Nona Gaprindashvili

Nona Gaprindashvili ნონა გაფრინდაშვილი
Gaprindashvili, 1963
Country	Soviet Union → Georgia
Born	(1941-05-03) 3 May 1941 (age 83) Zugdidi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union (now Georgia)
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 Soviet Georgian chess Grandmaster. She was the women's world chess champion from 1962 to 1978, and in 1978 she was the first woman ever to be awarded the FIDE title of Grandmaster. Noted for her aggressive play style, Gaprindashvili has been recognized with entry 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, and she moved to Tbilisi to train under Grandmasters in 1954. By 1962, she won the title of women's world chess champion in a landslide victory against the previous champion, Elisaveta Bykova. This won her widespread acclaim throughout Georgia. She successfully defended her title four times: three against Alla Kushnir and one against Nana Alexandria. She lost her title to Maia Chiburdanidze after a narrow loss 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 Georgia, 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.