Mária Ivánka (born 23 February 1950), also known as Mária Ivánka-Budinsky, is a Hungarian chess player who holds the
FIDE title of
Woman Grandmaster (WGM).
Ivánka was born in
Budapest and played chess at ten years old for the first time and by the age of eleven won her very first chess tournament, the Championship for elementary school girls of Budapest. At the age of 17, in 1967 she won her first national title, the Hungarian Women Chess Championship. She would go on to win the national title a total of nine times. At the
Chess Olympiads
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 ...
between 1969 and 1986 she collected six medals. She earned the title of Woman Grandmaster in 1978. In the seventies, during the Soviet-dominant chess era, she ranked as one of the world's top players. She defeated the reigning world champion,
Nona Gaprindashvili twice in international tournaments. Beside her chess career, together with her husband and coach András Budinszky, she has raised three children. Her brother was actor and director of the Hungarian National Theatre,
Csaba Ivánka
Csaba () is a Hungarian given name for males. Csaba is the native Hungarian name for Ernak, the youngest son of Attila the Hun.''Gesta Hungarorum'', Simon Keza, Edited and translated by Laszlo Veszpremy and Frank Schaer with a study by Jeno Szuc ...
.
Significant results
*4 Chess Olympiad
silver medal
A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...
s (1969, 1978, 1980, 1986)
*2 Chess Olympiad
bronze medal
A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receive ...
s (1972, 1982)
*9 times Hungarian Champion
*1 times European Co-champion
*3 times Texas Champion
*1 time
Wijk aan Zee (1971)
Awards
* State Gold Award for Sport
*
Maróczy Award
Publications
* Győzelmünk a sakkolimpián (Our win in the Olympiad, 1979)
* Versenyfutás az aranyérmekért (Race for the gold medals, 1980)
* Ezüstvezér (Silver Queen, 2000)
* Silver Queen, 2002
References
* Magyar Sakkélet (Hungarian Chess Life)
* Chess Life
* Ki kicsoda (Who is Who, 2004)
* Ezüstvezér (2000)
* Silver Queen (2002)
* Nádori László chief editor: Sportlexikon A-K – Sport, 1985 –
External links
*
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*
Chess Database at Chess.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ivanka, Maria
1950 births
Living people
Hungarian female chess players
Chess woman grandmasters
Sportspeople from Budapest
20th-century Hungarian women