Valentina Evgenyevna Gunina (russian: Валентина Евгеньевна Гунина; born February 4, 1989, in

Murmansk Murmansk (Russian: ''Мурманск'' lit. "Norwegian coast"; Finnish: ''Murmansk'', sometimes ''Muurmanski'', previously ''Muurmanni''; Norwegian: ''Norskekysten;'' Northern Sámi: ''Murmánska;'' Kildin Sámi: ''Мурман ланнҍ'') i ...

) is a Russian

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 ...

grandmaster. She has won thrice the Women's

European Individual Chess Championship The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organised by the European Chess Union. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis. Apart from determining the European champions (open and women's), ...

(2012, 2014, 2018) and four times the Russian Women's Championship (2011, 2013, 2014, 2021). She was a member of the gold medal-winning Russian team at the Women's

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 ...

s of 2010, 2012, 2014, at the Women's

European Team Chess Championship The European Team Championship (often abbreviated in texts and games databases as ''ETC'') is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9. This more ...

s of 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019 and at 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 ...

of 2017. Gunina won the 2016

London Chess Classic The London Chess Classic is a chess festival held at the Olympia, London, Olympia Conference Centre, West Kensington, London, West Kensington, London. The flagship event is a strong invitational chess tournament, tournament between some of the w ...

Super Rapidplay Open in one of the best performances for a female at a top level chess tournament, defeating several male Grandmasters along the way.

Career

Gunina won the gold medal in the 2000 European under-12 girls championship, 2003 world U14 girls championship, 2004 European U16 girls championship and in the 2007 world U18 girls championship. She was the bronze medalist in the 2006 European U18 girls championship. In 2006, she won the Women's Russian Championship Higher League scoring 7/9 and qualified for the Russian Women's Championship Superfinal. She placed eleventh with 2.5/11. In 2008, she won for the second time the Women's Russian Championship Higher League with 7.5/9. In the Superfinal she scored 4/9. In 2009, she won the Russian junior (under 20) girls championship. In 2012, she won the Women's World Blitz Championship in

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the second largest city of Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's southwest. It is situated in a subtropical zone at the foot of th ...

, Georgia. In the same year, Gunina competed for the first time in the

Women's World Championship The Women's World Championship was the first women's professional wrestling world title. History Cora Livingston defeated Hazel Parker in 1906. Though the contest was originally for the Featherweight Championship, from that point she was billed ...

: she defeated Gu Xiaobing in the first round, then she was knocked out by

Alisa Galliamova Alisa Mikhailovna Galliamova (russian: Алиса Михайловна Галлямова, tt-Cyrl, Алисә Михаил кызы Галләмова; born 18 January 1972 in Kazan) is a Russian chess player who holds the FIDE titles of Inte ...

in round two. Gunina won the Russian women's

rapid 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, blitz ...

championship 2014 in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. In January 2015, she took part in the

Tata Steel Tata Steel Limited is an Indian multinational steel-making company, based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand and headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a part of the Tata Group. Formerly known as Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO), Tata ...

Challengers tournament in

Wijk aan Zee Wijk aan Zee ( literally ''Neighborhood at Sea'') is a village on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk, the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Coru ...

, the Netherlands, where she scored 5/13. At the

Women's World Chess Championship 2015 The Women's World Chess Championship was held from 16 March to 7 April 2015 in Sochi, Russia. It was a 64-player knockout tournament. It was originally scheduled from 11 to 31 October 2014 but problems in finding a sponsor and host city eventually ...

Gunina made it to the third round, where she was eliminated by

Pia Cramling Pia Ann Rosa-Della Cramling (born 23 April 1963) is a Sweden, Swedish chess player. In 1992, she became the fifth woman to earn the FIDE title of Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster (GM). Since the early 1980s, she has been one of the strongest fem ...

, after knocking out

Camilla Baginskaite Camilla Baginskaite ( lt, Kamilė Baginskaitė; born 24 April 1967) is a Lithuanian and American chess player. She was awarded the title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) by FIDE in 2002. Baginskate was born in Vilnius. Her mother is the painter Gint ...

and

Olga Girya Olga Alexandrovna Girya (russian: Ольга Александровна Гиря; born 4 June 1991) is a Russian chess player. She holds the title of Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster (GM), which FIDE awarded her in 2021. She was a member of the ...

. In September 2015, she won the

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Women's Blitz Championship. In February 2019, she became the first ever winner of The Cairns Cup, in Saint Louis, as she ended victoriously the tournament with 7 out of 9. In late May 2019, Valentina faced American GM

Irina Krush Irina Borisivna Krush ( uk, Ірина Борисівна Круш; born December 24, 1983) is an American chess Grandmaster. She is the first woman, and as of August 2022 the only woman, to earn the GM title while playing for the United States ...

in the quarterfinal match of the 2019 Women's Speed Chess Championship, an online blitz and bullet competition hosted by

Chess.com Chess.com is an internet chess server, news website and social networking website. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be pla ...

. Valentina dominated the match and won with an overall score of 24–5.

Awards

On 25 October 2014, she was awarded the

Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" The Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" (russian: Медаль ордена «За заслуги перед Отечеством») was established on 2 March 1994 by Presidential Decree No.442. Its award criteria were modified on 6 J ...

, 1st class "for great contribution to the development of physical culture and sport, the high sporting achievements at the XXXXI World Chess Olympiad in Tromsø (Norway)".

Personal life

Together with 43 other Russian elite chess players, Gunina signed an open letter to Russian president

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

, protesting against the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

and expressing solidarity with the

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

people.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gunina, Valentina 1989 births Living people Chess grandmasters Female chess grandmasters Chess woman grandmasters World Youth Chess Champions European Chess Champions People from Murmansk Russian female chess players Recipients of the Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" I class Sportspeople from Murmansk Oblast Russian activists against the Russian invasion of Ukraine