Chess Queens: A New Era

As the Soviet Union dissolved, a new generation of chess champions emerged. In the second part of our three-part series, discover six women who dominated the game in the 1990s and 2000s.

Xie Jun, the first Asian female to become a chess grandmaster, was born in Baoding, Hebei, in 1970 and raised in Beijing. She began to play Chinese chess at the age of 6, and just four years later, she became the girls' champion of Beijing. Urged by authorities, she soon switched to international chess and won the Chinese girls' chess champion title in 1984.

Her chess strength grew by leaps and bounds, and just six years later, Xie Jun won the Candidates in Borjomi after beating Alisa Maric in a tiebreaker, earning the right to challenge Maia Chiburdanidze. Xie dethroned Chiburdanidze (+4-2=9) to become the first Chinese World Chess Champion.

After FIDE changed the format of the world championship to a knockout system, Xie won the title again, beating fellow Chinese player Qin Kanying 2½–1½ in the final but opted not to defend it a year later. Well-liked in China, Xie did a lot to popularize chess in her country and the rest of Asia.

Susan Polgar, the oldest of the phenomenal Polgar sisters, was born in 1969. She built an excellent tournament record mainly by competing with men and became the highest-rated female player in July 1984, at just 15.

In the early 1990s, Susan decided to pursue the women's chess crown. She entered the Women's World Championship cycle in 1992, won the Candidates Tournament in Shanghai, and reached the final where she faced Nana Ioseliani. The match was drawn even after two tiebreaks, and the winner was decided by drawing lots, which favored Ioseliani.

Unfazed, Polgar tried again in the next cycle. After convincingly outplaying Chiburdanidze in the Candidates playoff (1995), she set up a title match with the defending champion Xie Jun in 1996. Susan put in a dominating performance and clinched the crown with three games to spare. Her title defense against Xie Jun was scheduled for 1998 and then postponed to 1999. Under new circumstances, as Polgar was pregnant and due to give birth, she refused to play entirely in China and forfeited the title.

One of the first beneficiaries of the rapidly growing chess popularity in China, Zhu Chen, born in 1976, showed early promise and quickly delivered. In 1988, Zhu Chen became the first Chinese player to win an international chess competition after triumphing at the World Girls Under-12 Championship in Romania. She also won the World Junior Girls Chess Championship in 1994 and 1996 and, three years later, was awarded the title of Grandmaster, becoming the seventh woman in history to achieve this.

Zhu gave up the chance to defend her world title in Georgia in May 2004 due to her busy schedule and pregnancy. She had another opportunity six years later in Antakya (2010) but lost a close third-round match to the eventual champion Hou Yifan.

Antoaneta Stefanova, born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1979, received her first chess lessons from her father at the age of four. Her bright chess future became apparent very early. At age seven, Antoaneta won a local women's tournament and, in 1989, took first place in the Girls U10 section at the World Youth Chess Festival in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Three years later, at 13, she debuted at the Chess Olympiad in Manila (1992). The same year, she became the European under-14 girls' champion.

Antoaneta reached the peak of her chess career in 2004 by winning a 64-player knockout Women's World Championship held in Elista, Kalmykia, but lost her title two years later.
Stefanova had a great chance to repeat this achievement in 2012 as she reached the final of the Women's World Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk but fell short of her second title after succumbing to Anna Ushenina in a tiebreak.

Born in 1976, Xu Yuhua rode on the success of Xie Jun and switched from Chinese to European chess. At age 16, she surprised many by qualifying for the Interzonal (Jakarta, 1993) without even having a FIDE rating. Her Cinderella story ended abruptly, as she struggled in Jakarta and didn't perform well at the World Junior U18 and U20 Championships. However, these setbacks didn't deter her; Xu worked even harder and steadily moved up in the ranks.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she scored numerous victories in various competitions, but the coveted title of Women's World Champion eluded her. Sometimes, success comes when you least expect it. Xu Yuhua entered the 2006 World Women's Championship after a long period of inactivity, being in her third month of pregnancy. This event became the pinnacle of her chess career as she navigated through a strong field and clinched the title by defeating Alisa Galliamova in the final.

Xu lost her title in the following championship in 2008 after being eliminated in the second round. Three years later, she retired from tournament chess.

Alexandra Kosteniuk was born in 1984, in Perm (USSR, now Russia) where her father, a career military man, served. In 1985, she moved to Moscow with her parents, where she spent her childhood. A true prodigy, Alexandra repeatedly won a number of European and world youth championships, becoming a Woman Grandmaster at the age of 14.

Three years later, at 17, Alexandra reached the final of the Women's World Championship, a 64-player knockout event held in Moscow. Her rival was Zhu Chen, and the final was tied 2-2 after the classical games, but Chen took the title by winning 3-1 in the rapid tiebreak. Her second shot at the title came in 2008, seven years after her first attempt. 

At the knockout Women's World Championship in Nalchik, under the guidance of Grandmaster Yuri Razuvayev, Kosteniuk displayed a remarkably balanced and mature playstyle, outscoring her rivals to become the 12th Women's World Champion. In the final she beat future champion Hou Yifan. Two years later, Alexandra was eliminated in the third round of the next championship and lost her title, but she has remained a fixture in Women's Championship cycles ever since.

The final chapter of our three-part series on Women's World Chess Champions focuses on the modern era, featuring the rise of chess giants like Hou Yifan and Ju Wenjun. Discover their impact on the world of chess from the 2010s onwards. Read more.