C. Me ...

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Indonesian province of East Java and the second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. Located on the northeastern border of Java island, on the Mad ...

, Indonesia, scoring 9½/11 points with a

performance rating The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those ...

of 2750. She participated in the 2004 Corus B tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands: she scored 6/13 points with a rating performance of 2537, placing ninth out of fourteen participants. Stefanova became the tenth Women's World Chess Champion in June 2004 by winning a 64-player knockout tournament held in

Elista Elista (russian: Элиста́, (common during the Soviet era) or (most common pronunciation used after 1992 and in Kalmykia itself);"Большой энциклопедический словарь", под ред. А. М. Прохорова. ...

Kalmykia he official languages of the Republic of Kalmykia are the Kalmyk and Russian languages./ref> , official_lang_list= Kalmyk , official_lang_ref=Steppe Code (Constitution) of the Republic of Kalmykia, Article 17: he official languages of the R ...

, under the auspices of

. In 2008, she won the North Urals Cup in Krasnoturinsk, Russia, and the women's individual

rapid Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Rapids are hydrological features between a ''run'' (a smoothly flowing part of a stream) and a ''cascade ...

tournament of the 2008 World Mind Sports Games in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. In 2012, Stefanova won the Women's World Rapid Chess Championship. She was the runner-up in the Women's World Chess Championship 2012, losing to Anna Ushenina in the final on the tie-break. In 2017, Stefanova won two gold medals at the IMSA Elite Mind Games in

Huai'an Huai'an (), formerly called Huaiyin () until 2001, is a prefecture-level city in the central part of Jiangsu province in Eastern China. Huai'an is situated almost directly south of Lianyungang, southeast of Suqian, northwest of Yancheng, alm ...

, China, in the women's rapid chess event and the women's

blitz chess Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blit ...

event.

Political career

In 2021 she became a Member of Parliament for There Is Such A People and was nominated as the party's candidate for the prime minister position.

References

External links

* * * *
Antoaneta Stefanova
chess games and profile at Chess-DB.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stefanova, Antoaneta 1979 births Living people Chess grandmasters Female chess grandmasters Chess woman grandmasters Women's world chess champions European Chess Champions World Youth Chess Champions Bulgarian female chess players Chess players from Sofia