Nazí Paikidze

Nazí Paikidze
File:Nazi Paikidze.jpg Nazí Paikidze at the World Junior Chess Championship in Gaziantep 2008.
Country	Georgia United States
Born	(1993-10-27) 27 October 1993 Irkutsk, Russia
Title	International Master (2012) Woman Grandmaster (2010)
Peak rating	2455 (January 2011)

Nazí Paikidze (Georgian: ნაზი პაიკიძე; Russian: Нази Паикидзе; born 27 October 1993) is a Georgian-American chess player who holds the FIDE titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She was World Under-14 Girl's Chess Champion in 2007 and World Under-16 Girl's Champion in 2008, multiple European Youth Chess Champion in her age category. She is the 2016 U.S. Women's chess champion.

Early life

Her father was a mechanical engineer and her mother was a biochemist in Irkutsk, where she was born. When she was four years old, her parents moved to Tbilisi where she grew up. Her family has been living in Moscow since 2006. Her brother was a football player. She learned to play chess when she was five years old. Since 2008, she was trained by Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Belov.

Chess career

She won twelve medals at European Youth Chess Championship, World Youth Chess Championship, and World Junior Chess Championship, including six gold medals, in various age categories. She won the European Youth Chess Championship four times: in Budva 2003 (Under-10 girls' category), Herceg Novi 2005 (U-12 girls), Šibenik 2007 (U-14 girls), and Herceg Novi 2008 (U-16 girls). She won medals in the World Youth Chess Championship in Kallithea 2003 (bronze U-10 girls), Belfort 2005 (silver U-12 girls), Batumi 2006 (bronze U-14 girls), Kemer 2007 (gold U-14 girls), Vũng Tàu 2008 (gold U-16 girls), and Antalya 2009 (bronze U-16 girls). She also won two bronze medals at the U-20 World Junior Girls Chess Championship, in Gaziantep 2008 and Madras 2011.

In 2010, Paikidze jointly won the Moscow Open women's tournament, won the Moscow Women's Championship and the Russian Women's Championship qualifier, and finished fourth in the Russian Women's Championship Superfinal. She was awarded the title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) in 2010, for her results in the 2008 Aeroflot Open, 2009 Georgian Women's Championship, where she came equal second, and the 2010 Moscow Open women's tournament, that she won.

Paikidze represented Georgia in the 9th European Women's Team Chess Championship in Porto Carras 2011, winning the team bronze medal.

Paikidze was awarded the title of International Master (IM) in 2012. She finished fourth in the 2012 Georgian Women's Championship.

In 2013 she competed in a small number of international chess events in the United States after moving to Baltimore, USA. She then changed her FIDE federation to the United States of America. In 2015, Paikidze made her debut in the U.S. Women's Chess Championship, finishing second with a score of 7½/11 points. Later that year, she won the Boardwalk Open in Galloway, New Jersey, edging out on tiebreak Sergey Kudrin and Igor Sorkin, after all finished on 4/5.

On April 25th, 2016 she won the U.S. Women's Championship in her second appearance with 8½ points in 11 games.

Personal life

Paikidze currently is a full-time chess professional. She is married to American engineer Greg Barnes and resides in the Baltimore, MD area.

External links

• Nazi Paikidze chess games at 365Chess.com
• Nazí Paikidze player profile and games at Chessgames.com