Sabina-Francesca Foişor (born August 30, 1989) is a

Romanian American Romanian Americans are Americans who have Romanian ancestry. According to the 2017 American Community Survey, 478,278 Americans indicated Romanian as their first or second ancestry, however other sources provide higher estimates, which are most ...

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 disti ...

player holding the title of

Woman Grandmaster FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

(WGM). She competed in the

Women's World Chess Championship The Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC) is played to determine the world champion in women's chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE. Unlike with most sports recognized by the International Olympic Committee, wher ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

. Foisor won the US women's championship in 2017.

Chess career

Foisor won four medals 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 als ...

s in various age categories: one gold (girls U8 in 1996), one silver (girls U16 in 2004) and two bronze (girls U14 in 2003 and girls U18 in 2007). She represented Romania in the European Girls U18 Team Chess Championship in 2004 and 2007, winning three medals: two gold (2004 individual medal, 2007 team medal) and one bronze (2007 individual medal). Foisor was awarded the titles

Woman International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

(WIM) in 2005 and

(WGM) in 2007. She achieved the

norm Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envi ...

s required for the WGM title at the Acropolis women's tournament in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

in 2006 and European Individual Women's Chess Championship in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

in 2007. Her result at 2007 European Women's Championship qualified her for the

Women's World Chess Championship 2008 The Women's World Chess Championship 2008 took place from August 28, 2008 to September 18 in Nalchik, Russia. It was won by Alexandra Kosteniuk, who beat Hou Yifan in the final by 2½ to 1½. For the fifth time, the championship took the form of ...

Nalchik Nalchik (russian: Нальчик, p=ˈnalʲtɕɪk; Kabardian: //; krc, Нальчик //) is the capital city of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Russia, situated at an altitude of in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains; about northwe ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The final

armageddon According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon (, from grc, Ἁρμαγεδών ''Harmagedōn'', Late Latin: , from Hebrew: ''Har Məgīddō'') is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies ...

tiebreak game of her first round match against

Monika Soćko Monika Soćko (née Bobrowska; born 24 March 1978) is a Polish chess player who holds the FIDE titles of Grandmaster (GM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She won the Polish women's chess championship eight times (in 1995, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2013 ...

ended in controversy. Foisor only needed a draw to advance to the next round, and reached a drawn ending with each player having only a king and a knight. Although Foisor ran out of time, the arbiter initially ruled that the game was a draw. Soćko appealed, pointing out that what matters is not whether checkmate can be ''forced'', but rather if it is ''possible''. Soćko won the appeal and advanced to the next round, eliminating Foisor from the event. In 2007, Foisor tied for first place with her mother, Cristina Adela Foisor, the

Villard-de-Lans Villard-de-Lans (; oc, Lo Vilar de Lanç) is a commune in the Isère department of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France. The town is also situated in the Vercors Massif. It was the administrative centre of the eponymous ca ...

Open in France. In 2008, she tied for first in the Liege Master tournament in

Boncelles Boncelles ( wa, Les Bonceles) is a town of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Seraing, located in the province of Liège, Belgium. The Fort de Boncelles The Fort de Boncelles is one of twelve forts built around Liège, Belgium, in ...

, Belgium. In 2008, Foisor transferred chess federations to represent the United States. Since 2010, she has represented the US in the

Women's Chess Olympiad The Women's Chess Olympiad is an event held by FIDE (the International Chess Federation) since 1957 (every two years since 1972), where national women's teams compete at chess for gold, silver and bronze medals. Since 1976 the Women's Chess Olympia ...

(2010, 2012, 2014, 2016) and the Women's

World Team Chess Championship The World Team Chess Championship is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of 10 countries whose chess federations dominate their continent. It is played every two years. In chess, this tournament and the Chess Olympiads ...

(2013, 2015, 2017). On April 9, 2017, Foisor won the U.S. Women's Chess Championship in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

Personal life

Both her parents,

International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

s Cristina Adela Foișor and Ovidiu-Doru Foisor, were multiple Romanian chess championship medalists. Her younger sister, Mihaela-Veronica, is a chess player with the title of

. Sabina-Francesca Foisor moved to the United States in 2008 to study at the

University of Maryland, Baltimore County The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...

. She is engaged to GM

Elshan Moradi Elshan Moradi Abadi ( fa, الشن مرادی آبادی , born 22 May 1985) is an Iranian-American chess grandmaster. He took part in the Chess World Cup 2011, but was eliminated in the first round by Leinier Domínguez. When he was 16 he wo ...

– both live in Durham, NC.

References

External links

* * * * (1995–2003) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Foisor, Sabina-Francesca 1989 births Living people American female chess players Romanian female chess players Chess woman grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Sportspeople from Timișoara Romanian emigrants to the United States 21st-century American women

Chess career

Personal life

References

Further reading

External links